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Oct 26, 2024

Best Smart Lights for 2024 - CNET

Article updated on October 24, 2024 at 12:25 AM PDT From energy-efficient bulbs to customizable color schemes, explore the best smart lights to enhance your home's atmosphere. CNET’s expert staff

Article updated on October 24, 2024 at 12:25 AM PDT

From energy-efficient bulbs to customizable color schemes, explore the best smart lights to enhance your home's atmosphere.

CNET’s expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise.

CNET’s expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise.

If you're just starting out on your smart home journey, smart bulbs are an easy, low-stakes and affordable place to start. From string lights for outdoor use to smart lighting enabled by voice control, you can build your own smart lighting solutions with our expert recommendations for the best smart lights. Also, as we enter the holiday season, you may be looking for more smart home items you can gift. Well, we've done the groundwork and found the best smart home gifts for 2024.

This color-changing Philips Wiz Connected LED works with Alexa and Google, and costs just $13.

You can build entire smart lighting systems with dirt-cheap white light smart bulbs that cost less than $10, color-changing bulbs for less than $15 a piece, solar-powered outdoor smart lights for as low as $35 a pop, plus dimmable smart light switches and nifty new lighting accessories for less than $50 each. Willing to splurge a bit? Smart statement pieces from names like Nanoleaf promise to cover your walls in color, too.

Yes, there are a lot of options when it comes to picking smart bulbs. However, once you're ready to upgrade your smart home system with smart lights -- that's where we come in. We have the best picks for LED smart bulbs, wall panels, strip lights, smart switches, Bluetooth bulb options and accessories you're after -- we've tested plenty of them. These are our top recommendations for the best smart lights you can buy.

If you've been led to believe that you need to spend a lot of money to get the best smart light bulb, you've been misinformed. As it turns out, one of the cheapest smart bulbs is one of the best smart lights, and that comes from Wiz. While the brand name may not ring a bell for you, its sibling company that's under the Signify umbrella likely is familiar -- Philips Hue.

Wiz does make color-changing bulbs that are also quite good, but here we are focusing on the brand's high-quality tunable white bulbs. These are a typical-shaped bulb, A19, with an E26 base with an incandescent equivalent rating of 60 watts. In terms of how bright this bulb can get, you'll get plenty of output from the Wiz Tunable White LED Smart Bulb is rated at 800 lumens with a color range from a warm 2700K to a cool 6500K

There are multiple ways to control this bulb: Use the Wiz app on your phone, Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri or IFTTT. While these smart home platform integrations aren't necessarily unique, Matter support is a bit more novel -- at least right now. These options mean that you'll have a lot of flexibility in where and how you manage your Wiz smart bulbs. One of the ways people use these smart home platforms is for automation, like connecting to a smart sensor to turn on the lights when motion is detected. With these new Wiz bulbs, that ability is fully built into the light with the need for a secondary sensor.

Read more: Best Cheap Home Security Devices

There are some downsides to the Wiz bulb, and that is in the motion automation feature and Matter connectivity. As for what Wiz calls Spacesense, this feature works mostly well, but in order for bulbs to link together and interact properly for motion detection, you have to ensure that bulbs are at least 6.5 feet (or 2m) apart. I've also had some inconsistencies with the reaction time for the feature. It's not a deal-breaker for me, but it's worth noting. As for Matter, that is more of an issue for the new smart home device standard and hopefully improves with a future update.

If you want something a little more advanced than the Wyze Bulb, then consider going with Philips Hue LED bulbs. At $14 each, Philips' Hue White LED bulbs are a lot more affordable than you might expect, and the newest Bluetooth versions of the Philips Hue bulbs can pair directly with Alexa or Google Assistant without the need for the Hue Bridge. The same goes for the Lifx Mini White LED, which works with Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, and IFTTT. As of writing this, that one's $27 on Amazon.

Want something more decorative? Philips is starting to release vintage-style LED bulbs with fake filaments twisted inside (you've probably seen bulbs just like them at your local hipster dive bar). They'd be a good pick for exposed-bulb setups where you aren't hiding your light source under a lampshade.

If you prefer Google Assistant, then you might be better off with a C by GE smart bulb. These LED smart bulbs are designed to pair seamlessly with your Google Home smart speaker and Google Nest Hub smart display. You don't need a hub, and you don't even need the GE smartphone or tablet app -- just turn the LED lights on and sync them with your setup right from the Google Home app. From there, you'll enjoy some of the snappiest and most responsive voice control we've tested.

There aren't as many smart floodlights as classic, A-shaped smart LED bulbs, but your options are growing. That includes a pretty significant new addition from Philips Hue, which recently released a floodlight version of the popular Hue White smart LED bulb described above. Plus, with this bulb offering IP44 water resistance, you can use it outdoors as well as inside.

I like the Philips Hue White floodlight for all of the same reasons I like the regular-size bulb. It's bright, at 1,200 lumens, this LED smart bulb is efficient, and it's a bit expensive -- but it's part of a very good smart lighting platform that works with everything. Like the rest of Hue's new bulbs, the new floodlight uses both Bluetooth and Zigbee, so you can skip the Hue Bridge and just pair directly with your smartphone or with Amazon Alexa or Google if that's all you want. However, if you go the route of skipping the Hue Bridge, you'll lose out on many of the smart features.

If you're an Amazon Alexa user looking for something cheap, then Sengled leads the way with a smart floodlight that can pair directly with the Echo Plus or the Echo Show -- if you don't have one of those, you'll need the Sengled hub plugged into your router. You'll find those bulbs on Amazon in a two-pack that costs $22.

Sengled makes floodlights that change colors, too (and obviously, so does Philips Hue). But if it's a color bulb that you want, I say it's worth it to go with Lifx, an Australian startup that routinely aces our color quality tests with bold, bright shades that look terrific. The company's lights all use your Wi-Fi network to talk directly to your router, so they don't need a hub, they come with an excellent, full-featured app and they're compatible with Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant (and IFTTT) right out of the box.

A color-changing Lifx floodlight costs $30 at Amazon. That's not cheap, but Lifx floodlights are also a few hundred lumens brighter at peak settings than any competitor we've tested to date. Couple that with the color quality, and you're looking at a very worthy upgrade pick.

I've been using Govee lighting products for a few years now, and one thing that has always stood out to me is the accessibility of the devices and the vibrant colors produced. Though the brand is mostly known for its wide variety of lighting products, like floor lamps and wall-mounted lights, all put out bright, great-looking colors and can connect with Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant with absolutely no need for a hub. It is a downer that these bulbs aren't ready for Matter though.

At $16 each, though regularly on sale, Govee LED Smart Light Bulbs are as impressive bright as they are colorful. The full-featured app is a bright spot, too, with easy app control of your lights via a convenient color dial and lots of nice extras like animated effects and an auto-scheduling Day & Dusk mode. Govee packs customization options in the app for all its lighting products, and the bulbs are no exception, with plenty of preset lighting scenes to go along with the color wheel and other effects.

Lifx gives it a pretty good run for the money, but on the whole, Philips Hue still boasts the best smart lighting platform money can buy. If that matters to you more than the Lifx bump in brightness and color quality, then a Philips Hue bulb is probably worth the extra cash. The newest color-changing Hue bulbs with Bluetooth radios that let you use them without the Hue Bridge sell for $41 for a single bulb.

If you're just controlling your home's lights using the Alexa or Google Home app, then the platform strengths of Lifx and Philips Hue are a little less important -- and you can probably afford to go with something less expensive. Again, I like Sengled bulbs for use with Alexa and Google Assistant. The brand offers color-changing smart bulbs for about $20 apiece. If you really want a bargain, then check out the

Lifx is a pretty clear winner when it comes to color-changing light strips too -- namely, the 9.8-foot Lifx Z light strip. It doesn't come cheap, but the colors look just as great as you'll get from Lifx bulbs, and it's capable of putting out multiple colors at once, which gives you a lot more room to create custom scenes and animated effects. None of the top competitors make bulbs that can put out more than one color at a time, not even Philips Hue.

The Lifx Z starter kit usually retails for a fairly steep $90 or more. I bought one on sale a few years ago for the back of my living room TV -- I had to tape it in place after the TV's heat wore down the strip's adhesive backing, but apart from that, we love the thing.

Another very impressive light strip is the Lifx Lightstrip Color Zones. While it is a bit more pricey than Govee's offering, coming in at $75 for the 80-inch kit, Lifx has long been known to offer exceptional colors from its lighting products. For a less expensive option, while I haven't tested it just yet, Sengled's Zigbee light strip is one of your newest options, relatively speaking, and it costs only $44. Just know that you'll need a Zigbee hub to control your lights -- Sengled's hub, the SmartThings Hub, or an Amazon Echo Plus or Echo Show will all do the trick.

The Sylvania Smart Plus Light Strip is even less expensive and available on Amazon right now for less than $15. It uses Bluetooth to pair directly with your smartphone without the need for a hub, and while it doesn't offer native support for Alexa or Google, it does support Siri. It isn't as bright as Lifx's strip and it puts out only one color at a time, and the Siri voice controls were occasionally laggy in my tests, but it's a reasonable budget pick for HomeKit households, especially at its current price.

If you've got a hardwired light that you'd like to be able to automate, you can swap the bulb out for a smart bulb -- or you can just smarten things up at the switch. That's an especially cost-effective approach if it controls several bulbs at once.

Among all of the smart switches that we've tested at the CNET Smart Home, our favorite has long been the Lutron Caseta. Lutron is a lighting aisle mainstay, and its light switches use a proprietary signal called Clear Connect. That means that they require the Lutron Bridge in order to connect with your router, but the good news is that Clear Connect is about as swift and reliable as wireless protocols come.

Aside from the strong performance, Lutron's Caseta switches come in a variety of colors and designs, and apart from the dimmable version seen here, you can also get standard on/off switches, wall-mounted remotes that can serve as a second for three-way setups, audio control switches that sync with Sonos and fan controls for automating a ceiling fan. If you really want to go big, you can add Lutron's luxurious automated shades to your setup, too. Whatever you choose, all of it is compatible with just about everything, too: Alexa, Google, Siri, Nest, IFTTT -- you name it.

A single Lutron Caseta with the mandatory Lutron Bridge and a Pico remote that you can mount in the wall or take with you around the house is available on Amazon right now for $82. That's a fair price for a solid foundation that you can build on whenever Lutron stuff goes on sale.

Smart light switches are an alternative to smart lights that can provide many of the same features you'd get from a bulb, aside from color changing. While more expensive to get started than just a light bulb, depending on how many lighting fixtures you have in your home, they could be cheaper than buying a bunch of bulbs. We intend to add options to this section as there are more solid choices in this category.

For now, if you just want something simple and inexpensive, you should check out TP-Link's Kasa line of switches, all of which can connect with both Alexa and Google without need for a hub. For my money, I like the $20 version that'll dim the lights. If you want a more premium option, then consider the ultra-smart Lutron Caseta Diva Smart Dimmer.

If you want to go all out with smart lighting -- maybe for a game room or a kids' room -- then you might consider color-changing Wi-Fi LED smart light panels for your walls. The Toronto-based brand Nanoleaf got there first with its triangular Aurora panels before following them up with square-shaped, touch-sensitive Nanoleaf Canvas panels, too. Now, the brand has a third-gen set of panels up for sale -- hexagons, this time. And unless you strongly prefer triangles or squares, those hexagons are the ones you want.

The panels can display a wide variety of animated effects, including a library with hundreds of user-created options that are free to try for yourself. They also feature a built-in microphone that lets them animate in rhythm with whatever music you're listening to or whatever game you're playing. You can turn them on and off with a tap and choose between presets with the built-in buttons on the base panel, but they also support lighting controls with voice commands via Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant.

In addition, the new Hexagon panels are easier to stick to the wall thanks to new, detachable mounting plates. At $200, they aren't cheap, but they're fun and dynamic and perfect for a kids' room or a gaming room.

For a while, Nanoleaf was the only notable name in the category of illuminated wall tiles for a little while. However, Govee has stepped up to fill that gap, and some may argue that Nanoleaf has been beaten in some ways. The Govee Glide Hexa Light Panels start at $100 on Amazon for seven panels, like Naoleaf, or spend $100 for 10 panels through a sale. You'll get vivid colors and plenty of customization options too.

Smart bulbs are great, but do you know what's not so great? The fact that turning things off at the switch cuts their power, and cuts your power to control them via voice, app or automation. That's an all-too-common smart home headache, especially if you're living with kids or houseguests.

Thankfully, Lutron came up with a clever solution last year. It's called the Aurora, and it's designed to pair wirelessly with Philips Hue lights. You literally snap it in place over top of whatever dumb light switch is wired to your Hue lights. That locks it into the on position and lets you turn devices on and off at the wall without actually cutting power to the bulbs -- that way, your automations and voice controls will keep on working even when the lights are switched off.

Philips Hue's users are the most spoiled when it comes to accessory options. In addition to the Aurora, you could add one of Philips Hue's wireless dimming remotes to your setup, or maybe motion sensors -- Hue offers both an indoor and an outdoor version.

My favorite of the bunch, though, was the Philips Hue Tap (out of stock). Unfortunately, Philips Hue stopped offering it. Now, you can choose from a couple of options that work well and have a long battery life. I have two of the Philips Hue Smart Wireless Dimmers, which allow you to power on and off your lights and toggle between scenes. The other option is the Philips Hue Wireless Smart Light Switch Button, which is a single customizable button that lets you set up different button presses to execute different actions for your lights.

If you like that finger-powered approach but would rather have it in a light switch design that you can mount in your wall, then check out the Click smart switch from RunLessWire, previously known as the Illumra. Like the Tap, it needs no batteries or wires, and comes with four programmable buttons that also support Apple HomeKit devices.

If you haven't experienced TV bias lighting, then you're missing out. Bias lighting is illumination that comes from the backside of your TV, generally shining against the wall. With the Govee Envisual TV LED Backlight T2, you get active lighting that matches what is happening on your TV screen. The effect causes a deeper immersion of whatever is being viewed on the screen. This is thanks to an RGBIC LED strip, I would rather RGBICWW for better whites, reacting to what the dual-lens camera watching your television screen sees.

The camera module mounts on top of your TV, which is a bit of an eyesore, but you quickly stop noticing it, like the hole-punch camera in smartphones. After sticking the LED strip to the back of your TV, which can be up to 100 inches, and connecting everything to the control box, you're ready to start enjoying a more immersive TV viewing experience.

The dual camera setup means a more accurate representation in the LED light strip to what is happening on the screen. Everything works with the Govee Envisual TV LED Backlight T2, from watching sporting events to blockbuster movies.

Outdoor lighting is key to a safe and secure home, so upgrading to smart outdoor lights that double as motion detectors and sync with your security system makes a lot of sense. For my money, the best way to get there is with Ring, which offers a full portfolio of affordable outdoor smart lights, all of which can sync up with your Ring cameras and sync up with Alexa for voice control, too.

My favorites of the bunch are the Ring Pathlights, especially the new solar-powered version pictured above. At just $30 a pop on Amazon, each one includes a built-in motion sensor that can turn on a light or a group of lights whenever someone passes by, and they can trigger your Ring cameras to start recording, too. That's a great way to build a smart home that's aware of what's going on outside.

You'll need a Ring Bridge in your home in order to use them, but you can currently get one bundled with two solar-powered smart Pathlights for $80.