The Best Smart Light Bulbs

Light bulbs you can turn on with a tap on a smartphone screen or your voice are an easy way to step into smart home technology.

By Timothy Dale | Updated Oct 12, 2021 3:33 PM

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The Best Smart Light Bulb Options

Photo: pexels.com

Smart light bulbs are a great place to begin making your home, well, smarter. You can turn them on and off, set timers, and even change light colors with your smartphone or voice assistant.

Most smart light bulbs are easy to install. Just screw a smart bulb into a lamp, hook it up to an app, and you’ll never have to fumble around in the dark looking for a switch again. Smart light bulbs have gotten popular as more complex smart home technologies like smart security cameras and smart thermostats have become the norm.

The best smart light bulbs for you depends on the type of network you want in your home and how you want to use the bulbs. Keep reading to find some of the best smart light bulbs for your home.

  1. BEST OVERALL: Philips Hue LED Smart Button Starter Kit
  2. RUNNER UP: Kasa Smart KL110 Light Bulb
  3. BEST FOR SECURITY: Sengled Flood Light
  4. BEST PORTABLE: Philips Hue Go V2
  5. BEST COLOR RANGE: LUMIMAN Smart WiFi Light Bulb
  6. BEST BLUETOOTH: C by GE A19 C-Life and C-Sleep Smart LED
The Best Smart Light Bulb Options

Photo: freepik.com

Before You Buy a Smart Light Bulb

Smart light bulbs are great, but they are not suitable for every situation. They work well with standard light switches, but they don’t work well with dimmer switches. Lessening the electrical flow to a smart bulb—as a dimmer switch does—can cause the bulb to wear out prematurely.

Check to see whether the smart light bulb you want needs a smart home hub to operate properly. If it does, the light bulb won’t work correctly on its own. Make sure the bulb’s connection is compatible to your setup, too. Wi-Fi can connect to a range of devices, but Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Z-Wave are more limited in how they interact with smart home devices.

What to Consider When Choosing the Best Smart Light Bulbs

Before choosing the best smart light bulbs for your home, learn the most important shopping considerations and some reasons to consider switching to smart light bulbs.

Type

Smart light bulbs come in four main types based on how they connect to your smart home system and phone.

  • Zigbee and Z-Wave smart light bulbs operate on a mesh network that can use smart home devices and a central hub to boost the network signal. This means each device extends the signal strength and range of the smart home system. Z-Wave and Zigbee are less popular than Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so you will have a smaller selection of compatible components to choose from.
  • Wi-Fi smart light bulbs connect directly to your phone through your Wi-Fi router or through a central hub. Wi-Fi is the most popular method of connectivity used by smart light bulbs. Many smart home systems, like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, use Wi-Fi to link all their devices. If a large smart home ecosystem is your goal, Wi-Fi is the best option.
  • Bluetooth smart light bulbs are inexpensive because they are not designed to communicate with a central hub. Instead, these light bulbs pair directly with your smartphone or tablet for direct control over the lighting.

Brightness

A bulb’s brightness is expressed in lumens (lm), a measurement of the total amount of light visible to the eye. The more lumens produced by a smart light bulb, the brighter the light. The average lumen output for a smart light bulb is 800 lm, but choose the lumens based on how you’ll be using the bulb. You want more lumens for outdoor lighting, fewer lumens for soft indoor lighting. Pick smart bulbs and other types of light bulbs based on your light needs.

Color

Some smart bulbs produce only white light; others can produce light in any color of the rainbow. Colored light is a good way to add atmosphere, but a bulb that can produce a lot of hues usually costs more. Both types of bulbs are dimmable.

Smart Home Compatibility

When picking the best smart light bulbs for your home, decide whether you want bulbs that tie into a smart home platform or bulbs that work directly with a smartphone. Bulbs that work directly with a phone are easier to install because you won’t have to link the bulb to a central hub. Just screw it in, download the app, and you’re ready to go.

If you’re more ambitious and want to achieve a smart home system at some point, go with a bulb that can tie into Amazon Alexa, Google Home, or Apple HomeKit. These smart home systems let you access, control, schedule, and configure all the smart light bulbs in your house from one location.

App Features

Basic smart light bulbs connect to your phone through an app, allowing you to control the bulb remotely by touching the screen. Using the app, you can schedule some smart light bulbs to turn on or off at specific times.

Some smart bulbs have built-in motion sensors that send a notification to your phone when the light is triggered, so you are aware of a possible intruder. Some smart lighting apps can use geofencing to track the GPS in your phone and turn on the lights when you are within a specific range.

Setup

It’s relatively simple to set up a smart light bulb. If it operates through your phone independent of a smart home system, just screw it in, download the app, and you’re ready to go. If you’re using it with a smart home system, most manufacturers will have detailed information on their website about how to use their product. If you are uncomfortable setting up smart light bulbs, look for a bulb that offers setup videos and tech support.

Expandability

Having a smart light bulb on your porch you can turn on as you pull into the driveway is great, but you can take it a step further by expanding your smart lighting system to include your entire home. To build a smart home system, you need smart light bulbs that can interact with each other. This allows you to turn on or off a group of lights at the same time.

Our Top Picks

We chose these top-rated products for quality and price, with an eye toward the important considerations outlined above.

Best Overall

The Best Smart Light Bulb Option: Philips Hue White and Color LED Smart Button Kit
Photo: amazon.com

Enter the world of smart lighting with this starter kit from Philips Hue. The kit includes four smart light bulbs and a Hue Hub that lets you connect the bulbs to your phone or voice assistant. The kit also comes with the Hue Smart Button, a manual control.

The Hue Hub can operate up to 50 Philips Hue lights and connect to smart home systems like Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, and Google Assistant, so you get voice-activated control. Each bulb produces up to 800 lm of visible light, equivalent to a 60-watt bulb.

You can choose many colors and brightness levels and create preset scenes. The companion smartphone app includes a how-to video that demonstrates what the bulbs can do.

Pros

  • High-quality bulb
  • Multiple color options
  • Customizable light modes
  • Easy to set up

Cons

  • Pricey

Runner Up

The Best Smart Light Bulb Option: Kasa Smart Light Bulb
Photo: amazon.com

Home automation hubs can be a pain to deal with. This smart light bulb cuts out the middleman by connecting to your smartphone through your home’s Wi-Fi network—no extra equipment required. Screw it in, download an app, and you’re good to go.

The bulb can be controlled using a touch screen or via voice commands when connected to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. The bulb produces 800 lm at its maximum brightness and can be dimmed in 1 percent increments from 1 percent to 100 percent.

Set schedules through the app so the lights are on when you get home and go off to conserve energy when you don’t need them.

Pros

  • Affordable
  • No hub required
  • Simple to install

Cons

  • Limited features
  • No multicolored lighting
  • White color temperature is fixed

Best for Security

The Best Smart Light Bulb Option: Sengled Flood Light with Motion Sensor
Photo: amazon.com

Sengled’s smart flood light has a motion sensor and will light up a driveway, porch, or backyard when you need it and leave it dark when you don’t. The bulb detects motion within 30 feet of the light fixture and illuminates the area for 90 seconds with up to 1,200 lm of brightness.

The smart bulb requires a compatible hub, such as the Sengled Smart Hub or another Zigbee hub like Samsung SmartThings or Amazon Alexa’s Echo. The light is rated for outdoor use and weatherproof, so rain, wind, or snow won’t cause it to malfunction.

Pros

  • Motion sensor
  • Very bright light
  • Suitable for outdoor use

Cons

  • Motion sensor is very sensitive

Best Portable

The Best Smart Light Bulb Option: Philips Hue Go White and Color Portable Table Lamp
Photo: amazon.com

This portable table lamp from Philips Hue gives you the advantages of the smart lighting on the go. Battery powered, the Philips Hue light produces up to 520 lm, which isn’t as bright as a typical light bulb but is good for mood lighting, accent lighting, and bedroom lighting. Choose between 16 million light colors including shades of white light for flexible illumination.

The device connects via a bridge, so it’s intended for use as an in-home light. The rechargeable battery lasts for three hours on a charge. The bulb connects to your phone via an app or to compatible smart home systems like Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant, Nest, and Samsung SmartThings.

Pros

  • Great for mood lighting
  • Millions of colors to choose from
  • Rechargeable battery

Cons

  • Max brightness is quite low

Best Color Range

The Best Smart Light Bulb Option: LUMIMAN Smart WiFi Light Bulb, LED RGB Color Changing
Photo: amazon.com

Set a mood with light ranging from red to blue to white with this pair of smart bulbs that have a whopping 16 million colors each. Each bulb can produce up to 800 lm of brightness, and its colors are dimmable.

The bulb connects to your smartphone through your home’s Wi-Fi so you do not need a hub, but it is compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Home Assistant for voice control. Say, “Alexa, set the bedroom to red,” and your wish is the bulb’s command. You can set up schedules for the bulb to turn on and off at a preset time.

Pros

  • Budget-friendly
  • Works with most smart home devices
  • Can sync to music

Cons

  • Can be complicated to set up

Best Bluetooth

The Best Smart Light Bulb Option: GE Lighting C by GE A19 C-Life and C-Sleep Smart LED
Photo: amazon.com

If you have only one or two smart bulbs in your home that operate on a network, and you don’t want to deal with a hub, go with these bulbs that link directly to your smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth.

These smart light bulbs produce up to 850 lm of brightness but only produce white light. You can adjust the brightness and hue of the light, and three settings for morning, midday, and evening lighting are included. If you want to expand your system in the future, these bulbs are compatible with a voice assistant via a hub.

Pros

  • No hub required
  • Easy to install
  • Voice compatible

Cons

  • White light only

Our Verdict

If looking to upgrade your home’s lighting, look no further than the Philips Hue LED Smart Button Starter Kit, which is highly customizable, easy to use and install, and provides millions of color options. For those just starting out and looking to test out smart lights, consider a more budget-friendly option like the C by GE A19 C-Life and C-Sleep Smart LED, which are less work to set up but are still a step up from normal bulbs.

How We Chose the Best Smart Light Bulbs

When looking at the wide variety of smart light bulbs on the market, we took the most important aspects into consideration as we curated our list of recommendations. We made sure our top picks had adequate brightness, as well as color range—several of our picks include a full color spectrum to choose from—in addition to being easily controllable from a smartphone or home voice activation system.

While products that require a home hub to operate can offer additional customization features, we are also aware that some shoppers prefer to avoid the added installation hassle. As such, we included multiple options for smart bulbs that connect directly to Wi-Fi, cutting out the need for a home hub—and making setup easier for those just starting out in the world of smart home gadgets.

FAQs

Trying to decide on the best smart light bulb for you? Here’s more information to help you choose.

Q. Do smart light bulbs use more electricity?

Smart bulbs do not use more electricity than standard bulbs, even though they are always drawing power because they must remain linked to their network. They use an average of fewer than 1 kWh per month in standby mode. The amount of electricity the bulb uses when lit depends on the type of light bulb.

Q. Do smart bulbs work with normal switches?

Yes, you can control a smart light bulb with a normal light switch.

Q. Can you control smart bulbs away from home?

Yes, you can control smart bulbs with your smartphone when you are away from home. Depending on the type of smart bulb you choose, you can connect your phone directly to the bulb and operate it via an app, hub, or smart home system.