To experience all that smart LED lights can offer, you'll want to start with ones that are entirely customizable with the full spectrum of colors available. Because these bulbs are way more expensive than any light bulb you've probably bought in your life, you're going to want to choose a brand that can satisfy all your smart lighting needs or piece together your house plan with bulbs that don't need a hub.
Not only are the best smart light bulbs more energy-efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs and even compact fluorescent bulbs, but you'll feel like Tony Stark walking through your home, controlling the lighting with just your voice. Google Home is one of the tentpole home assistant platforms and all of the bulbs listed here pair perfectly with all of the best Google Home compatible devices available. All you need to ask yourself as a shopper is how many bulbs you need for your home and how much are you willing to spend?
Full-feature smart lights with Google
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Light your home with color
Philips is the leading manufacturer of wireless LED smart bulbs for many good reasons. I've been using Philips Hue bulbs for years because they are easy to set up and are the most consistent quality bulbs on the market. A good starting point is the three-pack of the 3rd-generation multicolor bulbs. This pack comes with a Philips Hue Bridge that will connect the bulbs to your home's network, but these bulbs also support local Bluetooth connections. You'll only need one Hue bridge to control all your Hue bridges, so once you've got the starter kit, you won't need another.
Any size, any color
I love Philips Hue bulbs, but they can be prohibitive. They're super expensive. WiZ Connected was acquired by Philips's parent company Signify and is designed to be completely separate from the Hue ecosystem. These bulbs don't require a hub at all and, instead, connect directly to your home's Wi-Fi network. They're also perfect for pairing with any smart home service, not just Google Home, and maintain the quality you expect from the Philips brand without the expected price.
A dynamic change
Govee makes two sizes of the T2, one for 55 to 65-inch TVs and the other for 75 to 85-inch. The Govee Immersion LED Strip Lights can dynamically change the color and brightness of each LED on the strip based on what's happening on your TV. It does this with a dual-camera setup that sits either above or below your TV, which works with any content on your TV. In our testing, this upgrade over the previous version is quite impressive. Integration with Google Home means you can make routines that change your lighting to set the mood for movie watching or game playing, and you won't even need a hub to connect to your home's Wi-Fi, either.
Budget bulbs that are hub-free
GE Cync offers the best value for budget-conscious consumers looking to invest in smart bulbs, because you can get your smart lighting going without the need for a hub. These bulbs offer great control via the Cync app or through Google Home. I like using the best GE Cync bulbs due to the excellent saturated colors and the wide range of white temperatures available.
Smart bulbs from China
Xiaomi is a massive Chinese brand that offers smart bulbs through the Yeelight brand that don't require a hub to work with Google Home. These multicolor bulbs provide 800 lumens of brightness and can be synced to music or set in sync with your morning alarms. If you've already got a bunch of products from Xiaomi's Mi Home smart home line, this might be your best choice.
Geek chic lighting
Do the Nanoleaf light panels fit the description of a smart bulb?That's up for debate, but no doubt, these are the coolest smart lighting kits you can control with Google Assistant. This kit includes the Rhythm Module and nine panels so you can mount a customized light fixture on the wall of any room in your home that will dance along with pulsing color to the ambiance of the room.
LED magic
These 16-foot LED light strips are the latest from Govee and are the most impressive light strips we've tested. Each strip includes a dedicated on/off switch that also lets you change colors without your phone or smart speaker, but you'll use the Govee Home app. There's lots of customization available, and you can link your Govee account to Google Home to control it all with your voice.
Beautify your home
If you're already planning on investing in a Philips Hue system — or already have — the Philips Hue Lily is a phenomenal way to add smart lighting outside your home without much fuss or cost. This attractive light fixture sports a built-in LED array that ties directly into the Philips Hue hub, and lets you run all the same routines and connections that Philips Hue supports. We love using the Lily because it supports any color you can think of, and a standard dimmable white range of colors can be chosen for any other time of the year.
No hub required
LiFX's newest bulbs are much smaller than the older models, sporting the mini-bulb moniker and emitting 800 lumens of brightness. Each bulb can customize your spaces with 16 million colors and 1,000 shades of warm to cool whites. No additional hardware is required to get things set up with Google Assistant as each bulb connects directly to your Wi-Fi network.
Dimmable white smart bulbs with Google
Let's be real. Not every smart bulb in your home needs to cycle through 16 million different colors. And they can still be fully dimmable and react to your voice commands.
You can save some money buying white LED smart bulbs for the more mundane areas of your house like hallways and bathrooms and save the fancier color bulbs for the areas you entertain your guests. There are dimmable white smart bulbs available for each smart hub ecosystem and many options that only require a Wi-Fi connection.
Ease into the Hue ecosystem
As long as you already own a Philips Hue Bridge, you can start adding smart bulbs to any room in your house. With this four-pack of dimmable white bulbs, you're able to schedule and automate your lighting to fit your daily needs or make it appear that your home is lived-in while you're out by scheduling lights in different rooms to turn on and off throughout the evening.
Effective and efficient
WiZ Connected is the other brand from Philips' parent company, Signify, and works just as well with Google Home as you would expect the Philips Hue line to. The big difference here is that these bulbs tie directly into your home's Wi-Fi network instead of using a hub as Hue does. That means the setup is more straightforward, and you don't have a single point of failure. Not only that, but the cost of entry is much, much lower. A win, win, win, really.
Mini bulbs for lamps and light fixtures
LIFX bulbs don't require a hub, just a reliable connection to the Wi-Fi network. This bulb is comparable to a 60W bulb and is perfect for smaller lamps or lighting fixtures. The white variation offers the best value for your money, but there are mini color bulbs or day and dusk bulbs that will change the color and warmth of the lighting based on the time of day. These are sold individually and are perfect for lamps on bedside tables.
Best Wi-Fi bulbs on a budget
For those of you that are okay with standard white, dimmable smart bulbs and don't want to spend a fortune, Kasa Smart bulbs are a good pick that offer the added benefit of no hub — just a reliable connection to your home's Wi-Fi network is required. Each bulb is priced affordably and makes it easy to pick up lots without breaking the bank.
Buy 'em in bulk
If you've already got a Sengled hub — or even a SmartThings or Wink hub — you can add eight bulbs to your network for the best price per bulb that you will find. That's a heck of a deal and a great option if you desire to replace every bulb in your home with a voice-controlled smart bulb without spending hundreds of dollars.
Don't be afraid to mix and match
The best part about having so many smart light bulbs available that all work with Google Assistant is that you can have a hub set up and some individual Wi-Fi bulbs all running on your home network and still control everything using just your voice. Google has done a great job at making the process of adding smart lights to Google Home a relatively straightforward one.
Our top recommendation is the Philips Hue Starter kit which gets you all you need to build your dream smart home. Hue certainly costs more than other brands, but the Philips Hue app and all its integrations make it simply smarter than other options.
These bulbs tie in perfectly with Google Home, and you can use Google Assistant to control every aspect of your lights, including powerful zone controls. The Philips Hue hub uses an ultra-reliable Zigbee wireless connection, which is independent of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. That means your bulbs will work properly even if your home Internet connection is out or your phone doesn't have a perfect signal. Philips Hue and many others on this list are slated to upgrade and offer new devices for Matter compatibility in the near future.
But just because you have some Hue bulbs doesn't mean you can't mix and match brands to your heart's content. Google Assistant works with every brand on here, including the ability to change colors, dim the bulbs, and add them to routines. Bulbs like WiZ Connected are way cheaper than Hue without sacrificing much in the way of features, while accent pieces like the Nanoleaf Rhythm Smarter Kit add an extra flair to your home that simply can't be achieved by any normal-style lightbulb.
One thing to keep in mind if you came to Google's smart home ecosystem via Nest, is that support for Works with Nest is ending on September 29, 2023. While no immediate action needs to be taken until then, it's important to think ahead so your smart home keeps working as expected. Fret not, a script will be made available to create advanced home automations and will come with new features and capabilities.
