Best Smart Lightbulbs
I tried 10 bulbs—from brands that include GE Lighting, LIFX, Philips, TP-Link, and Wyze—and found you don’t have to spend a lot to get a super-smart bulb
Thinking about upgrading to smart lightbulbs? You’re not alone. According to a 2022 Global Consumer Survey by the market research firm Statista, 32 percent of U.S. respondents own smart lighting products, such as plugs and bulbs.
It’s easy to see—for this smart home reporter, at least—why smart lightbulbs are becoming so popular: My living room smart lights automatically turn off and on when I leave and return home. My smart porch light turns on precisely at sunset, all year long. And my kitchen, living room, and office lights automatically turn off with a simple “goodnight” to Alexa. If your lights are smart, you can control them from a smartphone or digital assistant (no need to get up and flip a switch), and on certain models—including all the ones I’m reviewing here—you can even change their color to one of millions to suit your mood or event.
Smart lightbulbs are generally offered in three types that vary in price, with most brands making some combination of:
- Dimmable bulbs, the most affordable of the bunch, which can simply change brightness.
- White tunable bulbs that allow you to change the color temperature from a warm white to a cold white, or anywhere in between, as well as dim their overall brightness.
- Multicolor or color-changing bulbs that can be set to one of millions of different colors. They also offer white-tuning and dimming.
I decided to review multicolor bulbs because they offer all the features of their dimming-only and white-tuning-only cousins. We believe the performance of these more limited models will be similar to that of the multicolor bulbs, and a few brands—Sylvania and Wyze—have confirmed that.
Here’s a quick look at the 10 smart lightbulbs I evaluated. The first five represent my top picks based on various criteria, including value, white tuning, and ease of setup, among others.
