Smart LED light bulbs are one of the easiest ways to upgrade your home with smart lighting solutions that are both practical and fun. These color-changing bulbs let you customize your space with vibrant RGB color options, cozy warm white or any light color you can imagine. They’re compatible with popular systems like Google Home and can work seamlessly with smart switches and other light switches, making them a key part of your home automation setup.

With app control, you can adjust the brightness (no need for a separate dimmer), set schedules and even program the lights to turn on or off under certain conditions, like when you connect to your home network. Whether you’re setting lights for movie night, creating a relaxing atmosphere or adding a pop of color to your room, these smart lighting solutions are easy to install and surprisingly affordable.

What to look for in smart light bulbs

Connectivity (To hub or not to hub)

One of the biggest appeals of smart lighting solutions is being able to control them from your phone. Most of them are able to do so by connecting to it via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, or via an external hub, which handles the connection for them. Bluetooth connectivity limits the range in which you’ll be able to control the light, so it’s only best for a limited number of bulbs and ones you don’t expect to control when you’re away.

Wi-Fi color-changing bulbs are easy to set up and can be cheaper overall since they don’t require a hub to connect them. However, having something like a central Zigbee hub can make your whole system more reliable since its connection is separate from your home’s network. For that reason, hub-based bulbs tend to be more expandable, so we mainly recommend those if you want to eventually have dozens of smart lights around your home.

White or color?

Most color-changing bulbs you’ll find today are “white and color” bulbs, meaning they can glow in vibrant RGB color-options like blues, pinks, greens and everything in between, as well as shine with different temperatures of white. But there are some white-only bulbs out there, and they are often a bit more affordable than their color counterparts. While we recommend springing for the white-and-color devices, if you’d prefer white only, make sure you’re getting a bulb that can span the color temperature spectrum (typically from about 2000 to 5000 Kelvin), offering you various levels of cool and warm white light.

App features

One of the perks of smart lighting solutions is the amount of control you have over them thanks to their various app-control capabilities. Most companion apps let you do things like set lighting schedules and timers, group individual lights into room designations and create your own custom light “scenes” with different RGB options. But we have seen other features that aren’t as ubiquitous like vacation mode for automatically turning lights on and off to enhance your home security, and sync with media, which changes the colors of lights depending on the music you’re listening to or the game you’re currently live-streaming.

Smart home compatibility

If you use a smart assistant like Amazon’s Alexa or the Google Assistant regularly, make sure the smart lights or smart switches work with your favorite. All of the bulbs we tested supported both Amazon’s and Google’s virtual assistants, allowing you to use voice commands to turn lights on and off, dim them with a virtual dimmer and more. The wildcard here is Siri and Apple’s HomeKit; while numerous smart bulbs have added HomeKit support, not all lights are compatible with Apple’s smart home system.

Expandability

We alluded to this above, but you’ll want to consider how many smart lights you eventually want in your home. Some brands and lighting systems are easier to expand than others, and we generally recommend going for hub-based bulbs if you plan on putting smart lights in every room in your home. If you’re only looking to deck out your home office or living room with some fancy color-changing bulbs, Wi-Fi options should serve you well. Thankfully, these are some of the most affordable smart home devices you can get, so even if you don’t have a clear answer to this question now, you can reconsider your options down the line if you do decide to outfit your home with multiple smart bulbs.

Other smart bulbs we’ve tested

Nanoleaf Smarter Kit

While we’ve recommended Nanoleaf’s Smarter Kits in guides in the past, they’re a bit more niche than other smart lights on this list. They’re best for adding flare to your living room or game-streaming setup as they come in different shapes like hexagons and triangles and can sync with music. In addition to different colors, light animations and schedules, Nanoleaf’s Smart Kits also support Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands.

FAQs

What’s the best smart light bulb for Alexa?

There is no best smart light bulb for Alexa. Amazon doesn’t make its own smart bulbs (like it does for smart plugs and thermostats), but rather there are dozens of smart lights made by third-parties that work with Alexa — including all of the ones we tested. Before picking the best smart light bulb for you, make sure to check the voice assistants that the contenders support. You’ll find that most smart light bulbs available today work with Amazon’s Alexa and the Google Assistant, and plenty of them also have support for Apple’s Siri and HomeKit.

Can you put a smart bulb in any lamp?

Smart light bulbs can go into most modern light fixtures — but just like regular bulbs, they need to be the right shape/size for the fixture. A standard A19 smart light bulb should work properly in most table, floor and other lamps. If you have a fixture that takes a specific type of bulb, look for smart bulbs that will fit properly.

Do smart light bulbs use electricity when off?

Smart light bulbs do use a negligible amount of electricity when their fixtures are turned off. This is due to the fact that the smart bulb needs to stay in constant contact with your home’s internet connection or Bluetooth in order to work properly. However, their energy-saving benefits usually outweigh the small amount of power they consume even while turned off.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/best-smart-led-light-bulbs-143022856.html?src=rss

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Apple’s AI suite, Apple Intelligence, will soon be available in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and simplified Chinese, along with localized English versions for India and Singapore. During the company’s Q4 2024 quarterly results call on Thursday, CEO Tim Cook said that the company will roll out support for these additional languages in […]

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A "groundbreaking" £1.65 million treatment has been approved for use on the NHS, offering patients with severe sickle cell disease some hope of a cure.

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. The aftermath of DeepSeek’s launch was arguably the biggest tech story of the week, especially for anyone keeping a close eye on public markets. But private companies, […]

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Advertisers have long told themselves that brand safety is something they control. But with Meta rolling back its content moderation rules — narrowing the gap between brands and whether chaos goes viral — it’s clear that control was always a myth.

Platforms make the rules, rewrite them at will, and expect advertisers to fall in line. Most do. Because in digital advertising, the game isn’t about eliminating risk. It’s about learning to live with it.

Meta’s changes technically don’t touch paid ads. But organic content still dictates the broader tone of the platform — and what users engage with inevitably influences the ad ecosystem. Brand safety tools can only do so much when the overall environment becomes more volatile. And yet, what choice do marketers really have? Pulling spend rarely moves the needle, and staying put means accepting that brand safety is less about control — and more about calculated risk.

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The theme of optimism in marketing continues: Marketers said they’re coming off a successful year in 2024, they expect to have bigger budgets to spend in 2025, and now they see advertisers spending more this year.

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Publishers taking charge of programmatic has always been a mirage — enticing but elusive. In 2025, though, that mirage feels a little closer, a little more real.

While full control may still be a long shot, a growing number of publishers are starting to take a firmer grip on the programmatic reins — if they’re willing to confront a hard truth: Sometimes, the problem isn’t the system but themselves.

For too long, publishers assumed they were powerless to fix programmatic’s deep flaws. Instead, they leaned on ad tech vendors to mend a broken system.

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LinkedIn’s ongoing efforts to woo video creators paid off in the past few months, according to new figures shared by the company.

Short-form video is the fastest-growing content category on LinkedIn. As of this week, total video viewership on the platform has increased by 36 percent year-over-year for the period between Oct. 30, 2024, and Jan. 29, 2025, according to statistics shared by a LinkedIn representative, who said that video creation is growing at twice the rate of other post formats on the platform. (LinkedIn owner Microsoft runs its fiscal calendar between July 1 and June 30 and considers the period between Oct. 30, 2024, and Jan. 29, 2025 to be its fiscal second quarter of 2025.)

LinkedIn’s publisher program, which includes over 500 publishers and journalists, is also intended to amplify video content on the platform. Through the program, LinkedIn provides audience demographic data to news publishers, shares monthly newsletters with information about new tools, and operates workshops to educate members about the platform’s features. Weekly video creation from program members has grown by 67 percent year-over-year, per the company rep.

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The pendulum is starting to swing back to brand and a rethink of the traditional CMO-based marketing model. 

Marketing organizations within major brands are recognizing the damage they can do to their brands if they focus too much on performance marketing and too little on brand marketing. Marketers, agency execs and consultants said there’s a noticeable shift when talking to brand marketers — not only CMOs but those with the various titles that have started to replace the CMO title — where it’s clear that care for brand as well as performance is more apparent. 

That overall shift may be part of the thinking for some companies as they reorganize their marketing departments. Last week, for example, Kimberly Clark announced a new addition to its roster of marketing professionals: Luis Sanches joined as the company’s first global chief creative and design officer working under the company’s chief growth officer, Patricia Corsi. The company has moved away from the traditional CMO model with Corsi replacing its previous CMO Alison Lewis last spring. 

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Dr Disrespect — aka Herschel “Guy” Beahm — was one of Twitch’s top streamers until he was suddenly banned in June 2020. Now, we know what happened. As confirmed in a lengthy statement from Beahm himself, he sent private messages on Twitch to a minor that he says “sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate”:

Were there twitch whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes. Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not. These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more. Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual. 

The statement followed former Twitch employees explaining in social media posts and speaking to The Verge about why Twitch suddenly broke things off with Beahm, which was based on the messages he sent using its now-removed Whispers feature.

Midnight Society, the game studio Beahm co-founded after the ban, has terminated its relationship with the streamer, and accessories company Turtle Beach has also ended its partnership with Beahm.

Here’s the latest news on Dr Disrespect and the reasons for his Twitch ban.

• Dr Disrespect remonetized by YouTube as Midnight Studios closes.
• Dr Disrespect veers right into Rumble
• YouTube is stopping Dr Disrespect’s channel from making money
• YouTube didn’t give Dr Disrespect a contract because of rumblings about his Twitch ban.
• NBA 2K24 will remove Dr Disrespect from the game,
• Dr Disrespect finally shares why he was banned from Twitch
• Game studio co-founded by Dr Disrespect ‘immediately’ terminating relationship with the streamer
• Twitch banned Dr Disrespect after viewing messages sent to a minor, say former employees
• Dr Disrespect says his mysterious Twitch ban is causing him anxiety
• Dr Disrespect officially returns to streaming
• Weeks later, Dr Disrespect still won’t say what happened with Twitch
• Dr Disrespect breaks silence, but Twitch still refuses to say what’s going on
• Dr Disrespect is gone and Twitch won’t say why
• Twitch reckons with sexual assault as it begins permanently suspending streamers

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Ford's no stranger to the NASCAR life. Ford driver Joey Logano was the 2024 Cup Series Champion in one of the company's Mustang-bodied machines. He's currently leading the 2025 series, too. However, the Blue Oval and its Ford Performance division are going into uncharted territory with its new prototype, an all-electric Mach-E built atop elements of NASCAR's current Next Gen chassis.

The machine uses three motors to make a total of 1,341 hp (1,000 kW). Yes, three motors, one for each rear wheel plus the odd one out up front, giving the thing all-wheel drive. That's a seeming necessity, given the car has two times the power that any NASCAR racer is allowed to deploy on the non-restrictor plate races.

But that extra driven axle isn't just for acceleration. "If you're rear-wheel drive only, you're only getting rear regen," Mark Rushbrook said. He's the global director of Ford Performance. Since braking forces are higher at the front axle, an extra motor there means more regen to recharge the battery.

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Compared to Android, only some of Google’s iOS apps use the latest version of Material Design. Gmail for iPhone and iPad was finally updated with a Material 3 redesign today.

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