So does the IR LED’s on a Lifx + actually work? In short, they do. But how well? That’s what you’re going to find out. I’ve been using the Lifx+ for a couple of months now as a regular bulb and never really tried using the IR LED feature of the bulb.

There were two questions that I wanted to answers to:

1. Does the IR LED feature actually work?
2. What is the range on the light? The Lifx+ specification sheet doesn’t tell us anything which seems silly.

So to answer these questions, I decided to spend several hours in the dark, in my basement, bumping into things.

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To start the test, I taped up the IR LED’s on my D-Link Omna. I initially thought that covering up the red lights on the OMNA would eliminate the IR LED’s but I had to cover up most of the black pieces on the unit.

After that, I installed the Lifx+ bulb in the bathroom. The only way to tell if the bulb is a Lifx+ is to look for the eye symbol on the specific light in the app.

Once everything was in the bathroom, I shut the door and turned off the light. Now I wasn’t surprised at the fact that the IR worked. I was surprised at how I felt because it was unnerving to see the bathroom almost perfectly through the Omna but I couldn’t see a single thing around me.

But, that answered the question: Does the IR LED feature actually work? Yes, it does.

Now onto the second question which is: What is the range? If this is the first time you’re watching my video, consider subscribing. If you’re wondering how this LIfx+ bulb compares against other lights from Philips Hue, check out that comparison.

To answer the question, What is the range? I had to turn my basement into an even darker dungeon by garbage bagging all the tiny windows.

So I set up the Lifx+ bulb as far away from the OMna as possible. Turned off all the lights and noted how far the light reached. Again, I spent a few minutes walking in complete darkness to get back to the lights and the moment I found an iPhone with an with the OMNA app, I was able to generally see what was going on in the back room.

For the range, I marked where the reflection from the light was gone. The distance between that point and the LIfx+ was approx. 22 ft.

So if you’re planning on expanding your the night vision of your smart home cameras, each LIfx+ bulb will illuminate approx. 40 ft around the bulb which is handy.

In this entire process, I was surprised at how sensitive the Omna’s camera was. It was completely hamstrung in pitch black but the moment there was a bit of light, I was able to see more than I thought.