Smart light bulbs

Unlike traditional light bulbs, which you turn on and off at the wall, smart light bulbs can be controlled remotely using a smartphone, tablet, or voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa, Google Home and Apple's Siri. Smart light bulbs can also allow you to change the brightness and colour hue of the light, schedule a programme for lights to switch on and off automatically, and have the option to group lights in different parts of your home, for example upstairs and downstairs.

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What are Smart light bulbs?

Smart light bulbs connect to the internet using wifi, Bluetooth or a hub connected to your router, giving you remote control and functionality you don't get with traditional light bulbs. You can control them with your smartphone or tablet, and they're compatible with smart devices like Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Apple Home Kit, giving you voice control.

Smart light bulbs come in a wide variety of types and sizes to fit existing bayonet, screw and spotlight fittings; remember to check your light fixture before buying. You can also choose between white and colour-changing bulbs.

A man operating a smart lightbulb from his phone.

How do smart light bulbs work?

You need to leave the light switched on at the wall for smart bulbs to stay connected to your devices, ready to be turned on the moment you use the app or voice command. This means they draw a small amount of power even when off, though they're much more energy efficient than traditional incandescent light bulbs and have a long lifespan.

Brands that use a hub connected to your wifi router tend to supply them in starter kits along with their smart bulbs. Alternatively, you can buy the hub separately. Once you've set up a hub, you'll typically be tied to buying the same brand of smart bulbs because they need to be compatible with the hub. Some smart light bulbs can connect directly to your wi-fi, with no hub required.

One of the biggest benefits of smart light bulbs is convenience. You won't have to get up and find the light switch to turn lights on or off or adjust the brightness. You can simply tap the app or use a voice command. You can also programme a schedule for your smart bulbs to switch on and off automatically, which is useful when you're away on holiday and want your home to appear occupied. Another convenient feature of smart bulbs is combining them with motion sensors which turn lights on when they detect movement.

If you're thinking about buying smart light bulbs, check the brand you're considering is compatible with any smart home device you already use. If you want multiple smart bulbs around your home, choose a brand with an app that lets you group bulbs to control different rooms or zones easily. The initial expense of smart bulbs can be high compared with traditional bulbs. However, they are energy efficient and very long-lasting, and of course, they make it easy to check you haven't left the lights on in an empty house!

Are smart light bulbs worth it for the visually impaired?

For anyone living with sight loss, having the right lighting can help make the most of your useful vision and make home life more comfortable. Factors to think about for home lighting include:

Ensuring overhead lighting provides good, even illumination of the room.
Having plenty of additional lighting for tasks such as reading, working, and cooking.
Reducing glare by ensuring bare bulbs don't show.
Making sure areas like hallways and stairs are well-lit to help with moving around safely.
Maintaining even levels of lighting across different areas of the home to avoid your eyes having to adjust between bright and low-lit spaces.

The benefits of smart bulbs for people with sight loss include:

The convenience of choosing the exact type of lighting you need, using the app or voice commands to precisely control the brightness and colour hue.
The ability to provide a consistent level of light throughout the home by grouping multiple smart light bulbs in different rooms.
Their long lifespan, which means they only rarely need to be changed. That's one tricky job to be done much less often.

Check the manufacturer's app is compatible with the accessibility software you use. You may also want to speak to your Vision Rehabilitation Specialist, Habilitation Specialist or low-vision clinic for tailored advice on lighting your home.

When moving into a new terrace house in an area I was unfamiliar with, I found it very difficult to identify which house was mine. I put a Hue light bulb in my hall and set an automation on the Home App so that when I approach home after sunset, the hall light would turn on green. This enabled me to look out for the green light when walking down my street and know where my house was.

Joel Young, Guide Dog owner and employee

How we choose the best smart light bulbs

For people with vision impairment, certain features of smart light bulbs are particularly important, such as an app that's accessible if you use a screen reader and brightness and colour options that suit your needs.

Smart light bulbs need to integrate with your smart home device if you want to use voice commands. Most smart bulbs support Amazon Alexa and Google Home Assistant. Many also work with Apple HomeKit, and some with Samsung SmartThings.
Some smart bulbs connect directly to your wifi (like Kasa smart bulbs), but others need a hub connected to your router (like Philips Hue bulbs).
Check the type of light fitting you have before buying smart bulbs. Smart bulbs come with bayonet caps, Edison screw caps, and G or GU caps (typically used for spotlights).
The light output of bulbs is measured in lumens. The higher the lumens number, the brighter the light will be. You can also get dimmable LED bulbs which allow you to vary the brightness.
The Kelvin scale tells you about a bulb's colour temperature. A bulb with a lower Kelvin number creates a warm yellow light, and a higher Kelvin number delivers a cooler blue light. For comparison, the light on a bright sunny day will be around 5,500 Kelvin and a candle less than 2,000 Kelvin. Indoor lighting is commonly around 2,700-3,000 Kelvin, 3,000-4,500 Kelvin gives a neutral white light, and above 4,000 Kelvin gives a cool white light similar to daylight.
Smart light bulbs don't just come in white but in colour too. Colour-changing light bulbs offer a dizzying array of choices, up to 16 million colours. They usually include pre-programmed settings to make the choice a little less overwhelming!
Most smart light bulbs have a long lifespan of at least 25,000 hours. Good news if you find changing light bulbs a challenge.
Smart bulb manufacturers often make other products that work with their bulbs, such as motion sensors. Put together, these can make life even easier, as they trigger lights to come on when they sense movement and can even switch them off after a selected time.

Best smart lights

Philips sell a wide range of smart light bulbs under the Hue brand. You can choose from different bulb shapes, colours, and even vintage-style coiled filament bulbs. At the time of writing, the cheapest single Philips bulb retails for £15. Philips Hue is generally the most expensive of smart light bulbs. People who've bought Hue smart bulbs like the product quality and range of functions available. The Hue app is generally accessible with Apple's VoiceOver though some features, like setting up motion sensors, are not easy to use.

You need the Hue bridge to make the most of Hue bulbs' functionality. This connects to your wi-fi router with a network cable included when you buy the bridge or bulb starter kits. The cheapest starter kit includes the bridge and two bulbs for around £70. You can use some bulbs with Bluetooth, but this has a limited range, and you won't be able to control bulbs when away from home.

Hue bulbs are compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit.

You can programme Hue lights to your preferred schedule or let them use your location according to your smartphone to make lights come on automatically when you're at home.

Philips Hue white bulbs come in a range of brightness choices from 800 to 1600 lumens (the latter is good for rooms like the kitchen when you need bright, functional lighting). These bulbs create a warm white.

Philips White Ambiance bulbs also come in a range of brightness, from 800 to 1600 lumens but offer a range of colour temperatures from warm to cool white.

The most expensive Philips bulbs are white to colour bulbs, which offer the same variety of lumens and fittings choices but which offer more than 16 million colours.
Kasa smart bulbs are available from around £15 for white bulbs and £20 for colour-changing bulbs. They don't need a hub connected to your router to work. People who've bought these bulbs like their ease of use and value for money. The Kasa app can be used with Apple's VoiceOver screen reader though there are some unlabelled buttons, which isn't ideal (Source: Kasa Smart | AppleVis).

Kasa smart bulbs are compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings and IFTTT, but not Apple HomeKit.

The lights are dimmable from 1% to 100%, so you can choose the brightness that works best for you at any time of day.

You can use the app to create a schedule for lights to switch on and off automatically and to group different light bulbs, making them easier to control. The app also lets you see how much energy your bulbs are using.

Kasa white bulbs come in a choice of 450 or 800 lumens and 2,000 or 2,700 Kelvin. You can also buy a filament bulb if you like the more traditional filament design. The coloured Kasa bulb ranges from 2,700 to 9,000 Kelvin giving millions of colour choices.
Tapo smart bulbs from TP-Link are an affordable option with white bulbs available for about £7 and colour-changing bulbs for £9, with no need to buy a hub. People who've purchased these bulbs like the ease of set-up and find them good value.

You can control these bulbs with Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

The bulbs are dimmable, and you can save your preferred settings to make them easy to choose.

You can create a schedule for lights to turn on and off automatically when you want or choose sunrise and sunset modes which operate the lights automatically based on daylight hours.

Bulbs are available with Edison screw, bayonet, and spotlight (GU10) fittings. You can choose from white and colour-changing bulbs that offer 16 million different colours.
The LIFX smart bulb range starts from around £15 for a white bulb, and colour-changing bulbs cost about £30. These bulbs are a good choice if you want bulbs that connect directly to your wifi without using a hub. People who've bought these bulbs generally rate them well, though some have had difficulties disconnecting from their wi-fi.

LIFX bulbs work with Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Apple HomeKit to give hands-free voice control.

You don't have to buy a hub for these bulbs to work, but their reliability depends on the strength of your wifi signal around the home.

The bulbs are dimmable from 1% to 100%, and you can use the app to set schedules and programme your preferred colour and brightness combinations.

There's a choice of white and colour-changing bulbs. The white smart LED light bulb delivers 800 lumens. The colour version offers 16 million colours and cool to warm whites.
Hive smart bulbs are available from around £19, with a colour-changing bulb costing £44 at the time of writing. They're not the cheapest smart bulbs, but the app generally performs well for accessibility, and if you already use Hive products like the smart thermostat, they might be a good option.

Hive bulbs work with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, IFTTT and Apple HomeKit.

Hive bulbs work with a hub connected to your wi-fi.

You can set schedules for lights to switch on and off automatically. The app also includes 'mimic mode' for when you're away, simulating someone being at home by switching lights on and off randomly.

You can group multiple bulbs, for example, to control all the bulbs in a room or floor at once.

The dimmable white bulb has a lumens output of 806 and a colour temperature of 2,700 Kelvin. The tuneable white bulb has a colour temperature range of 2,700K – 6,500 Kelvin, and the colour-changing bulb offers 16 million different colours.

a woman controlling the smart light bulb with her phone

Smart light bulbs for Alexa

Most makes of smart bulbs are compatible with Amazon Alexa. Some can be set up by tapping 'devices' within the Alexa app, and Alexa will find and install the bulb, leaving just the final set-up to you. Alternatively, you may have to manually add the device by tapping 'add device' and following the install and set up steps that follow. Leading brands of smart light bulbs that work with Alexa include:

Philips Hue
LIFX
Hive
TP-Link Tapo
TP-Link Kasa
Wiz
TCP

Smart light bulbs for Google Home

Google doesn't make smart light bulbs, but you can use Google Home to control smart bulbs from other manufacturers. Leading smart bulb brands compatible with Google Home include:

Philips Hue
LIFX
TP-Link Kasa
TP-Link Tapo
Wiz
TCP
Hive

Smart light bulbs for Apple HomeKit

Apple doesn't make smart light bulbs, but you can use Apple HomeKit and Siri to control other makes of smart bulbs. Brands of smart bulbs compatible with Apple HomeKit include:

Philips Hue
LIFX
Hive
Wiz
TCP

Frequently asked questions

Yes, because smart light bulbs use energy-efficient LEDs. You can also use the features of smart bulbs to help save more energy. For example, when you’re away from home, you can check whether you left any lights on and turn them off remotely. You can combine them with motion sensors, to make lights go off when they sense there’s no one in the room. And with voice control, when a light gets accidentally left on, it’s much easier to turn it off (especially if that light’s upstairs and you’re comfortably settled on the sofa for the evening!).
Smart bulbs and smart switches are different. Smart bulbs can be used with existing light fittings and are pretty easy to set up, connecting directly to your wifi or via a hub plugged into your broadband router. Download the app, fit the bulb, and set it up on your phone or tablet. If you use smart bulbs and keep your old light switches, you need to keep the switches on for the bulbs to work. That can sometimes confuse visitors or family members who don't realise they shouldn't turn the switch off.

Smart switches replace existing light switches, and you may need an electrician to install them. Smart switches can be cheaper than replacing every bulb with a smart one. For example, a smart light switch could be more affordable than replacing all the bulbs if you have light fittings with multiple bulbs. However, smart light switches won't give you the full range of colours and hues available from smart bulbs.

To know more about other types of smart lighting

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Technically reviewed by: Subject Matter Experts on 02/11/2023

Guide Dogs is committed to integrating technology into our service delivery and promoting excellence in accessibility and usability. Our staff undergo comprehensive training in technology and accessibility in collaboration with industry leaders like Apple. We foster knowledge of technology and create content through our Technology Champions, comprising Vision Rehabilitation Specialists and Habilitation Specialists. We review this content periodically to ensure that it is up to date and includes new features and changes with operating systems. We work with our partners to ensure accessibility is at the centre of the design. To find out more, there is more information in our accessibility policy.

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