Expert's Rating
Pros
- Eufy Life app is extremely easy to use and master
- Scads of preset lighting modes, plus an AI tuning system
- Can be programmed to react to people (when combined with Eufy security cams)
Cons
- Not the most attractive lights on the market
- Very wide spacing between bulbs makes the strand feel naked
- Some smart features were still in development at press time
Our Verdict
We didn’t love the look of Eufy’s string lights, but their rock-bottom cost makes them a decent choice for occasional lighting needs.
Price When Reviewed
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Best Pricing Today
Best Prices Today: Eufy Outdoor String Lights E10
At this point the smart string light space is getting downright crowded from the likes of Enbrighten, Govee, Lifx, and Nanoleaf, and other brands. And while this category hasn’t quite reached commodity level, it’s getting to the point where price will be a key factor in choosing which set you end up buying.
The Eufy smart home brand is the latest into the fray with its Outdoor String Lights E10. Unlike most players in the market, Eufy sells its lighting system in just one length: a 98-foot strand with 30 Edison-style bulbs dangling from it. The bulbs are connected directly to the wire—they don’t hang down from a pigtail—and each has an included plastic clip that lets you easily attach it to a guy wire, if that’s your installation method of choice. Zip ties and screws are also included for alternative means of stringing them.
Paired with a Eufy security camera, the Eufy Outdoor String Lights E10 behave in a welcoming fashion when family members approach, and in a warning fashion if a stranger/possible intruder is detected.
Specifications
The kit arrives in four pieces which are held together with screw-capped, weatherproof connectors. (The entire system carries an IP65 rating.) It’s about 2.5 feet from the AC adapter to a small control box with a single button on it (which can be used for manual on/off operations), then about 14 feet of wire until you reach the first bulb. Not needing to deal with an oversized power brick in the middle of the wire—hello LIFX—is refreshing; Eufy keeps everything tidy and compact.
The bulb wiring is broken into two segments, so if you only want to work with 50 feet of wire and 15 bulbs, instead of the full 100 feet/30 bulbs, you can detach the last segment. Eufy doesn’t specify the system’s power draw of the system, but I measured it at 30 watts under the heaviest load I could muster.
This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart lighting.
The bulbs have a significant separation between them: There’s a bit over 3 feet from one bulb to the next, making it the longest of any smart string light system I’ve seen in my testing of string lights to date. In fact, there’s so much space between bulbs that Eufy provides a Velcro cable tie between each one to help you close the gap. That means that out of the box, each bulb is only about one foot from the next, but with two feet of cable bundled up in the middle, which is not a good look. Remove that Velcro and you’ll see why this choice was made: As with Govee’s outdoor bulbs, the strand can look naked with so much space going unused.
Christopher Null/Foundry
The maximum output of each bulb is just 60 lumens, which is slightly above average for the field. That said, while colors look rich and whites are highly tunable with a color temperature range of 1,500 Kelvin to 9,000K. The bulbs don’t feel particularly bright unless it’s fully dark outside. Part of this seems to do with the bulb design. The LED is built into the base of the bulb, with a conical, translucent shade directly on top. The transparent globe of the bulb in turn surrounds that shade.
There’s nothing wrong with that design on the surface, but the globe of the bulb never really feels “lit up” the way a standard Edison bulb does. Instead, each bulb fells like it’s mostly empty, with the illuminated cone doing all the work. Ultimately it just doesn’t make for that attractive of a presentation.
Installation and setup
Christopher Null/Foundry
Setup is performed in the Eufy Live app (not the Eufy Security app). The former is dedicated exclusively to smart lighting (Eufy is establishing quite the collection) and—oddly enough—smart scales. You can set up the lights to work with Bluetooth only or with 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, though the app notes that WPA3 security is not supported. I had the system onboarded in less than a minute.
The system can be configured to sync with Eufy security cameras, so that the lights will not only turn on when people are detected, but thanks to the cameras’ person-recognition features, the lights can be programmed to behave in a welcoming fashion when family members approach, and in a warning fashion if a stranger/possible intruder is detected. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a Eufy camera on hand to test this feature. I understand TechHive editor Michael Brown is working on a review of the new Eufy Permanent Outdoor Lights E22, including with a Eufy camera, so this review will be updated with a link when that review is published.
Alexa and Google Home are both supported for cross-platform control, but these lights are not compatible with the Apple Home ecosystem, nor are they Matter certified at this time.
Day to day use
Eufy’s Wonderlink technology allows compatible lights, including these, to be paired with Eufy home security cameras.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Management of the lights is very reminiscent of the way Govee handles smart lighting. You can drill down and control each bulb individually, or you can let the app take over by selecting one of some 80 preset themes. Anything you can imagine is here, including themes built around emotions (“romantic,” “quiet”), flags (nine countries included), weather (“thunderstorm,” “misty rain”), and even holidays. These modes are dynamic and shifting, though some are more intense and active than others.
If none of those are to your liking, you can roll Eufy’s “Magic Dice” to get a random look and feel, or tell Eufy’s AI algorithm to come up with something based on your written description. This is similar to the feature Govee rolled out with its Permanent Outdoor Lights 2, except you can’t give Eufy a photograph to draw from, only text. All lighting modes can be tweaked manually, including the presets and AI-suggested ones, at least to some extent, letting you change colors and motion speed.
Finally, a built-in calendar system lets you tell the app to turn on certain lighting modes automatically at certain times of the year. (That way you won’t forget Washington’s birthday!) The system is responsive and fast, and I didn’t have any issues in daily use of the lights.
Eufy makes its smart string lights easy to work with—and plenty of fun. Govee’s interface is more powerful, but it quickly gets overwhelming, while Lifx’s app is decidedly unfriendly and Enbrighten’s seems uninspired. Eufy, however, is still clearly working on some features. A “Music Flow” mode, for example, that lets lighting change in time with ambient sound was in beta and didn’t work for me at press time.
Should you buy Eufy Outdoor String Lights E10?
The best feature here is the cost: Currently priced at just $90 after a $40 coupon on Eufy’s website (or at Amazon if you’re an Amazon Prime member), Eufy’s smart string lights are as cheap as they get.
The Eufy Outdoor String Lights E10 aren’t the prettiest or the smartest string lights on the market, but for environments where you just need a casual, and possibly temporary, pop of color, at least they won’t break the bank.
Correction, November 19, 2024: A previous version of this article mentioned using the Eufy Home app to set up these lights. The lights use the Eufy Life app. We regret the error.
Best Prices Today: Eufy Outdoor String Lights E10
Author: Christopher Null, Contributor, PCWorld
Christopher Null is an award-winning technology journalist with more than 25 years of experience writing about and reviewing consumer and business tech products. Previously, he served as Executive Editor for PC Computing magazine and was the founder and Editor in Chief of Mobile magazine, the first print publication focused exclusively on mobile tech. In addition to covering a wide range of smart home gear for TechHive, he is a frequent contributor to Wired, This Old House, and AAA’s Via Magazine.