Cree Lighting BA19-08027OMF-12CE26-1C100 Cree Connected LED Smart Bulb, 11watts, 1pk, Soft White (Packaging May Vary)

Purchased this new Cree bulb for an on/off lamp by the front door. Came with no instructions other than four or five steps on the side of the box. Installed it into the lamp and turned it on and the flickering began. Looks like one of the four LED sections of the bulb are bad. Was unable to add it to my SmartThings hub until I took the bulb out and installed it in a lamp upstairs closer to the hub. At that point SmartThings added it successfully, although the bulb was still flickering in the upstairs lamp. Brought the bulb back to the lamp at the front door and SmartThings is able to control it (on/off, dimming, etc.). Flickering is unacceptable and apparently is not uncommon with the latest Cree bulbs. Barely worth my time to pack it up and ship it back. Cree, if you want people to purchase based on your brand you need to back up the brand name with quality.

I bought seven of these bulbs and was initially quite happy with them. Installation consisted of merely screwing them into sockets and it was fairly easy to connect them to my SmartThings hub. I loved the simplicity and the fact that they brought dimmability without requiring an external dimmer circuit.Here's the problem...the damn things randomly flash, all the time! Mind you it's just a quick flash, but it's quite jarring to suddenly have a lamp blink on at full brightness! Particularly for the lamp above my bed...I've got it set to come on when my garage door opens, as a warning, so I invariably end up getting out of bed at some ungodly hour to make sure someone isn't breaking in.A quick online search will reveal that MANY, MANY people are experiencing this same problem. Cree will offer to replace the bulbs if you can provide proof of purchase (no, I don't save old light bulb receipts!) but most report that the replacement bulbs have they same problem. They clearly aren't interested in correcting the problem, by software update or other means, so I'll no longer give them my business and suggest you don't either.UPDATE: I just contacted Cree again and was flat-out told that they no longer support this product. Amazon shouldn't be selling something that the manufacturer refuses to support or stand behind.Here's the thing...the problem is in their firmware updates. Six of my seven bulbs received an automatic update, pushed-by Cree over the network. Those are the six that flash, now they do it dozens of times a day...and all night as well! Forget about putting these in your bedroom! The one with older firmware does not have the problem.Folks, do not buy these things. You will regret it. They aren't worthy of the one star I've given them.

I had a few criteria for smart bulbs: compatible with Alexa, reliable connection, dimmable, and a relatively warm color temperature (not daylight!). These score top marks on all of these criteria, plus they were less than $5 each! I bought six.I decided to pair these bulbs with an Echo Plus instead of a stand-alone ZigBee hub. I have previously used Phillips Hue bulbs, which paired quickly and effortlessly to the Echo Plus. These Cree bulbs initially gave me some difficulty. I screwed them into their sockets and turned on the lights. The bulbs all lit up, and I said, "Alexa, discover devices." My Echo Plus did its discovery routine for 45 seconds, and came back with no new devices found. Hmmm.After some trial and error, I discovered that I needed to place my Echo Plus into discovery mode first with the bulbs OFF, and then turn each of the bulbs on one by one. Four of my six bulbs then gave a reassuring blink, and Alexa announced that the bulbs were discovered and successfully paired. The remaining two bulbs still wouldn't pair.Solution? Resetting the settings on these stubborn bulbs to factory defaults.The reset sequence looks like this: Off (2 sec) - On (1 sec) - Off (2 sec) - On (1 sec) - Off (2 sec) - On (1 sec) - Off (2 sec) - On (1 sec). For those of you keeping score at home, that's four on/off cycles. After the fourth cycle, the light will blink twice. Boom - reset.Once I reset the last two bulbs and paired them in the same manner (turn on once discovery is initiated), Alexa found them right away.All of the bulbs now work great! They are dimmable and easily controllable by voice, routines, and the Alexa App. Sure, these aren't as feature rich as the Phillips Hue lights (which I also love), but they are such a great value, that I can finally convert all of my lights to smart lights.