It’s not a new idea to best smart light bulbs bulbs that can be controlled by a hub or a smartphone app. What’s new is how far this technology has come in the few years since it first came out. New, too: Products like the Nanoleaf Light Panels, which are a system of LED panels that fit together and can be used to decorate with light, completely change the idea of a light bulb. Smart LED bulbs aren’t quite a commodity yet, but as far as the market goes, they are getting close. Today’s bulbs are smaller, brighter, better at showing colours, and have control apps that do more and are easier to set up than ever before.
It should be easy to change light bulbs, even smart ones. If you screw a smart LED bulb into a lamp and connect it to your phone, you’ll never have to worry about finding a switch or getting lost in the dark. You can even change the color of many of them. We recommend the Wyze Bulb Color because it’s one of the brightest smart bulbs we have tried, but it can also be dimmed down to a low level that’s good for reading or entertaining. Below we have mentioned some of the best smart light bulbs.
7 Best Smart Light Bulbs
Philips Hue White + Color Ambiance
Philips Hue bulbs are probably something you have heard of if you’ve done any research on smart lights. The range is popular for a number of different reasons, and we agree that they are the best smart light bulbs you can get because of how compatible they are, how easy their app is to use, and how they can be added to. Philips Hue is the way to go if you know you want to use IoT devices in more than one room of your home.
First of all, it’s important to know that Hue bulbs now have Bluetooth built in. That means you can buy a few to test them out and then easily add more lights to your home by connecting them to a hub. Before, all lights needed the hub, but now it’s much easier to try out a few lights before making a full commitment.
Wyze Bulb Color
For now, this is one of the best smart light bulbs. is that they are expensive, even compared to other LED bulbs. Because of this, the Wyze smart bulb is great for people on a tight budget. If all you want is a smart light bulb you can control and connect to other smart home devices, this is one of the best ones. You can change both the brightness and the colour temperature. You can do this not only with Wyze’s app, but also with Alexa, Google Assistant, and IFTTT.
From the Wyze app, you can set schedules for when the light should turn on and off, but only based on a specific time, not dawn or dusk. You can also set a Vacation mode, which turns the bulbs on and off randomly to make it look like you’re home. You can also use Wyze’s home security cameras and motion sensors to set off events.
Meross MSL120 Smart Wi-Fi LED Bulb
The Meross MSL120 Smart Wi-Fi LED Bulb works with every major smart-home platform, including Apple’s HomeKit, and it doesn’t need a hub. This means that any other smart-home device, like a camera, water-leak sensor, or smart plug, can turn it on or off. It also works with Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant when you speak to them. For now, this is one of the For now, this is one of the For now, this is one of the best smart light bulbs you can consider.
It doesn’t have any special effects and doesn’t produce as wide a range of white tones as our top two picks, but it has a good range, a bright colour palette, and enough brightness for everyday use. It’s also cheaper than most other bulbs that work with HomeKit.
Cree Lighting Connected Max Smart LED
We had some trouble sending commands to this cheap smart bulb, but you can’t beat the price when you consider that it can change between white and full colour. Cree Lighting’s Connected Max family also comes in many different shapes, such as BR30, PAR38, vintage filament, tape lighting, and even retrofit downlights. It’s not compatible with HomeKit, but Siri Shortcuts do work with it. This is one of the best smart light bulbs.
LIFX Color A19
Overall, LIFX’s colour smart lights are similar to Hue’s White + Ambiance bulbs in that they are easy to set up, have bright, saturated colours, and work with Alexa, Google Assistant, and HomeKit. But the main difference is that LIFX bulbs only work with Wi-Fi, so even if you wanted to, you couldn’t connect them to a hub, and some of them cost a little more than Hue devices. The Color A19 bulb, which has 1100 lumens, usually costs $50, but there is an equivalent with 800 lumens that costs $35 per bulb and is a bit cheaper. This is one of the best smart light bulbs you can consider.
The LIFX mobile app is also the smoothest one we tried. Even if that doesn’t mean much to you, it’s important to know because most people use their smart lights every day through their phones. On the homepage, you can see all of your room groups and the names of the lights in each room. With just one tap, you can turn on all the lights in your home or just one in a room.
Sengled Smart Wi-Fi LED
Sengled makes one of the best smart light bulbs for people who want something cheap and easy to set up. Sengled is great for people who aren’t very tech-savvy because, unlike Philips Hue bulbs, Sengled smart Wi-Fi bulbs connect directly to your home network. You don’t need a bridge to light up your space.
You can start with one of three options: a soft white bulb for $12, a daylight bulb for $15, or a multicolor bulb for $25. If you plan to buy more than one Sengled device, you might want to buy the Sengled hub. The Sengled app works with Alexa and Google Assistant. It has all the basic smart-bulb features, like timers, scenes, schedules, and routines, but it’s not as advanced as Philips Hue.
Philips Hue Lily
Signify’s Philips Hue product line has the best smart light bulbs for outdoor and landscape use. In addition to the Lily spotlight, there is the Lily XL spotlight, the Calla Bollard light, the Econic Outdoor Pedestal, the Amarant linear outdoor light, no less than 9 wall or ceiling-mount outdoor lights, and even outdoor LED light strips. Because of this variety and the high quality of the design and construction, Signify can charge high prices for its lights.
Conclusion
In the best smart light bulbs, colour LEDs get all the attention because they come in a rainbow of colours and can do a lot of fun things. It’s fun, but most of us won’t need to turn all the lights in the house blue or red very often, unless our team just won the World Series and we want to celebrate. Even so, you’ll probably want to turn them all back to white after the party.
