Our thoughts on the TP-Link Tapo L535 smart bulbs

TP-Link’s Tapo L535 are good, cheap coloured smart bulbs. Retailing for $23 a pop (and currently discounted to $19), there’s really not much to complain about here. They’re reliable, easy to set up, and platform agnostic.

The Tapo L535 come in two variants: Tapo L535E with an E27 fitting, and Tapo L535B, with a B22 fitting. Other than the fitting, the models are identical.

There aren’t too many specs that matter on a smart bulb, but the two that do are brightness and connectivity. On the first front, the Tapo L535 bulbs can hit 1,055 lumens in brightness. That’s brighter than your standard 60W bulb, which tends to have a brightness of 800 lumens, but not as bright as some smart rivals. You can get a Philips Hue bulb that can hit as much as 1,600 lumens, but that’s $124.95 for a single bulb. You can get five Tapo L535s for that kind of money.

When it comes to connectivity, the L355 bulbs use Matter over WiFi. Matter is a unified standard for connecting smart home devices, and it means the bulbs can work in any Matter ecosystem, provided you have a hub. These include Apple Home, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa. The "over WiFi" part means the bulbs are all individual items on your wireless network.

This is in contrast to Matter over Thread, where the bulbs connect to a “border router” like an Apple TV, rather than taking up space on your WiFi. For most, this difference shouldn’t matter, but it is worth considering depending on the quantity of bulbs you’re after. Adding ten extra devices to a WiFi can create congestion, especially if you’ve got an older modem or router. I've also found Thread devices are just a touch more responsive when you're controlling them from your phone or through a voice assistant. 

The upside of Matter over WiFi is that setup is a little simpler. While I’ve had issues setting up Matter over Thread devices (which required me to hardwire my Apple TV into my network to solve), every Tapo L535 bulb I added to my Apple Home worked the first time, without any extra stuffing around. And in the couple of months I’ve been testing them, I haven’t experienced any connectivity issues.

If you’re just after a basic smart bulb (or two), the Tapo L535s are easy to recommend and won’t break the bank.

Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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