Review: Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight

If you’re looking to outfit your home with smart lights, Near should come to mind due to its great value proposition over its competitors. Other than bulbs, Near also sells downlights such as the Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight, which is smart and allows you to adjust the temperature of white from 2,700K to 6,500K. The Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight retails at S$29.90, and is available in both round or square shape.

Tech specs

Near Ultra-Slim Smart DownlightPhilips Hue Garnea Hue White Ambience Downlight (51108)
Cutout size150mm150mm
Power12W13W
Colour temperature2,700K to 6,500K2,200K to 6,500K
Brightness900 Lumen900 lumens
Lifetime25,000 hours25,000 hours
Warranty2 years2 years
PriceS$29.90S$99.00

The Philips Hue Garnea Hue White Ambience Downlight is largely similar to the Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight. But yet, it is priced near 3x lower than Phillips Hue. If you go with Philips Hue, you still have to get the S$89 Philips Bridge to access smart lighting and controls.

If you’re planning some renovations for your upcoming BTO, and have plans to install smart downlights, it is good to know that there is a much more affordable option that shares almost the same features as the highly rated Philips Hue series.

Unboxing

The box of the Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight will contain:

  • Smart Downlight
  • Hole cutting template
  • Installation manual
  • User manual

Setup

Do make sure that the Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight fits the current downlight you currently have. You can refer to the the YouTube video below for detailed steps on physically installing the smart downlight. I did find the process of connecting the live and neutral wires a little finnicky as I had to insert them a few times before I felt a “secure” connection. It could be because I was using a thinner wire for testing as well. If you’re getting an electrician to install it for you then this probably wouldn’t really matter.

To enable the smart features of the Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight, you will need to download the Near app and register as a user. The app is now able to sense any pairing smart lights when you turn it on. If the light is in pairing mode, it will be flashing on/off repeatedly. Do ensure that your Wi-Fi on your smartphone is connected to 2.4GHz network.

Do I need to be connected to 2.4GHz network in order to control the light?

That was my initial worry as I am always using a 5.0GHz network. But I’m glad to say that you not need to be connected to the 2.4GHz network. In fact, as long as your smartphone is connected to the internet (even mobile data), you can control the light! You just need the 2.4GHz network for the initial setup.

Light customisation

Unfortunately my house do not have any downlight fittings with a 150mm cutout size, so I am unable to physically install it. However, I was still able to turn it on via a switch modification, and as the Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight being rated at 900 lumens, really gets really bright.

You can refer to the pictures above to get a rough sense of how the light is like for both round and square shape. The pictures are taken with 1% brightness, because if i try to take a picture with 100% brightness all you’ll see is a white spot with a black background. The downlights have a very slim profile and I can imagine it to look really flushed against the ceiling after it is installed.

White and warm light

The Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight is a tunable white model, which means you can only adjust the temperature of white from 2,700K to 6,500K. In the Near app, you can adjust the temperature on the main dashboard of the light menu via the scroll knobs, or pre-selected colour icons. You can also increase/decrease the brightness from 1% to 100%.

Check out the video demo below for a better understanding:

Mood scenes

There is a tab called ‘Mood’, which is identical to the ‘Scenes’ features that we have seen on othr Near smart lights. By default, the app pre-installs to moods – (1) Lepak Ah (ie. chill), and (2) Chiong Ah (ie. Focus). The chill mood produces a relaxing warm light, while the focus mood shines white light.

You can create your own scene too, and adjust settings as shown below:

Smart features

The Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight shares the same smart features that other Near smart lighting products also have. These features are:

  • Home and Room management
  • Scheduling
  • Tap-to-run sequence
  • Automation
  • Smart Assistant capable

As the features are largely the same, most of the content below will be repeated from the Near E27 Smart Bulb review to facilitate reading.

The following content is adapted from the Near E27 Smart Bulb review.

Home and Room Management

All the Near Smart Lights in my “Office” are split between “Living Room” and “Study Room”

It is unlikely you will just get one Smart Downlight for your house. You may have some in your living room, and some in your bedroom. The Near app allows you categorize each lighting product into a particular room. This reduces clutter on the main screen on the app, letting you view and control your lights by rooms so you don’t have scroll through a long list of lights.

Scheduling turn on/off

You can schedule for your lights to turn on or off when it reaches a certain time. And you can do so via two ways of scheduling. The first is through the individual light settings, which now allows you to add a countdown timer.

The second is through a global setting whereby if you own more than one light you can turn all of them on/off when it hits a certain time.

Tap-to-Run sequence

“Tap-to-Run” allows you to create macros and save them as a shortcut, where once you tap on that shortcut, the light will do whatever you specify in your instruction sequence.

In the app, to create a “Tap-to-Run” sequence, you have set the condition to “Click to execute”. After which, you proceed to choose a task to be carried out such as changing the temperature of the light. You can also run actions like switching on/off, giving the light a countdown to turn off, or changing the brightness.

The task that can be carried out are not limited to one light. You would likely have more than one Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight, so one sequence can perform actions for all the lights at once. You can even configure the task to do two different things, such as some to produce warm light and the others to produce daylight.

If you’re using an iPhone, another great feature of this “Tap-to-Run” sequence is the ability to add to Siri Shortcuts. As such, you can run these actions via Siri and even with your own customised phrase.

On the iPhone, your “Tap-to-Run” sequences will also show up on iPhone widgets if you enable the Near Shortcut Control widget on your home screen. This makes it convenient to activate the action without going into the app.

Somehow the Light Strip is not sensed as device widget for quick on/off

Automation

Automation is big and must-have feature set if you are buying a smart light. The setup of an automation action is the similar to a “Tap-to-Run” setup, but instead of selecting a “Click to execute” condition, you choose another condition from the list the app gives you.

The Automation setup is simply an “If this happens, then do that” setup. You can tell the light to switch on if the weather is raining, temperature is lower than 30°C, or when the sun sets. The condition can also be based on a device, such as, “if the Smart Light Strip is turned on, then carry out this task”. You can also set the automated action to only run during a specified period of time, for example only during weekdays.

There is a wide variety of automated tasks that you can design, and the permutations of tasks will only increase with more Near smart light that you own. The benefits of automation will only get more apparent with more lights you own in the Near ecosystem, and having your entire lighting system automated is surely an amazing setup.

Smart Assistant capable (ie. Google Assistant)

Another great feature of the Near ecosystem is the ability to integrate with Smart Assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant. After linking to your Google Home setup, you can control the Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight with easy commands.

Google Assistant seems to be able to activate your “Tap-to-Run” actions as long as you say “activate [name of action]”. But if you want to greater flexibility in your triggers, you can simply use IFTTT by linking it to Google Assistant and Near Light (Smart Life in IFTTT) to set up an Applet to do so.

Adapted content from the Near E27 Smart Bulb review ends here.

Conclusion

If you currently have non-smart downlights in your house with cutout size of 150mm, the Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight can be a good starting point for you to go smart. And for those planning to install smart downlights in your future BTO or home, it could be well worth considering the Near Ultra-Slim Smart Downlight due to the amount of value they offer given their price point. At S$29.90, it is way cheaper than competition and still offers smart features that aid your daily routines.