Light bulbs have become smarter over the years. This means you can replace your standard incandescent bulbs with an automated lighting system that you can control with your phone. The best smart bulbs for Alexa no hub is quick and energy-efficient and they give you voice control over your lighting system.
Smart lighting control is one of the best features that Amazon Alexa assistant has to offer. Products like Amazon Echo, Google Home, and others that have an amazing ability that allows automation and gives you the ability to control all your devices in your home using voice command.
Why should you buy smart lighting?
Smart bulbs come with lots of features and when paired with Alexa, Google Home, or Siri you can do things like turning them on or off and dim them with just your voice. These bulbs are easy to set up, produce bright light, and are compatible with most of the smart home systems. They’re also LED lights so you get to save more energy than you would if you were using other traditional light bulbs. You can link your smart bulbs to other smart home devices like every time you unlock your doors the lights automatically turn on or when you’re away the lights turn on and off randomly like someone is at home.
You can also group the light bulbs where the lights downstairs use a single control, setup routines like the time the main lights turn off and dim others, or set an automatic sensor for your porch lights to turn on when someone is at the door or when you open the front door. Another advantage of getting smart bulbs is you can schedule the lights especially when you aren’t home. With the help of Alexa, they can mimic your patterns so they give an impression like someone is home to wade off burglars.
What to consider when choosing a smart bulb
How much smart bulbs cost
Smart bulbs use LEDs and other technologies to work and this makes them more expensive than your traditional bulbs. This is a point to keep in mind especially if you’re planning to upgrade your entire home, however, smart bulbs use less energy and last longer so you get to save some money in the long run. With so many smart bulbs in the market, the prices are competitive so you can get bulbs that are less than $100.
Color and luminance
Some light bulbs are white while others can take on any color of the rainbow. Color is a fun way of changing the atmosphere in your home, but it might mean getting pricier bulbs. Some bulbs are brighter than others and for you to know how bright a light is, you need to check the lumens, the more the lumen the brighter the light. However, you also need to know how each bulb works because some bulbs dispense their light in a narrow beam or use a wide swath to distribute their light. You’ll want a bulb that has a good balance between brightness and efficiency, so a bulb with high lumen output and low watts.
Color temperatures
You must understand color temperature which means the specific shade each white bulb produces. Color temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin (K) and it works more like a flame. Bulbs with a color temperature of about 2700K produce a yellowish-white light that has a warm cozy feeling which is great for relaxing. As the color temperature increases, the bulb’s tallow color decreases and a white cooler color increases to give a more bluish-white color at 5000K and higher.
How to control your smart bulbs
Since you’ll be using your phone or table to control your smart bulbs, you’ll want to ensure it’s something easy you can do. If you have multiple bulbs in your home, you’ll want an assistant app that will allow you to group the lights and automatically adjust the color and brightness of all the lights in the group at once. Bulbs that work with Alexa and Google Home assistant can help you control all the smart devices in your home with your voice.
Dimmer compatibility
The good thing about the evolving LED market is that most of the bulbs you’ll find in hardware shelves nowadays are compatible with dimmers. However, some bulbs dim better than others, others dim smoothly while others are more susceptible to electromagnetic interference from the dimmer switch.
Smart bulb features
Smart bulbs give you a degree of control and interaction that you wouldn’t get with traditional bulbs like the remote control options and schedule. This way you also get to save on energy costs and you can be sure your lights get turned off when you leave your home if often forget to turn them off. They also provide convenience where you only need to give a voice command from your smartphone instead of getting up to the wall switch. Some bulbs use geofencing which means they use the GPS on your smartphone to locate your exact location and can automatically turn on the lights when you reach a specific point in a room or at the doors of your home.
You will also find color-changing bulbs that are great for changing the mood in your home while others can even sync with certain tv shows and movies. Smart bulbs use either Amazon Alexa, Google Home, or Apple home kit assistants to help you control your lighting system in your home with your voice. You can integrate some of the smart bulbs with your thermostat, security cameras, and other smart home devices so that the lights will automatically react to certain triggers from any of your smart home devices.
Do smart bulbs need a hub?
While some smart bulbs need to be connected to your smartphone using a home automation hub to work, others connect directly to your phone or tablet through wifi or Bluetooth which means you can only control your lights when you’re in Bluetooth range so you can’t control your lights when you’re away. Adding a hub means you’ll have to spend more money and add another step in your installation process. However, this will all depend on your needs and the option you choose will make it easier to control your lights instead of using the wall switch.
Table for the best smart bulbs for Alexa no hub
Product | Features | Check on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
Bluetooth connectivity works with Alexa and Google Assistant and Apple home kit, control up to 10 lights at once, a color temperature of between 2200K and 6500K | ||
Max. brightness of 1100 lumens, 16 million color options, intuitive integrations, works with Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple home kit, temperatures between 2500K and 9000K | ||
Supports 2.4G and 5G wifi, works with Alexa and Google assistant, can control 19 bulbs at once, dimmable | ||
Dimmable from 1-100%, wifi connection, voice control with Alexa, Google Assistant or Microsoft Cortana, supports 2.4G wifi | ||
Voice control with Alexa and Google assistant supports 2.4G wifi and Android 4.3 and above and Ios 8.0 and above, control up to 10 lights at once, a maximum brightness of 600 lumens |
The Phillip hue smart bulbs are very popular that work very well with Alexa and come with an optional hue hub that you can purchase separately. These bulbs are compatible with Bluetooth and you can use Alexa or Google Assistant to control them with your voice. You can easily control up to 10 lights using the company’s Bluetooth smartphone app to set up and control from the comfort of your couch. With the app, you can dim or brighten the lights, turn them on/off, set the mood of a room with the touch of a button, create light schedules for home automation, create automatic triggers when you arrive or leave your home, and even sync them with certain movies, tv shows, and music.
The bulbs don’t come with many features, but they have great quality light with white temperatures of between 2200K and 6500K and over a million different colors to offer. The hue app is clean and you can easily control your bulbs when you’re away from home simply by creating an account and logging in the app.
Pros
- They produce a nice bright color
- The lights are dimmable
- You can control them with your voice
- Comes with a variety of integration options
Cons
- It’s a bit hard to set up for a beginner
- It’s a bit expensive
Verdict
Great smart bulbs that you can use Alexa or Google Assistant to control with your voice. They are compatible with Bluetooth so you can easily control more lights in your home.
View price on Amazon
This is a wifi smart LED light bulb that comes with 16 million colors and shades ranging from warm to cool whites that will bring amazing colors to the rooms in your home. It also has a max. brightness of 1100 lumens and it doesn’t require a hub. You just need to screw the light bulb into the socket and with the help of the built-in wifi, you can use Alexa voice command on your smartphone app or use your smart speaker. It can easily connect to your Echo and with its built-in features and intuitive integrations, you can easily create a smart home. These LED bulbs use less energy to give you more light and with a lifespan of about 23 years, they will serve you for a long time and you get to save a lot of money.
Pros
- Great quality light
- Provides seamless Alexa integration
- Comes with very many features
- Plenty of integration options
Cons
- It’s a bit hard to set up the bulbs
Verdict
Smart bulbs with intuitive integrations and built-in features that will make it easy for you to create a smart home and allow you to connect your lights seamlessly with Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT, and many more.
View price on Amazon
These smart LED bulbs are budget-oriented but are also great when it comes to functionality. They work with both Alexa and Google assistant devices so you’re able to adjust the brightness, set the mood of a certain room, or put your lights on a schedule. As long as you have access to the internet, you can control your lights remotely even when you’re away from home. With the sengled home app, you have full command of your smart lights and the app also shows you the power usage, power cycle, online time, and how much money you’ve saved since you installed the bulb. These bulbs promise 80% on energy saving compared to the traditional lights. They produce soft white light with a maximum brightness equivalent to a standard 60 bulb.
Pros
- The bulbs are super responsive
- Very easy to pair up additional bulbs
- The installation is very simple
- You don’t need a hub
Cons
- You need the sengled app to pair and name your bulbs
Verdict
Smart LED bulbs that are compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant will help you create different schedules, scenes, and alarm times and also dim or brighten the lights with just a voice command.
View price on Amazon
These are dimmable LED smart light bulbs that don’t need a hub to function. You can connect them to your home wifi network and from your smartphone, you can be able to easily control your bulbs from anywhere. These bulbs have a dimming range from 1-100% so you can turn on the bulbs to full brightness when it’s time to wake up in the morning or dim them when it’s time to go to bed. Using simple voice commands, you can tell your voice assistant to dim the lights to create the perfect environment for a romantic dinner or a movie night.
The Kasa smart app will allow you to do pretty much anything with your bulbs form turning them on and off, dimming them, or changing the colors with just a few clicks. These bulbs are energy efficient which helps to reduce your consumption by 80% without losing their quality or brightness and you get to save money with time.
Pros
- The app is great and very easy to setup
- The color temperature for these bulbs is tunable
- Very responsive wifi-controlled lights
- You can dim the lights
Cons
- Frequently disconnects from your wifi
Verdict
Dimmable smart LED lights that only require your smartphone and the Kasa smart app and a connection to your wifi to allow you control of all the lights in your home.
View price on Amazon
These are smart bulbs that don’t require a hub but use Alexa and Google Assistant to give you control of your lights. These are tunable white light bulbs that don’t have any special colors, but you can customize the color temperature between warm (2700K) and cool white (6500K). It’s very easy to set them up, and once you launch the app on your smartphone and connect to your home wifi, you can use Alexa to control the lights from anywhere. However, the app is only compatible with Android 4.4 devices or above, iOS 8.0 or above, and a 2.4 GHz wifi network.
They produce soft white light with a color temperature of 2700K and an output of 800 lumens which is the same as a 60W bulb, but it only uses 9W of electricity. You can create up to 10 different lighting schedules like automatically turning on the lights when it’s time to wake up or when you walk into a room. You can also set the away mode so the lights can automatically turn on and off like someone is in the house.
Pros
- Very easy to set up with the app and Alexa
- The dimmable feature works great
- The bulbs have a long lifespan
- Has a maximum brightness of 800 lumens
Cons
- Doesn’t have color options
- Doesn’t come with many features
Verdict
A simple smart bulb with Alexa and Google assistant that doesn’t cost too much compared to the competition, but still covers all the basics.
View price on Amazon
Conclusion
One of the best things about having a smart home is the ability to customize it with features that will help to save you time and money and give you peace of mind. The best smart bulbs for Alexa no hub allows you to control the bulb through an app on your phone so you can program the lights to go on or off, change the color, or dim the lights at specific times. The smart lights use LED bulbs that help to save energy, change the mood in any room, be an effective part of your home security system, help you save on money over time, and use your voice to control all your home lighting system. The Phillip hue is a smart bulb that doesn’t need a hub to be functional and you can use Bluetooth to control all your lights with the help of your voice assistant voice command.
Hawkins Grant
Hawkins Grant is a home automation expert and with about two years working on the ground, he does agree that there is a lot that needs to be done before people can fully comprehend the home automation concept. He reiterates that older folks are having a hard time inviting the new technology into their homes when they need it more than the other age groups. According to Hawkins, smart devices are not only a lifesaver but they are economical, and as innovation continues to take center stage in the home appliances, it is his sincere hope that the information compiled will reach the right audience and encourage change.
