The problem with WiFi bulbs is that 50% of the manufactures take security very litely, and the other 50% take security very lightly. Thank you for another enlightening study.
Also, most of them only use the 2.4Ghz band, so if you are in an area with a lot of 2.4 ghz traffic, connections will not be reliable. I had a bunch of 'smart' devices that regularly just decided to drop out, and the app was written in such a way that I ultimately had to completely wipe out the setup I had and re-do it no less than three times before giving up and going over to devices using Zigbee. Shame, those lights were capable of some neat effects, but having to re-build the entire configuration multiple times over the course of six months just broke me of any wifi-based lights.
There's firmware for the BK7231N and BK7231T chips which doesn't involve sending people your data. It's a firmware modeled after Tasmota, and is reminiscent of it. It's called OpenBK. Disclosure: It's a project I have contributed to in the past.
My understanding is ESPHome also now supports Beken modules. Not sure... I've only got one Beken based device, and it was more of a curiousity than something I wanted so it got flashed with OpenBK to see if it worked and then put in a cupboard.
@@tin2001 There is indeed a fork of ESPHome that uses the LibreTiny development platform to support Beken chips and a couple others. It's pretty cool how after ESP was abandoned by Tuya the new chips also got an open firmware foiling Tuya's plans. I wish there was a direct HomeKit integration firmware like there is for ESP though (HAA)
The company currently known as Energizer Holdings, Inc used to be named Eveready Battery Company. They originally sold all of their batteries under the Eveready brand name but in the 1980s they started selling their higher-end products under the Energizer name. Eventually the company renamed itself Energizer after that name became better known, but they continue to sell products under both names. They also own the Ray-O-Vac brand.
Yep, Eveready as I remember them too. Energizer etc did that weird thing using your thumbs to see how much capacity the cell had in the '90s or maybe '00s, more of a gimmic to sell the batteries. But kinda worked for selling them instead buying a cheaper cell or batteries (depending how many bought), kinda clever marketing though.
1:25 The best saying from Clive in 2023: “One moment… what the f**k?” The best alternative for the iconic “One moment please” this should be in all the videos.
Any one remember the day when a light bulb was just a wire that produced light and heat? Now you get enough electronics to build a computer to produce light and heat. Thanks Clive. Interesting drive chip for sure.
Poundland bulbs are one of the best sources for cheap WiFi IoT modules. It works out even cheaper than buying the module alone (in small quantities) from retailers.
Still cant find the Flaming solars from the last video. I noticed a big chrome solar table top lamp with pull cord and 3 lumens settings for £12, Would love to see that torn down
If it's got a Beken chip on the module, it can almost certainly be reflashed wirelessly using the Cloudcutter method. Needs a ESP based board as a sort of middleman if you want to use the simple android app... But works quite nicely instead of having to solder onto the tiny Tx and Rx pins on the module.
I got Philips hue down lights in the soffits around the house and use ZigBee and home Assistant on a pi4. I was afraid they would disconnect, etc but they work great. ZigBee turns each device into a mesh system too. It's an alternative to wifi.
can be reprogrammed yay! sadly its not as easy as esp8266/esp8295 based lamps because you need a new flasher program and installing that might not be easy
The mystery cap is the snubber for the buck converter's built in mosfet. The placement is unusual having the inductor in the loop, but not unheard of. Without that cap, there is no drain to source connection for the inherent voltage spikes.
Missing capacitor is because there used to be one, but someone realised you can use it without one, so they've saved a third of a penny per ton of units
@phonotical and then some other bright young lead will save another penny by reducing quality 0.8%... hardly noticeable . And in 5 years, they'll be cheap crap. Same happens with food. My "magic chef" home ac was built in 1987. The original capacitor was 27 years old when it burned out. The replacements last 2 to 3 summers. The unit is made of heavy steel. The heater portion failed after 38 years. I'm told the unit I have to replace it with in 2025 will last no more than 8 years and will start breaking down after 6 years.
@@macmcleod1188planned obsolescence. There's no profit in making a product that lasts forever, so they make one that breaks so they can sell it to you all over again.
The large box probably means they do relatively small production runs off different models. Those box cutting blades are expensive, and so is changing them.
I regularly have a (not so quiet) WTF? moment while working at my bench - glad to see Clive doing the same!! And YES! The IoT is a great technology but the way that we are turned into sources of money or information for big companies once again proves that most humans aren't ready for the technology we possess. Very informative video, thanks Clive!! 👍
I would think that maybe the mystery capacitor is there to ensure reliable startup. At turn on this cap would momentarily pass voltage to the 14v rail to give it a kick start. I think that maybe the oversized box is to differentiate the wifi lamps from the normal ones, if it was in the same size box you could just imagine how many of these lamps would be returned as faulty when customers expecting a normal lamp plugged them in an it started flashing.
@@echothehuskyfrom the top of the box it looks like a seal was cut through that took up the entire side 0:14 . not just a little circle, but the whole dang side. if course, you can still steal that too but it's a lot harder to cut a big ass box and keep it from cameras than if it was just a tiny box like the cheaper one
Another fun IoT thing is what triggers that setup disco mode? First time unconfigured? Loss of WiFi network (e.g. your router is replaced or unplugged)? The mothership server being unreachable (say the internet going out or the company has an outage)? Yeah none of those things sound like times I want a disco at home without warning
I've made a mistake! when I tried to "reverse engineer," this particular smart bulb 😢. I just followed the circuit examples from the data sheets for the various chips. I didn't realise that the RGB LEDs were powered by 14V supply (12 modified to be 14v). On the data sheet, the RGB LEDs seems to be powered directly from rectified mains, the same as the warm and cold white led's. I will now have to mention the mistake in the description of my video😢. Or maybe even take the video down. Thanks for making this video Clive, your reverse engineering skills are 2nd to none!😊
A really good insight, I got energizer's smart bulb in the bayonett version, had it for few years and it worked well, good to know that there may be reprogramming options.
I was just sitting here watching your new video, and it occured to me that I never found out the answer to the question I asked in one of your previous videos....now at 5:40 you shared that bit of info. How strange the world works sometimes... great video btw, I always think about the different ways to use the inards of these.
I have a "smart" LED wall light that's like 5000 lumen (it's a shop light) or something and it also blinks when it wants a wifi connection. Also, you can put it into wifi connect mode by turning it off and on 6 times. I also discovered that brownouts can also simulate this if the input voltage fluctuates 6 times. Whoever thought that rapidly blinking a 5000 lumen light at full power to indicate it needs to be paired was a good idea needs to be forced to sit in a room with bright blinking lights being beamed into their eyeballs for a month.
I've been doing tests to see how adverts affect TH-cam's promotion of the video. In this video test I let them place skippable ads automatically to see where they would appear.
What an odd thing. For the first time ever, I checked out the innards of a candle style smart bulb and it had a ring of many coloured LEDs and a token few white ones in the middle. Never seen that before.
I really hate the disco mode being default. I have 30 TCP led WiFi bulbs which are no longer supported. The light quality is fantastic. But I can’t even use them on a regular light switch because they all flash as soon as they are powered on. Really annoying considering I paid $10 each for them.
They are probably ESP based and you could flash the open source tasmota firmware onto them, if the original firmware is old enough. templates.blakadder with the top level domain for companies should help out in the bulbs section.
You might find one of the alternative apps works to connect to them, Smart Life or Tuya Smart are basically the same apps and work for lots of devices.
@@JamesChurchill3 And the bonus is it doesn't matter which brand app you use. Because they all talk to Tuya on China anyway. If you're OK with one, you're presumably OK with any other.
I'm using a cool White LED flat top like this in a table lamp. I then place a little chilli sauce tub full of coloured washing up liquid on top of the bulb with the lid facing down. (Squeeze out excess air and wash and wipe dry the outside) Great light diffuser, colour changes every time I buy a new bottle of wash up liquid, Yellows & orange looks good, or separately pour yellow down one side separated with a bit of card, Pour red down the other side, remove card and place on lid. Gives a nice pink effect up the wall while shining a pleasant amber towards you. And NO tub has ever leaked.
Thanks for the detailed teardown and explanation. I’ve only installed custom firmware on these bulbs but i have limited knowledge if i need to fix them. So far I’ve only managed to repair the ones with obvious blownout capacitors, but other than that i wouldn’t know what to look for.
I found a datasheet for the BP5758, and the HV pin is rated for up to 500V. The power dissipation is only 1.25W (which will cause it to heat to 150C based on the thermal resistance value from the datasheet). Kinda weird that it doesn't seem to be using that GND pad for thermal dissipation.
Brilliant video Clive thanks I love the OVERSIZED packaging my mrs bought some sort of face cream and the box was about the size of the Eveready box, but when she opened it the tube of cream was about the size of a tube of superglue 😂 they should get fined for using to much packaging…..
The WiFi-chip on the small module is probably a ESP8285, the single-chip variant of the ESP8266, of which there exist hundreds of alternative firmwares for, and it's even compatible with Arduino etc.
Yep and you also can easily find them as ESP-01M or with Tuya you will go somewhere towards ZS3L (Zigbee), WBRG01 (Wifi/BLE) or CB3S (Wifi) kind of modules, but in different form factor.
Can it be programmed over I2C?, because that bus is conveniently exposed on the top PCB just put your probe on the board connector and issue whatever magic commands to reprogram the module.
@@johndododoe1411 Nope. Need to use the TX/RX and GPIO pins for the ESP versions. The Beken ones can mostly be programmed wirelessly using Cloudcutter though... This is somewhat more convenient, even if you can't run Tasmota (OpenBK is the alternative, but it's not quite as good).
great video. at 5:37 you quess the 5k1 resistor is to quench resonance, I agree, in other words it drops the Q of the coil lessening the length of ringing of the coil and 150nf after the 3u3F capacitor has dried out.
BP5758 is using I2C as transport bus, but does not adhere to the I2C protocol. It does not have a slave address, but instead it's own dimming control protocol addressing the light logic directly. I guess this was cheaper to implement.
..."Death Beam Capacitor"... Finally... An explanation (5'40")... Thanks, been quietly biding my time to see if you ever explained it... Got to admit I've been very curious... I was half expecting to find I had missed a historical discussion... BigClive the stirrer... nice.
Ya now think about how theyve figured out how to make a transistor 2 nanometers now.. is the absolute potential of silica.. thats so small even bacteria cant fit in between the blades of the switches in the transistor. That also is a billion transistors in one square cm.. super duper tiny..
When I originally saw "Eveready" on bulbs in B&M store, I thought it was a rip of the old Ever Ready batteries brand, but according to Wikipedia, Ever Ready was actually a spinoff from the Eveready company in the US, which is owned by Energizer.
Hey Clive, did you make a video about a tiny, battery powered fogger? I need to create a unique ghost effect on live stage and thought those little guys might be perfect. Sew them into costume or something like that. They could work on a timer or microswitch. Not sure about that part. And if I'm wrong, does such a thing exist at all? Thanks.
The closest video is this one:- th-cam.com/video/iC878A2puH0/w-d-xo.html You can get theatre units that are basically this and a bigger vapour head in a box.
A few years ago there was a big panic about TVs on standby using a lot of power. What's the consumption as a result of running a houseful of wifi bulbs ?
@@dougle03 Then that's 0.4W for the chip, so we'll round up to half a watt per LED. Twenty Wifi lamps amount to ten watts standby. A bit wasteful I guess.
Yep! I happily sit through Clive's vids while barely understanding a word he says but I missed an explanation of what it does that's different to ordinary GU10s.
I'm always a little concerned that the heat from such a device would catch fire as I've seen people on another video drill holes in the bulb to allow the heat to escape. p.s. I am referring to a large household incandescent-styled LED.
The BP5758 is sufficiently explained, if you ask google-sensei. It just easts an I2C signal. So... you could remove any shady chips (i.e. the WIFI) and replace them with something more secure or sensible (i.e. an XBee, or a micro controller and an IR sensor... or whatever your personal preference is).
Eveready isn't really a zombie brand, nor is Energizer. They're one and the same company and always have been. British Ever Ready was once zombified as it became independent early in its life, but it was sold back to Energizer in 1992 which just unified it back with its original parent.
It looks like the mystery capacitor is there to smooth noise coming from the 12V regulator, you don't see it often because companies cheaping out But without it in this case, it might affect that ripple on both outputs of the 14V and 3.3V supply, and create noisy data on the i2c bus or cause resets in the micro controller/WiFi module
Occasionally i wonder through old videos from channels im subscribed to and i just watched your make a "ghost detector" video from years ago, brilliant video.....i thought about making one but then again no, i see enough weird things out of the corner of my eyes as is 😂😂😂
I believe you'd have to go back to the 70's for when Eveready was a Union Carbide brand and Duracell a Mallory brand. It's a bit of a shame that they didn't use the old black cat logo.
i'd bet the packaging is used for larger lamps, so instead of cutting boxes for different size lamps, they save a bit on just one size box for all of them they can fit in there.
Or when the boxes are on the store shelf and customer should select the product... bigger is the better. Actually bigger box got more visiblitiy in the shop.
Did you find out what software/app it uses? I have a number of cheap devices all running with "Smart Life" that's frankly been more stable and reliable than my Samsung "Smart Things".
One other script and a chosen city blinks a homing signal for the enemy bomber planes, except the well protected military facility that paid extra to avoid foreign equipment . "Aim for the only building covered in camouflage paint, but never mind if you hit a school on the way in" (Actual RAF operation in WW2) .
On startup the mystery capacitor would charge up, passing current and pulling the +14v rail upwards. So could it be the startup supply for the 2522 ?? …. Awesome video as always, Keep up the good work Clive !!
The disco-mode is there to ensure that the end user will configure the bulb to be connected, so it will add up to Tuya's total connected devices and user-account numbers, which will impress the investors.
I like IOT when I control all data. I have a dedicated Wi-Fi for no internet access for my devices. I specially picked or built devices using ESP32s. Might use more energy but they are secure
I know you don't like connected devices and the IOT. But it can be more than a gimmick. I'm using 2 WiFi lamps at my parents house, I simply use them to get a notification when they connect or disconnect from the WiFi. Parents use the light switch as normal.
With the large packaging there is no excuse to use small print on the information of the product. They could use font size 12 which is or was the polite font size that people could easily read.
How is in the UK the LED lights and electronics that are reviewed all appear to be so easy to open and view the circuit boards. It seems all, all such devices in Australia are sealed that only a hammer and vice can open them and once open they are either fully potted in silicon or epoxy.
Do they have these with differant ends on?I had a chinesium one of these types of thing that worked really well but then one day the app just stopped working so it became a dumb bulb I couldn't turn on and off from in bed,would be nice to have one that works again for cheap lol
Energizer and Eveready are the same company. Not really much reason to buy their products today but I should point out that they were the ones that developed the alkaline battery, so they do have an achievement to be proud of. Duracell has no such accolades. But here in Belgium at least, they are made locally, so every store that sells batteries has them. Being a reputable brand is worth more than a lot of people give it credit for, too. You might not want to use them at home, but if it's company money you do, because if a battery does leak, explode or start a fire, you wouldn't want to find out the hard way that no one ever got fired for buying Duracell.
The problem with WiFi bulbs is that 50% of the manufactures take security very litely, and the other 50% take security very lightly.
Thank you for another enlightening study.
And 100 % of them try to steal your personal data.
Enlitening?
that is why i have a guest wifi isolated from my main wifi network that these "smart" devices connect to
That was illuminating.
Also, most of them only use the 2.4Ghz band, so if you are in an area with a lot of 2.4 ghz traffic, connections will not be reliable. I had a bunch of 'smart' devices that regularly just decided to drop out, and the app was written in such a way that I ultimately had to completely wipe out the setup I had and re-do it no less than three times before giving up and going over to devices using Zigbee. Shame, those lights were capable of some neat effects, but having to re-build the entire configuration multiple times over the course of six months just broke me of any wifi-based lights.
There's firmware for the BK7231N and BK7231T chips which doesn't involve sending people your data. It's a firmware modeled after Tasmota, and is reminiscent of it. It's called OpenBK. Disclosure: It's a project I have contributed to in the past.
My understanding is ESPHome also now supports Beken modules. Not sure... I've only got one Beken based device, and it was more of a curiousity than something I wanted so it got flashed with OpenBK to see if it worked and then put in a cupboard.
I believe it's also possible to use Tuya cloud cutter. Could it somehow be flashed over WiFi? It's better than opening the lamp.
@@MyProjectBoxChannel the Beken modules used a firmware that was patched against the Tuya exploit. It's a cat and mouse game in that regard.
@@tin2001 There is indeed a fork of ESPHome that uses the LibreTiny development platform to support Beken chips and a couple others.
It's pretty cool how after ESP was abandoned by Tuya the new chips also got an open firmware foiling Tuya's plans.
I wish there was a direct HomeKit integration firmware like there is for ESP though (HAA)
@@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse But thev've introduced a new one with the beken modules xD
The company currently known as Energizer Holdings, Inc used to be named Eveready Battery Company. They originally sold all of their batteries under the Eveready brand name but in the 1980s they started selling their higher-end products under the Energizer name. Eventually the company renamed itself Energizer after that name became better known, but they continue to sell products under both names. They also own the Ray-O-Vac brand.
Did we grow up after Union Carbide ?
@@laustinspeiss yes
Yep, Eveready as I remember them too. Energizer etc did that weird thing using your thumbs to see how much capacity the cell had in the '90s or maybe '00s, more of a gimmic to sell the batteries. But kinda worked for selling them instead buying a cheaper cell or batteries (depending how many bought), kinda clever marketing though.
Hearing aid cells are cheaper under the Ray-O-Vac brand, for some reason.
@@TheChipmunk2008 Sadly, a lot of people died to make that change of name - ref: Bhopal, India
1:25 The best saying from Clive in 2023: “One moment… what the f**k?” The best alternative for the iconic “One moment please” this should be in all the videos.
Thanks for the death-beam explanation. It had been puzzling me for a while.
Any one remember the day when a light bulb was just a wire that produced light and heat? Now you get enough electronics to build a computer to produce light and heat. Thanks Clive. Interesting drive chip for sure.
Poundland bulbs are one of the best sources for cheap WiFi IoT modules. It works out even cheaper than buying the module alone (in small quantities) from retailers.
Still cant find the Flaming solars from the last video.
I noticed a big chrome solar table top lamp with pull cord and 3 lumens settings for £12,
Would love to see that torn down
The solar flame lanterns were from Poundstretcher.
When Clive says “mystery chip,” the song “Ride Captain Ride” starts running through my head…
Me too, LOL! A great song from when men were men and women were women.🤭
@@transmitterguy478 They still are, except for those poor souls that are a bit confused about that...
That bunny is still going and going... That BP5758D looks like a cool chip. 5 channels and a simple I2C control? Nice.
The 5 channel linear regulator with I2C control was impressive.
If it's got a Beken chip on the module, it can almost certainly be reflashed wirelessly using the Cloudcutter method. Needs a ESP based board as a sort of middleman if you want to use the simple android app... But works quite nicely instead of having to solder onto the tiny Tx and Rx pins on the module.
According to the datasheet HV can be up to 500V on the BP5758; very neat chip.
the quiet F-Bomb as the lamp starts blinking is awesome XD
I wouldn't mind _local_ WiFi (or better, Bluetooth) connectivity. But things that have to "call home" just to function are a big nope for me.
I got Philips hue down lights in the soffits around the house and use ZigBee and home Assistant on a pi4.
I was afraid they would disconnect, etc but they work great.
ZigBee turns each device into a mesh system too. It's an alternative to wifi.
can be reprogrammed yay! sadly its not as easy as esp8266/esp8295 based lamps because you need a new flasher program and installing that might not be easy
@@309electronics5 Are you saying esp8266/esp8295 chips do not need a flasher program to program them?
@@uzlonewolf a simple usb serial ch340g can program both esp and bk
@@lifeai1889 We are talking about the program to flash them, not the USB-to-serial chip.
The mystery cap is the snubber for the buck converter's built in mosfet. The placement is unusual having the inductor in the loop, but not unheard of. Without that cap, there is no drain to source connection for the inherent voltage spikes.
It sits between the sense and drain pins, source is probably the 330V pin (P channel FET).
Missing capacitor is because there used to be one, but someone realised you can use it without one, so they've saved a third of a penny per ton of units
How do you know?
@@steamer1 experience
OR, that is in the UK at 220v 50Hz, whereas here in the USA it may have the cap in it for 60Hz 120v operation. I will look for one to dissect.
@phonotical and then some other bright young lead will save another penny by reducing quality 0.8%... hardly noticeable .
And in 5 years, they'll be cheap crap.
Same happens with food.
My "magic chef" home ac was built in 1987. The original capacitor was 27 years old when it burned out. The replacements last 2 to 3 summers.
The unit is made of heavy steel. The heater portion failed after 38 years.
I'm told the unit I have to replace it with in 2025 will last no more than 8 years and will start breaking down after 6 years.
@@macmcleod1188planned obsolescence. There's no profit in making a product that lasts forever, so they make one that breaks so they can sell it to you all over again.
The large box probably means they do relatively small production runs off different models. Those box cutting blades are expensive, and so is changing them.
I regularly have a (not so quiet) WTF? moment while working at my bench - glad to see Clive doing the same!!
And YES! The IoT is a great technology but the way that we are turned into sources of money or information for big companies once again proves that most humans aren't ready for the technology we possess.
Very informative video, thanks Clive!! 👍
I would think that maybe the mystery capacitor is there to ensure reliable startup. At turn on this cap would momentarily pass voltage to the 14v rail to give it a kick start.
I think that maybe the oversized box is to differentiate the wifi lamps from the normal ones, if it was in the same size box you could just imagine how many of these lamps would be returned as faulty when customers expecting a normal lamp plugged them in an it started flashing.
...or how many would be 'box-swapped' instore by dishonest customers pre-checkout.
clive i dont know what youre on about most of the time but i cant stop comming back to youre stuff youre good
Thanks Clive 👍🇮🇪🙏🏻
Forgot how enjoyable your videos are...👍👍👍
Looking at the packaging my guess is that Ever Ready use the same size box for all their lamps.
I was thinking they have repurposed a "standard" box and had it printed..
I wonder if the larger packaging is to make stealing it more difficult, though you could just take the bulb out of the box i guess.
I suspect they use the same box size for various devices like cameras or doorbells, as well.
Makes outside shipping packaging more standard.
@@echothehusky I think you're dead right there.
@@echothehuskyfrom the top of the box it looks like a seal was cut through that took up the entire side 0:14 . not just a little circle, but the whole dang side.
if course, you can still steal that too but it's a lot harder to cut a big ass box and keep it from cameras than if it was just a tiny box like the cheaper one
Another fun IoT thing is what triggers that setup disco mode? First time unconfigured? Loss of WiFi network (e.g. your router is replaced or unplugged)? The mothership server being unreachable (say the internet going out or the company has an outage)? Yeah none of those things sound like times I want a disco at home without warning
If not a disco mode, could I interest you in an 8-bit dance party mode??
I've made a mistake! when I tried to "reverse engineer," this particular smart bulb 😢. I just followed the circuit examples from the data sheets for the various chips. I didn't realise that the RGB LEDs were powered by 14V supply (12 modified to be 14v). On the data sheet, the RGB LEDs seems to be powered directly from rectified mains, the same as the warm and cold white led's. I will now have to mention the mistake in the description of my video😢. Or maybe even take the video down.
Thanks for making this video Clive, your reverse engineering skills are 2nd to none!😊
Just add a note in the description. I do that for mistakes I make.
So the wifi modules usually runs between 15mA to 400mA peak when sending/ receiving, which is probably the reason for the dedicated chip
A really good insight, I got energizer's smart bulb in the bayonett version, had it for few years and it worked well, good to know that there may be reprogramming options.
I was just sitting here watching your new video, and it occured to me that I never found out the answer to the question I asked in one of your previous videos....now at 5:40 you shared that bit of info. How strange the world works sometimes... great video btw, I always think about the different ways to use the inards of these.
Wow, that went from 👍 to 👎 fast when you first turned it on.
GAH, disco mode that's bloody horrific..
Better hurry up and give me your email address before a seizure sets in (flashing intensifies...)
(unplugging it does nothing as it has a battery)
@@SomeMorganSomewhere Actually that bulb has a disco mode in the app - it is called 'music sync' mode.
The large package is most likely to prevent theft.
Plus the fancy bulb is more expensive so they want to make you think it's worth it with fancy packaging.
Either that or they can simply cram lots of information and advertising blurb on it.
and it might as well come as a B22 and E27 model as well, so all 3 fit in the same box design and just replace the bulb image on the box
“One momen… what the fucq?!” Love you big Clive!! 1:23
I have a "smart" LED wall light that's like 5000 lumen (it's a shop light) or something and it also blinks when it wants a wifi connection. Also, you can put it into wifi connect mode by turning it off and on 6 times. I also discovered that brownouts can also simulate this if the input voltage fluctuates 6 times.
Whoever thought that rapidly blinking a 5000 lumen light at full power to indicate it needs to be paired was a good idea needs to be forced to sit in a room with bright blinking lights being beamed into their eyeballs for a month.
Clive, you put an ad in @1minute! That's a first for you/this channel.
Great vid as always 👍🏻😀🇬🇧
I've been doing tests to see how adverts affect TH-cam's promotion of the video. In this video test I let them place skippable ads automatically to see where they would appear.
What an odd thing. For the first time ever, I checked out the innards of a candle style smart bulb and it had a ring of many coloured LEDs and a token few white ones in the middle. Never seen that before.
Hearing BigClive swear when the smart light started obnoxiously blinking is pretty much the funniest thing I've seen on the internet all week.
I really hate the disco mode being default. I have 30 TCP led WiFi bulbs which are no longer supported. The light quality is fantastic. But I can’t even use them on a regular light switch because they all flash as soon as they are powered on. Really annoying considering I paid $10 each for them.
They are probably ESP based and you could flash the open source tasmota firmware onto them, if the original firmware is old enough. templates.blakadder with the top level domain for companies should help out in the bulbs section.
You might find one of the alternative apps works to connect to them, Smart Life or Tuya Smart are basically the same apps and work for lots of devices.
@@JamesChurchill3 Good shout, Smart Life did it for me.
@@JamesChurchill3
And the bonus is it doesn't matter which brand app you use. Because they all talk to Tuya on China anyway. If you're OK with one, you're presumably OK with any other.
I'm using a cool White LED flat top like this in a table lamp.
I then place a little chilli sauce tub full of coloured washing up liquid on top of the bulb with the lid facing down.
(Squeeze out excess air and wash and wipe dry the outside)
Great light diffuser, colour changes every time I buy a new bottle of wash up liquid,
Yellows & orange looks good, or separately pour yellow down one side separated with a bit of card,
Pour red down the other side, remove card and place on lid.
Gives a nice pink effect up the wall while shining a pleasant amber towards you.
And NO tub has ever leaked.
Thanks for the detailed teardown and explanation. I’ve only installed custom firmware on these bulbs but i have limited knowledge if i need to fix them.
So far I’ve only managed to repair the ones with obvious blownout capacitors, but other than that i wouldn’t know what to look for.
I found a datasheet for the BP5758, and the HV pin is rated for up to 500V. The power dissipation is only 1.25W (which will cause it to heat to 150C based on the thermal resistance value from the datasheet). Kinda weird that it doesn't seem to be using that GND pad for thermal dissipation.
An important thing to remember with IoT is that the 'S' in IoT stands for Security.
So it's another 'Secure Hyped-up Internet Thing' then?
and the i will stand for "i will cal home and steal your data and send it to a chinese tuya cloud server"
Brilliant video Clive thanks I love the OVERSIZED packaging my mrs bought some sort of face cream and the box was about the size of the Eveready box, but when she opened it the tube of cream was about the size of a tube of superglue 😂 they should get fined for using to much packaging…..
If fines were levied for that then Jeff Bezos would be living in a tent on a SF street by now.
Not as ridiculous as the amount of packaging Amazon use to transport small items
The WiFi-chip on the small module is probably a ESP8285, the single-chip variant of the ESP8266, of which there exist hundreds of alternative firmwares for, and it's even compatible with Arduino etc.
Yep and you also can easily find them as ESP-01M or with Tuya you will go somewhere towards ZS3L (Zigbee), WBRG01 (Wifi/BLE) or CB3S (Wifi) kind of modules, but in different form factor.
Can it be programmed over I2C?, because that bus is conveniently exposed on the top PCB just put your probe on the board connector and issue whatever magic commands to reprogram the module.
.
Clive has mentioned it's a BK7231N. Those are distinctly NOT ESP82xx chips. :)
@@johndododoe1411
Nope. Need to use the TX/RX and GPIO pins for the ESP versions.
The Beken ones can mostly be programmed wirelessly using Cloudcutter though... This is somewhat more convenient, even if you can't run Tasmota (OpenBK is the alternative, but it's not quite as good).
great video. at 5:37 you quess the 5k1 resistor is to quench resonance, I agree, in other words it drops the Q of the coil lessening the length of ringing of the coil and 150nf after the 3u3F capacitor has dried out.
I love how salty and passive aggressive Clive is about the packaging 😂😂
1:24 cracked me up. I wasn't expecting that. 😂😂😅
BP5758 is using I2C as transport bus, but does not adhere to the I2C protocol.
It does not have a slave address, but instead it's own dimming control protocol addressing the light logic directly. I guess this was cheaper to implement.
I'd guess most applications would literally just be a single LED driver. They probably used I2C for the existing libraries or silicon designs.
Tell Ralf all his lights in his house are 5G transmittors and they know his browser history lol
>came from Poundland
>didn't cost 1 pound
>hello inflation my old friend
..."Death Beam Capacitor"... Finally... An explanation (5'40")... Thanks, been quietly biding my time to see if you ever explained it... Got to admit I've been very curious... I was half expecting to find I had missed a historical discussion... BigClive the stirrer... nice.
There's a streetlight teardown where he mentioned it originally, can't remember which one it is though.
@@idjtoal
That would be this post…
th-cam.com/video/Du8yQeQdMBk/w-d-xo.html
@1:00 "I shall grab a socket here..." has me going "Is it pink? Is it pink? Is it pink?"
I find it almost unimaginable that you could fit twelve LEDs on a sliver of silicon half a square centimetre in size.
It's usually a 4 by 3 array, sometimes on a single substrate that looks as if it's manufactured as a single component.
I thought it was smaller than 50mm² ...
Ya now think about how theyve figured out how to make a transistor 2 nanometers now.. is the absolute potential of silica.. thats so small even bacteria cant fit in between the blades of the switches in the transistor. That also is a billion transistors in one square cm.. super duper tiny..
16 million unique colours - but a great many of them are very very similar, some might even say indistinguishable...
Looks exactly like a typical Tuya reference design. Why design something from scratch when someone else has already done the hard work!
Clive, did you see the new Philips Wiz lamps? They've got all sorts, most notably rgbw smart "100w" lamps, for like 20€ where i live.
I have some, but haven't taken one apart yet.
When I originally saw "Eveready" on bulbs in B&M store, I thought it was a rip of the old Ever Ready batteries brand, but according to Wikipedia, Ever Ready was actually a spinoff from the Eveready company in the US, which is owned by Energizer.
Damn, can't believe they ruined the challenge by leaving all the chip markings alone
Oh man you're a necessary breath of fresh air today! A lot of negativity in my space today. But then: Big Clive has a new light-up toy!
Hey Clive, did you make a video about a tiny, battery powered fogger? I need to create a unique ghost effect on live stage and thought those little guys might be perfect. Sew them into costume or something like that. They could work on a timer or microswitch. Not sure about that part. And if I'm wrong, does such a thing exist at all? Thanks.
The closest video is this one:-
th-cam.com/video/iC878A2puH0/w-d-xo.html
You can get theatre units that are basically this and a bigger vapour head in a box.
A few years ago there was a big panic about TVs on standby using a lot of power. What's the consumption as a result of running a houseful of wifi bulbs ?
About 120ma mostly and that's for the WiFi chip maintaining a connection. (Current assumed as similar to an ESP8266 standby current)
It's very low. The power supplies are very efficient and the circuitry has fairly low power use.
@@dougle03 Then that's 0.4W for the chip, so we'll round up to half a watt per LED. Twenty Wifi lamps amount to ten watts standby. A bit wasteful I guess.
@@dougle03 Except now that I've watched the video, they used a linear regulator on 14 volts, so the standby power is 1.7W?!!
...or the USB power supplies integrated into your mains sockets...?
I have a few Philips Hue globes, they default to a standard "dumb" globe when turned on for the first time. That flashing is just stupid. lol
👍🏻 Interesting, thanks. Although i was a bit lost at first, for the features of the product. A brief demo prior to disintegration would be helpful
Yep! I happily sit through Clive's vids while barely understanding a word he says but I missed an explanation of what it does that's different to ordinary GU10s.
I'm always a little concerned that the heat from such a device would catch fire as I've seen people on another video drill holes in the bulb to allow the heat to escape.
p.s. I am referring to a large household incandescent-styled LED.
I am hesitant to use one of these because of the PHONE-HOME registrations.
didnt poundland go out of bussniess? or was it just the local isle of man store?
Poundworld went down, but was reincarnated as One Beyond.
The BP5758 is sufficiently explained, if you ask google-sensei. It just easts an I2C signal.
So... you could remove any shady chips (i.e. the WIFI) and replace them with something more secure or sensible (i.e. an XBee, or a micro controller and an IR sensor... or whatever your personal preference is).
replace them and sell at a markup :p
Eveready isn't really a zombie brand, nor is Energizer. They're one and the same company and always have been. British Ever Ready was once zombified as it became independent early in its life, but it was sold back to Energizer in 1992 which just unified it back with its original parent.
@1:20 I just was laughing so hard. Clive is so taken aback!
It looks like the mystery capacitor is there to smooth noise coming from the 12V regulator, you don't see it often because companies cheaping out
But without it in this case, it might affect that ripple on both outputs of the 14V and 3.3V supply, and create noisy data on the i2c bus or cause resets in the micro controller/WiFi module
Have you ever done or could you do a video of what all the components do especially an inductor
I've made a simple guide to components, but it didn't cover inductors.
@@bigclivedotcominductors are crazy little fellows
Occasionally i wonder through old videos from channels im subscribed to and i just watched your make a "ghost detector" video from years ago, brilliant video.....i thought about making one but then again no, i see enough weird things out of the corner of my eyes as is 😂😂😂
In South Africa both Energizer and Eveready are well known battery brands.
You know I think this is the first video you've made that I heard you say a naughty word. I approve lol! :)
I believe you'd have to go back to the 70's for when Eveready was a Union Carbide brand and Duracell a Mallory brand.
It's a bit of a shame that they didn't use the old black cat logo.
i'd bet the packaging is used for larger lamps, so instead of cutting boxes for different size lamps, they save a bit on just one size box for all of them they can fit in there.
Or when the boxes are on the store shelf and customer should select the product... bigger is the better. Actually bigger box got more visiblitiy in the shop.
@1:24 - I'm literally laughing on the floor. It just falls out of ya' totally unscripted, and in a different tone. HAHHA! I'M DYIN'!!!
Did you find out what software/app it uses? I have a number of cheap devices all running with "Smart Life" that's frankly been more stable and reliable than my Samsung "Smart Things".
Catches fire in three easy steps
Just think of the possibilities when all our lighting and hone automation is cloud based.
One script, and literally half of the planet goes dark.
One other script and a chosen city blinks a homing signal for the enemy bomber planes, except the well protected military facility that paid extra to avoid foreign equipment . "Aim for the only building covered in camouflage paint, but never mind if you hit a school on the way in" (Actual RAF operation in WW2) .
Or call the script global-disco and cycle all lighting on and off.
or the delivery man has a bad day + trouble hearing and MamaZon shuts all your IoT devices off 😀
Not going to happen whilst I'm alive. Well, not to me at least.
Unless they make smart bulbs compulsory (never say never!)
In the future, people will look back at old fashioned 2 colour (on, and off) lightbulbs, and wonder how humans ever survived.
Thank you sir. This was very interesting indeed.
ha ha ha got love that .... "what the f*ck" ... that slipped through the editting at your suprise when the light starts flashing
This guy is a lightbulb fanatic. Just got those new one GE that got a switch to change the color.
He also likes ionizers. 😁
On startup the mystery capacitor would charge up, passing current and pulling the +14v rail upwards. So could it be the startup supply for the 2522 ??
…. Awesome video as always, Keep up the good work Clive !!
The disco-mode is there to ensure that the end user will configure the bulb to be connected, so it will add up to Tuya's total connected devices and user-account numbers, which will impress the investors.
In all the history of egregious things Clive has covered on this channel, this is the first I've seen that actually drew a WTF, hah!
I like IOT when I control all data. I have a dedicated Wi-Fi for no internet access for my devices. I specially picked or built devices using ESP32s. Might use more energy but they are secure
I know you don't like connected devices and the IOT. But it can be more than a gimmick. I'm using 2 WiFi lamps at my parents house, I simply use them to get a notification when they connect or disconnect from the WiFi. Parents use the light switch as normal.
With the large packaging there is no excuse to use small print on the information of the product. They could use font size 12 which is or was the polite font size that people could easily read.
Both energizer and Duracell are national battery brands available at stores throughout the USA.
How do people get in touch with you to send you interesting stuff to dissect?
I'm confused, Energizer and Duracell still exist. Is it just in the United States?
How is in the UK the LED lights and electronics that are reviewed all appear to be so easy to open and view the circuit boards.
It seems all, all such devices in Australia are sealed that only a hammer and vice can open them and once open they are either fully potted in silicon or epoxy.
Big Clive is a big bear of a man.
So you Aussie can’t use the technology against your master🤪
Do they have these with differant ends on?I had a chinesium one of these types of thing that worked really well but then one day the app just stopped working so it became a dumb bulb I couldn't turn on and off from in bed,would be nice to have one that works again for cheap lol
Imagine someone buying that not aware of it's "smart" features. Flashy flashy fun...
'Eveready' makes me think of Cheese & Onion crisps in green bags and white doggy-doo!
Clive... Love you brother
Energizer and Eveready are the same company. Not really much reason to buy their products today but I should point out that they were the ones that developed the alkaline battery, so they do have an achievement to be proud of.
Duracell has no such accolades. But here in Belgium at least, they are made locally, so every store that sells batteries has them. Being a reputable brand is worth more than a lot of people give it credit for, too. You might not want to use them at home, but if it's company money you do, because if a battery does leak, explode or start a fire, you wouldn't want to find out the hard way that no one ever got fired for buying Duracell.
Same reason I always put Duracells into props.
I^2 C (I squared C) But I think most people have given up correcting it.
Ever ready was the name of the battery co in the uk, or everready... the single R variant is USA centric...
What if only a small window is cut into the housing for the programming of the chip and then taped? It will be inside some kind of fixture anyways.
Is there a cct dimmable led bulb below 2700k?