IlluminEssence 2-LED Bulb Mood Light Kit - Product Reviews

IlluminEssence 2-LED Bulb Mood Light Kit

IlluminEssence 2-LED Bulb Mood Light Kit

Produced by Monster Products

posted by
Scott Ertz

3.63 out of 5


Two bulbs are enough for most rooms, but is this kit enough to set the mood?

The Ups

The bulbs have a simple and elegant Design and the whole kit has top Build Quality, while the remote has a wide variety of Controls, adding to the kit's Value.

The Downs

The Range of the remote is not as far or as strong as would be ideal, and the kit's lack of Compatibility with external systems limits its appeal for a more connected home.

The Bottom Line

If your goal is to provide a simple mood light capability to your home, you can't go wrong with the IlluminEssence. If you're looking for a way to expand the capabilities of your connected smarthome, this is not the product for you.

Where To Get It


PLuGHiTz Live Unboxed


For its price, this IlluminEssence kit is a better than average Value. At a retail price of under $20, the two RGB LED lightbulbs, plus the RF remote you get in the kit is on par or better than even an off-branded Chinese counterpart. However, this kit is not for everyone. The lack of smarthome or smartphone Usability limits the appeal for those who are decking out their home or office with the latest and greatest smarthome products. Before making this purchase, consider what your intended use will be.


There are two primary components to the IlluminEssence Large Space kit: the LED bulbs and the remote control. Each component has its own unique Design.

LED Bulbs

The bulbs are designed to be simple and easy to interact with. There are no buttons or switches. In fact, unless you knew that there was something special about the bulbs, you wouldn't be able to figure it out by looking at them. From a casual glance, they look like regular home light bulbs.

Remote Control

The remote is designed to be small, without sacrificing usability. The back of the remote is rounded and fairly ergonomic, fitting into the palm of the hand quite comfortably. Unfortunately, the buttons down the center, the speed controls, are placed in such a way that it is easy to trigger the wrong feature. If you try to operate the remote with a single hand, you are likely to change the brightness of the lights or the mode by accident. This is because you are reaching across capacitive buttons to interact with another capacitive button.


It is important to note that this is NOT an actual smarthome product. As such, its Connectivity is incredibly limited. To control the traditional LED bulbs, you must use the included remote control. Out of the box, the remote is pre-programmed to control both lights but can be expanded or altered if you purchase other products in the IlluminEssence product line. The controls run on RF and not infrared, however, meaning that you do not have to be in line-of-sight, making the setup for more versatile.

This does mean that you will not be able to control these lights with a digital assistant, like Cortana, Alexa, or Google Assistant. You will also not be able to control them with your smartphone. The only exception to these rules is that the lights all default to ON and clear white when power is applied. That means that you could use a smarthome product to control an outlet to turn the lights on and off. You still will not be able to trigger a particular color or pattern without the remote.


The Range of the remote control is a little better than expected. In a three bedroom apartment, the remote is able to control lights almost from one corner to the other. Moving slightly closer, the remote begins to have full control over that corner light. In this same space, it is not unusual for Bluetooth speakers and headphones to fail on this same corner-to-corner test, and the signal strength of Bluetooth is theoretically significantly stronger and more resilient than the frequencies used by the IlluminEssence remotes.


The capabilities of the IlluminEssence remote control are surprisingly fine-grained. At the top is the obvious power on/off buttons. Below that is a color wheel, which allows you to choose an exact color to match your mood or environment. You can also reset the color to white by pressing the "power on" button again. In the center of the wheel is an indicator that shows when a command has been sent to the devices.

There are some adjustment buttons in addition to the static light features. On the left side under the color wheel is brightness control. Defaulting at 100%, you can adjust it all the way down to 10% of full brightness. In addition to resetting to white, the "power on" button will also reset the brightness to full. On the right is a mode control. It features five mood settings and three holiday settings. The moods are Club 1 and Club 2, which are both variations on strobe lights in different colors, with Club 2 being faster than Club 1. Then you have Lounge, Beach, and Sunset, all of which are gradual color changes. Lastly are Christmas, Independence, and Halloween, which are also gradual color changes, with the colors of their holidays. The center buttons control the speed of the modes, allowing you to slow down or speed up any of the programs.

Learning Curve

As the Controls are fairly straight forward, the Learning Curve is not terribly steep. In fact, most customers will have little to no trouble understanding how to use the products directly out of the box. There are only two features of the IlluminEssence lineup that will not be easily discoverable. The first is the function of the center indicator. The confusion is around the fact that it looks like a button, and pressing it does sometimes cause the lights to change color, usually to green or orange. After using the lights for several months, we still sometimes forget that this isn't a reset button.

The second aspect of the lineup that will cause some trouble is adding new products to the remote. It requires putting the remote into a receiving mode and applying power to the new light (bulb or strip).

Build Quality

The Build Quality of the IlluminEssence lights, like all products that bear the Monster name, is very high quality. The bulbs have no unexpected sharp edges or molding imperfections. The only part of the product line that does have production issues is the remote control. The seams between molded pieces are sharp and do not seal smoothly. In addition, the sensitivity of the buttons is inconsistent. Sometimes it takes a lot of pressure to activate a button, while in other cases, the color might change just by holding the remote.


The IlluminEssence products do exactly what they are advertised to do, and they do it well. In fact, they do a little more than was expected, with the ability to add additional products onto an existing remote control. The expandability of the remotes and the ability for a single light to be controllable from more than one remote make the product line incredibly versatile.

In our experience, we encountered only two problems. The first is that, while the remotes are supposed to be pre-programmed for the lights in their corresponding box, some of our viewers have reported having to reprogram out of the box. It is important to note, however, that all of our remotes were correctly programmed. The second issue is the occasional skipping of commands. In expanding the capabilities of one of the remotes, we have seen that sometimes one or more of the lights will not respond to commands. This has been especially prevalent in the 16.4 foot LED strip. Whether that is because of the product or because of the order it was programmed is unknown.

Size & Weight

In reality, the only part of the IlluminEssence system whose Size & Weight really matters is the remote control. The remote is very small; smaller even than most accessory remotes, such as a DVD player or surround sound system. However, the size makes sense for what it is. With the batteries in the remote, it is a little heavier than an average small remote control. The weight, however, is not unbearable or even unacceptable.


Unfortunately, the only Compatibility that the IlluminEssence products have is with one another. The system runs on its own closed ecosystem, meaning that it is not part of any smarthome system. While you can turn the lights on or off using an external source, like a smarthome outlet, you can only control the colors, brightness, and modes from the system's own remote controls. It is possible that, over time, a hub control might be created, or a company like Harmony might work out the signal structure. For now, however, it is a closed ecosystem.


The standard Setup of a single mood lighting package is incredibly easy. In fact, there is absolutely no setup involved. All you have to do is plug in the lights, in this case, the LED bulbs, and you are done. The remote control included in the box is pre-programmed to work with the lights that are part of the package. This means that you have no work to do to make everything work together.

If you are combining packages, however, things get a little more difficult, but not by much. Two individual kits can work in the same building without any issue. However, if you want to add a light from one kit to another remote, you'll need to pair them. Simply put the remote control into pairing mode and apply power to the light you want to add. Adding the light to a new remote does not remove it from its existing remote, meaning that you could have different remotes for different rooms or even different remotes for different purposes.


Based on what the kit is supposed to do, the product is pretty useful. The LED bulbs power on to white when power is applied. This means that using the bulbs in a standard lamp makes them function as a regular bulb, whether you turn it on via the lamp's switch or one on a wall.

However, their lack of third-party control really limits their overall reach. With no ability to control the color of the lights from your phone or a smarthome hub, it means that they cannot be used as part of an existing scene for a room, and they cannot be included in any kind of responsive system. Ideally, some sort of additional hub that acts as a remote control, but can be controlled via Wi-Fi, would make these lights a more well-rounded solution.

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