What Are the Best Bargains in Smart LED Light Bulbs?

Wireless LED light bulbs and wireless smart lights are among the easiest lighting control products to install and use in your house. However, with prices like $60 for the popular Philips Hue lights, they’re not cheap.

One of the motivations (beside the cool factor) to switch to smart LED light bulbs from boring old dumb compact fluorescent or incandescent bulbs is to save money on energy costs, but it will take a long time for a $60 LED light to pay for itself, even with the cost savings that LED technology offers. A typical 800 lumen LED light costs about $2 a year to run, based on three hours of usage a day.

The most expensive smart LED light bulbs are easily the most desirable—we all love the color-changing magic of Philips Hue and other smart lights like them (and there are a lot, check out some Philips Hue alternatives here). If you don’t need the ability to turn your kitchen lights red or your bedroom lights purple, then there are several much more affordable smart LED lights on the market. While none of these bargain LED bulbs will change colors, they can be dimmed with their apps, and their apps allow for the creation of custom scenes and light groups. Here we’re rounded up some of the best bargains in wireless LED light bulbs. Let me know if I’ve missed any good ones.

Philips Hue Lux (white)

If you already have a Philips Hue light system and simply want to expand it with plain yogurt white lights, the Philips Hue Lux is perfect. It’s controllable over Zigbee by the Hue app and gateway, and only costs $20. The bulb is rated at 750 lumens (about 60 watts in old-school terms). Really, how many color-changing lights do you need?

Osram Lightify

These Osram LED lights go for about $30 each, and they’re rated at 800 lumens of soft white light. You do need a gateway, which is sold separately. The Zigbee gateway and lights use an app for Android and iOS devices. If you have any Belkin WeMo wireless devices, you can just add it into the WeMo network and skip the gateway.

Read more about it here.

GE Link LED Light

This is the best bargin of the three. At $15 it’s the cheapest smart LED light currently on the market. This Zigbee-controllable bulbs needs to be synced to the Wink gateway, though users have reported that it also will work with the Philips Hue hub and with SmartThings (you may need to update the system’s Zigbee firmware). The Wink smart home hub is only $50, so if you’re just starting out, that’s the way to go.

Shop for the GE Link here.

Cree Connected LED Light

This is yet another cheap Zigbee wireless LED light. It works with Wink and other Zigbee hubs like Philips Hue and SmartThings and costs about $15. It’s rated at 815 lumens. The Cree light also works with Belkin WeMo without a hub/gateway.

You can find the Cree Connected here.

Also, check out these new Bluetooth wireless smart LED lights that start at $15.