Elgato Avea

What is it? More smart lightbulbs! Unlike bulb sets such as the Philips Hue though, the Elgato Avea doesn’t require a dedicated wireless bridge unit to connect your bulbs to your phone, adding to its expense – you just buy a bulb, screw it in and get tweaking. The Avea can display multiple colours, just like the Hue, but it works over Bluetooth Smart (also known as Bluetooth 4.0), meaning that your iPhone connects to the bulbs directly over Bluetooth without requiring pairing. When’s it due? Just released. Why are we excited? The Avea system looks really slick, and we’ll be interested to see how Elgato combines them with its other new release – a HomeKit-enabled home automation system. At £40 per bulb, it’s much cheaper to get into than the Philips system, too.