News

Jun 26, 2025

The Best Smart LED Light Bulbs for 2025

Smart light bulbs abound, letting you replace your standard incandescent bulbs with a variety of connected solutions that support phone and voice control. Back when we first started reviewing

Smart light bulbs abound, letting you replace your standard incandescent bulbs with a variety of connected solutions that support phone and voice control. Back when we first started reviewing connected lighting products a decade ago, a starter kit with three bulbs cost $200, but today, the best smart lights cost a fraction of that. Our top pick, the AiDot Linkind Matter Smart Light Bulb, costs $20, displays 16 million colors and a range of white tones, and works with multiple smart home automation platforms. If you want smart bulbs for your recessed fixtures, colorful accent lighting for inside or outside your home, or a night light for your kid's room or a dark hallway, we have you covered in our list below.

The AiDot Linkind Wi-Fi Matter Smart Light Bulb features built-in Wi-Fi and works with the Matter smart home standard, so you can easily connect it to your home network and pair it with the Alexa, Google, HomeKit, and SmartThings home automation systems. It also supports IFTTT applets that allow it to interact with several third-party smart home devices. It delivers rich colors and warm and cool whites and offers lots of fun lighting effects, plus energy usage reports.

If you’re looking for a smart and colorful LED bulb that will work with all your other smart home devices, the AiDot Linkind Matter Smart Light Bulb is your best bet. It's a plastic A19 bulb that uses a standard E26 screw-in base.

Philips makes some of our favorite smart light bulbs, but its Hue LEDs are pricey. Starting at just $9.97, the Philips Dimmable A19 Smart Wi-Fi Wiz Light Bulb is a far more affordable option. It offers lots of features for the price, including support for IFTTT integrations and voice control via Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri Shortcuts. It delivers 800 lumens of brightness, roughly equivalent to a 60-watt incandescent bulb, and has a 2700K (warm) color temperature. Since we reviewed it, the bulb's design and packaging have changed and now feature Wiz's branding more prominently, but the price and core functionality remain the same.

The Philips Dimmable A19 Smart Wi-Fi Wiz bulb is a top option if you want a white bulb, and don't need colorful lighting. It offers loads of features for its low price, including integrated Wi-Fi for hubless app control, multi-platform voice command support, and plenty of customization options. Its companion app lets you create Scenes to set the mood for different occasions, Rhythms to automate lighting adjustments based on the time of day, and Schedules to enable your preferred light mode on certain days and times.

The Nanoleaf Essentials Matter BR30 is a full-featured smart bulb for recessed fixtures that uses Matter technology to integrate with the most widely used home automation platforms including Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings. It offers customizable lighting for recessed outlets, with voice control support, robust colors, and fun effects. The 8.5-watt LED bulb can display more than 16 million colors, and white color temperatures ranging from 2,700K (warm) to 6,500K (cool), with a maximum brightness of 1,000 lumens.

If you're looking to smarten up your recessed or track lighting, the Nanoleaf Essentials Matter BR30 is a top choice. You can control the Nanoleaf BR30 bulb from its companion mobile app (available for Android and iOS), but it doesn't have a built-in Wi-Fi radio. Therefore, if you want to control it remotely and integrate it with third-party smart home ecosystems, you’ll need a separate device that serves as a Thread border router.

If you want your pick of colors and white tones, the affordable Roku Smart Bulb SE Color has you covered. It can display 16 million colors, and a white light temperatures ranging from 1,800K (warm) to 6,500K (cool). It's also dimmable, with a brightness range between 30 and 1,100 lumens. The Bulb SE Color uses an embedded 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio to connect to your home network and a Bluetooth radio to pair with Roku's mobile app. It works with Alexa and Google Assistant voice controls, as well as Roku's voice service if you connect it to a compatible media streaming device such as the Roku Ultra. You can also configure it to interact with Roku's other smart home devices.

At a little less than $10 per bulb, the Roku Smart Bulb SE Color is an excellent low-cost smart lighting solution for livening up fixtures with an E26 screw-in base. It works particularly well in homes with other Roku devices.

The U-tec Bright A19 Color can display 16 million colors and has a white color temperature range of 2,700K to 6,500K. With a dimming range from 30 to 1,100 lumens, it's one of the brightest bulbs on this list. It has plenty of smarts, with support for Alexa, Google Assistant, and SmartThings. It also extends Wi-Fi range for other U-tec gadgets. In testing, it delivered bright, vibrant colors and worked well with app commands, Alexa routines, and voice commands.

This is the best choice if you're already invested in other U-tec gadgets and you want an especially bright and colorful smart bulb. While the U-tec Bright doesn't work with Apple HomeKit or Matter, it supports the Alexa, Google Assistant, and SmartThings platforms.

For a festive way to illuminate your outdoor spaces, try string lights such as the Govee Lynx Dream. Each string has dimmable multicolor LED bulbs that you can control with your voice or phone. They also support IFTTT applets, and you get a generous selection of preset lighting scenes and a fun Music Sync mode that's great for parties.

The Govee Lynx Dream String Lights are an excellent choice for anyone who wants to add colorful lighting outside of their home. Available in 48 or 96 feet, the strings are weatherproof, easy to install, and support remote control via voice commands or the flexible Govee Home mobile app. They also look great and are simply fun to use.

The Kasa Smart Multicolor Light Strip offers an easy way to add a splash of color to any area of your home. This thin, flexible strip of plastic contains LEDs that emit white and colored light that you can control using the Kasa mobile and with Alexa and Google voice commands. It also offers some neat lighting effects, works with third-party smart devices, and can tell you how much power it’s using.

If you want to add color to a bookshelf, brighten up a bare wall, or create the perfect movie night mood lighting effect, the TP-Link Kasa Smart Multicolor Light Strip is a good way to do it. It’s very easy to install, can be cut to fit your specific needs, and it delivers bright, colorful lighting and a wide range of whites.

The Globe Smart Ambient Light is a plug-in night-light with a built-in motion sensor that illuminates the way when you approach it. You can tune the LED to a specific white color temperature or display any number of RGB colors, create lighting schedules, and control everything from either an app or with your voice.

The Globe Smart Ambient Light is worth checking out if you're looking for a night-light to illuminate hallways, closets, bedrooms, and any other parts of your home with a soft, colorful glow.

The Philips Hue Iris is a smart and stylish table lamp that lets you set the mood instantly. It displays 16 million colors and a wide range of warm and cool white tones to create the perfect ambience, and it supports routines to wake you up and help you sleep. The newest model offers a 570-lumen maximum output, more than double that of its predecessor, and adds Bluetooth support so you can control it from your phone without a separate hub, though you'll need a Philips Hue bridge (sold separately) to do so when you're out of the house.

If you're looking for a smart, stylish table lamp that can evoke a specific vibe instantly, the Philips Hue Iris is a terrific standalone smart accent light for beginners and existing Hue users alike. It's easy to set up and use and even easier on the eyes, offering preset white or color scenes, along with the ability to create and save your own.

The Amazon Echo Glow is a kid-friendly smart light that cycles through 16 colors with a tap of your hand. This smallish orb-like lamp supports the kid-friendly FreeTime subscription service and offers a Rainbow Timer that uses colors to help motivate kids to complete tasks like homework or brushing their teeth on time. It can also be included in Alexa routines to let your child know when it's time to get ready for bed.

If you're looking for a fun and colorful mood light or a night-light for a child's room, the Echo Glow is a top pick. Just keep in mind that you'll need a separate Alexa device to control the Glow with your voice as it lacks a speaker and microphone, and it's not bright enough to be used as a bedside lamp.

Smart bulbs offer a degree of control and interactivity you just can't get with traditional bulbs, including scheduled timers and remote control options. They're also more convenient; it's easier to tap on a smartphone screen than to get up and trudge over to a wall switch.

Beyond keeping you out of the dark, you can schedule or remotely control most of the bulbs we've reviewed, which is great if you want to save on energy costs or often forget to turn off the lights before leaving the house. Some bulbs use geofencing, which means they work with the GPS in your smartphone to automatically turn on or off when you get home or leave the house. Color-changing bulbs are also great for mood lighting, and some can even sync with movies and TV shows.

Some bulbs are compatible with Amazon's Alexa, Apple's HomeKit, or Google Assistant, which means you can control your home lighting with just your voice. You can also integrate some of the bulbs on this list with security cameras, thermostats, and other smart home devices. IFTTT compatibility further lets you create recipes that automatically cause your lights to react to certain triggers, like phone notifications or weather changes.

Some of the bulbs on this list are just white, while others can take on any color of the rainbow. Color is a fun way to add atmosphere to your home, but it often results in a pricier bulb.

Most of the smart bulbs we review are marketed as equivalent to 60-watt incandescent models, which sounds self-explanatory, but some bulbs are brighter than others. To see just how bright a light is, you need to look at the lumens it puts out (listed in the table above): The more lumens, the brighter the light.

Another factor to consider is color temperature. Higher temperatures, such as 8,500K, look like harsh office lighting, which is fine for staying awake or working. Lower temperatures, such as 2,500K, translate to a cozy, warm glow that's perfect for relaxing.

Some smart bulbs need to connect to your smartphone through a home automation hub, which usually means a higher price and an extra step or two in the installation process. Other bulbs cut out the middleman and connect to your phone or tablet directly via Wi-Fi. Still others connect via Bluetooth—but, in that case, you can control the lights only when you are within the much smaller Bluetooth range.

Since you will likely control these lights from your phone or tablet, make sure that it's easy to do. If you have multiple bulbs, for instance, you should seek out a companion app that lets you easily arrange them in groups for customization. We pay close attention to how each app works and provide a detailed overview in each review.

Another option is the U-tec Smart Dimmer Switch, which brings connectivity to traditional lighting fixtures. Designed exclusively for lighting, it replaces your standard wall switch and features a dimmer slider and integrated Wi-Fi to control your ceiling fixture with a swipe, a voice command, or a mobile app.

Smart bulbs use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and a variety of technologies to work, so they are typically more expensive than traditional bulbs. That's important to remember, especially if you want to upgrade your entire house. But smart bulbs also use less energy and last a lot longer, meaning you can save money in the long run. As you can see, most of the options on this list fall well below $50, so the price of entry isn't as steep as it used to be. You can now even find sub-$10 options.