The best smart light bulbs: Alexa, Google Assistant and HomeKit powered lighting
Buyers guide: We review the latest and greatest smart light bulbs
A couple of years ago, Lifx would have just been one of the many tiny blips on the smart bulb radar. However, the platform that started life originally as a Kickstarter project, Lifx is now a worthy rival to Philips Hue, with 16 million colours – 1,000 shades of white alone – and Wi-Fi bulbs with maximum brightness at 1,100 lumens. And best of all, Lifx bulbs don't need a hub.
That’s right – all you have to do to get some Lifx into your life is to screw one of the bulbs into a light socket and you’re good to go. Lifx lighting has Wi-Fi built in so it can speak to your smartphone app or your smart speaker directly. Setup is about as easy as gets in the smart lighting worlds.
The Lifx range of bulbs is ever growing – we had a mixture of white, colour, Mini and lightstrip models on test – and each one behaved as well as the last, with minimal fuss pairing not only with the superb Lifx app, but also with an array of smart assistants.
The light quality is great with Lifx; 2500 – 9000K white light on the top models and that Hue-matching 16 millions colours as mentioned, and while some people were put off by the flat head bulbs of the original line-up, the new Mini range do look a lot more like ‘real’ light bulbs, albeit with a reduced and fixed (2700K) white light quality.
Lifx doesn't just do more traditional bulbs, it also has the Beam and Tile. These are lighting fixtures that you can stick on your wall and arrange how you like. They can be set to Lifx's custom themes, but they also are built to pulse with ever-changing colors. In our time with the Beam, we've found them to be easy to install and a great addition to the ambience of any room.
Where Lifx outdoes Hue, in our opinion, is with its integrated features when it comes to pre-set configurations and effects. Sure, Hue has an ecosystem of third-party apps that let you do pretty much anything you’d want from your lights – but Lifx puts neat functionality at the front and centre of the app. We’ve had a lot of fun testing the various effects on offer – ‘Spooky’ was particularly good on Halloween – and the Day & Dusk function makes it super simple to get more natural and useful lighting throughout the day without having to faff around in the app, sliding the brightness and warmth wheel around.
Lifx taps into all the major smart home setups – Alexa and Google Assistant integration is mega easy but, HomeKit is a bit longer winded – especially if you bought your Lifx bulbs pre-HomeKit compatibility went live and you have no sticker to scan. If this is the case (as it was for us) you’ll have to go through a painful reset option to virtually get that HomeKit code.
However, once all paired up, everything works seamlessly and Lifx is also one of the best platforms for syncing up with the likes of IFTTT for instant alerts via your connected bulbs.
Bulb for bulb, Lifx is actually a shade more pricy than Hue but, don’t forget, you don’t have to shell out for a separate hub to make it all work.
the ambient verdict Lifx
Lifx is a serious contender in the smart lighting world. It may not be a smart household name as per Hue but, with fantastic quality, a slick app, a rich array of functions and features, ubiquitous integrations and an ever-expanding line-up of lightning options, it’s only a matter of time before it is. Highly recommend and, if you want to be hub-free, definitely a clear winner https://www.the-ambient.com/reviews/the-best-smart-lights-bulbs-platforms-209
BUD Price at posting:
7.7¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
