8 Best Smart Lights of October 2024

Oct 31, 2024

Deane Biermeier

Contributor

After over 3 decades working in residential construction, contracting, remodeling, maintenance and home repair, Deane began writing to broaden his reach. Throughout his career, his passion has been helping clients find the potential hidden in the walls of every home and providing them the information and tools to take control of their repair and remodeling pursuits. His goal was, and is, to assist his clients—now his readers—in finding ways to make their ambitions reality. To meet that desire, Deane now provides written content about all things relating to the home, sustainability and personal finances.

Kristy Snyder

Banking Expert

Kristy is a freelance contributor to Newsweek’s personal finance team. As an editor, Kristy has worked with sites like Bankrate, JPMorgan Chase and NextAdvisor to craft and hone content on banking, credit cards and loans. She’s also written for publications such as Forbes Advisor and U.S. News and World. In her spare time, Kristy loves traveling, hitting up rail trails and reading.

Updated October 28, 2024 at 4:02 am

The best smart lights are transforming how we see and use our living spaces. Smart home lights provide illumination options that were simply unheard of in the days of older, outdated lighting technologies. With their ability to change color, brightness, tone and even light patterns, smart LED lights save on energy costs while increasing control over our home’s appearance and functionality.

Smart LED home lights are available in a huge variety of types, styles and configurations. We’ve listed the best smart lights for indoors and outdoors to help you achieve a look and feel in your home that’s never before been possible.

Our research is designed to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of personal finance services and products that best suit your needs. To help you in the decision-making process, our expert contributors compare common preferences and potential pain points, such as affordability, accessibility, and credibility.

Wyze 75-Watt EQ A19 Color-Changing Wi-Fi LED

EcoSmart 60-Watt EQ Color Changing CEC LED

Cync Reveal 65-Watt EQ 7000K BR30 Full Color Light

LIFX 25-Watt EQ Smart RGB Wi-Fi Candelabra LED

EcoSmart 16.4 ft. Smart RGBWIC Dynamic Color Changing 360° Rope Light

Monster Smart WI-FI 480 in. RGBW Outdoor Bistro Lights

Feit Electric PAR38 Smart LED Flood Light

Twinkly Smart Light 400 RGB LED + 60 Dots

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Regardless of where or how you use smart home lights, several product solutions exist, including some you may not have heard of. Here are the best smart lights we found in several categories to help you get started or continue transforming your home.

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While you may not need all 1,100 lumens or 16 million color combinations available with the Wyze 75W Equivalent Color-Changing LED, it’s nice to have virtually endless lighting customization options in a damp-location-rated bulb. The smart LED device replaces standard A19 bulbs and operates through the Wyze app, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice controls.

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Our pick for the best budget-friendly LED smart light comes in at around $10 and offers features usually reserved for more pricey options. The EcoSmart 60W Equivalent Color-Changing LED meets California Energy Commission regulations for energy efficiency and features Hubspace app control and voice control compatibilities.

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Indoor floodlights, often a feature of recessed lighting fixtures, were once limited to being either on, perhaps intrusively, or off. However, our top pick for their replacement, the Cync Reveal 65W Equivalent Full-Color Indoor Flood Light, provides full color, ambiance and brightness control that’s simple to install, setup and operate through the Cync app, Alexa or Google Assistant.

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The mission of candelabra lights is to provide functional lighting that enhances the ambiance and beauty of a room. Our favorite replacement for the small, decorative bulbs, the LIFX 25W Equivalent Smart Candelabra LED light, offers unique color combinations, such as its Morph Mode, which combines multiple colors in a single bulb to take your lighting style to the next level.

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Smart LED strip lights uniquely transform a room through ambient or accent lighting. While many strip light products are available, by offering simultaneous color blending, linkability with an additional strip, multiple installation options and a programable lighting schedule, the EcoSmart Dynamic Color Changing 360° Rope Light stands above the crowd.

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At forty feet long, the Monster Smart Outdoor Bistro Light string provides multi-color, programmable and customizable options for indoor or outdoor gathering or decoration lighting. The smart LED bulbs can create any lighting feel, from a patio party atmosphere to a warm relaxing glow.

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Outdoor smart lights come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, many of which integrate with home security lighting or camera models. However, our best choice for simple outdoor flood lighting is anything but simplistic. The Feit Electric Smart LED Flood Light replaces standard PAR38 bulbs to offer a wide beam angle in any color and temperature combination using just 11.1 watts and is operable through the app or voice control devices.

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Step up your holiday decorating game next season with our top outdoor-approved smart Christmas lights pick, the Twinkly Smart Light set. This set features an additional 60-light indoor string as a bonus, operates on all major voice control devices and the Twinkly app and offers an almost endless selection of customizable or preset lighting patterns and colors.

Why all the excitement over lighting options that cost more than normal light bulbs? Smart lights provide convenience and customizable lighting options that typical bulbs simply can’t duplicate. Additionally, their programmability and ease of use can actually save money over time compared to traditional lighting products.

Smart lights are remotely controllable LED light bulbs that feature various levels of light control and programmability to maximize usefulness and energy efficiency. From a practical standpoint, smart lights can offer thousands, if not millions, of color combinations and dozens of bulb styles to provide fully customizable lighting control in and around your home.

Smart lights contain one, several or many individual LED lights in each bulb or fixture. They also include a chip that allows them to communicate, with the help of an internet service provider, through your Wi-Fi router, with proprietary apps or using voice control devices, smartphones or other remote control devices.

By communicating with a remote device, the user of the smart light or lighting system can control things like the light’s brightness, lighting temperature, color, schedule, patterns and other features. Complete control over the lights themselves allows the user to alter a room’s appearance and functionality in multiple ways.

Smart LED lights and smart lighting systems aren’t reserved for members of some elite society or the wealthy. Smart lights are best for anyone in a house, apartment, office space, outdoors or anywhere with electrical power who wants to experience lighting in a whole new way that doesn’t require any specialized knowledge or skills.

Multiple bulb shapes and styles of smart lights exist. However, all of them can be reduced to having one or more of the following features. Most of the best smart lights combine elements from each of these types.

With so many smart light options available, choosing the one right for your home can be challenging. Consider the following factors when determining which smart LED light or combination of lights is best for the lighting plan you desire.

Assuming you don’t plan to change all of the light fixtures in your home, choosing smart lights that physically fit into your existing permanent or movable lamps is crucial. Many bulb shapes and sizes exist, and letter and number combinations depict that shape and size. A19 bulbs are synonymous with standard bulbs, while common flood light shapes are R30 and R38.

Like traditional bulbs, smart light bulbs also feature a letter and number combination measurement that determines the terminal size they’ll screw into. Regular lighting sockets accept a base size of E26, while a typical candelabra bulb will have an E12 base size.

LED smart lights are available in almost any bulb style or string configuration. Standard LED smart bulbs are great for everyday use in typical light fixtures. String, rope or bistro-style hanging lights work excellently as ambient or accent lighting, as well as for primary lighting in many situations.

Smart flood lights can act as primary indoor lighting or safety or security outdoor lamps, while decorative smart lights come in a variety of shapes and sizes for many applications.

Many smart lights and smart light systems feature a proprietary app that can control the lighting options. The apps generally offer features such as timing, dimming, pattern control, color, temperature and several other choices.

The best smart lights are also compatible with various smart home voice-control systems, including Amazon Alexa, Google Home Assistant, Apple HomeKit and others. Choose models compatible with your existing smart home or voice control system to maximize the usefulness of your new smart lights.

While the majority of smart lights allow users to adjust the bulb’s brightness level, many also provide the ability to change the color and the temperature of the light being produced. Ensure you choose a smart light or system that includes the ability to control the functions you desire, including one or more of brightness, color and temperature.

Smart light prices continue to decrease even as the technology and products improve over time. However, smart lighting by unit is still more costly than replacing existing light bulbs with traditional non-smart lights. Shop by selling price balanced against the light’s functionality to realize the best value.

Smart LED light bulbs aren’t the only way to achieve the ultimate lighting control in your home.

Looking for a more integrated lighting design or to custom-illuminate a space without permanent light fixtures? Smart light fixtures are available in a multitude of shapes, colors, styles, configurations and applications to meet your needs.

Smart light fixtures operate similarly to smart bulbs. However, they can also provide additional room-design benefits. Consider overhead light fixtures, wet-location recessed fixtures, smart desk lamps and many other types and styles.

Smart switches for lights provide an alternative to replacing the existing bulbs in your home. Smart switches and compatible LED bulbs can adjust the brightness, color temperature and even light colors from the convenience of a wall-mounted or handheld remote switch.

Smart outlets offer a way to power your lights or lighting system simply by plugging them into the wall. Smart outlets operate by remote control, through a product app or with voice control through smart home devices to control the electrical flow to lamps and other electrical products.

Smart outlets are available in permanent replacement styles or plug-and-play models with tool-free and fast installation.

Whether or not smart lights are worth the initial extra cost over traditional lighting depends on what you’d like to achieve with your home’s lighting system. While the primary purpose of smart lights is convenience, they also offer entertainment value that may or may not be worth the price. When used with home security in mind, smart lights are often programmable to make it appear that someone is home when they’re not, possibly deterring would-be intruders.

Leaving the switch connected to a smart light on will draw a tiny amount of electricity. The smart light requires an electrical current to listen for commands from the remote control, app or voice command system. Turning the switch off disables the smart light’s ability to respond to user input. However, smart light power consumption still pales in comparison to the intermittent operation of more traditional light sources.

You can mix and match smart lights. While mixing and matching various smart lights from a single manufacturer might be simpler, smart home technologies such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home Assistant and Apple HomeKit, among others, typically allow multiple brands of smart lights to operate in the same household.

Editorial Disclosure: We may receive a commission from affiliate partner links included on our site. However, this does not impact our staffs’ opinions or assessments.

Deane Biermeier

Contributor

After over 3 decades working in residential construction, contracting, remodeling, maintenance and home repair, Deane began writing to broaden his reach. Throughout his career, his passion has been helping clients find the potential hidden in the walls of every home and providing them the information and tools to take control of their repair and remodeling pursuits. His goal was, and is, to assist his clients—now his readers—in finding ways to make their ambitions reality. To meet that desire, Deane now provides written content about all things relating to the home, sustainability and personal finances.