Philips Hue Smart White and Color Ambiance 60W A19 Light Bulb, 2-Pack

Why it's worth it

Hue bulbs screw in and work with Bluetooth right away, but the Hue Bridge is where the system gets good. Add it and you get remote access, deep automations, and a Zigbee mesh that stays connected when you scale past a handful of bulbs.

Hue's mesh is the reason to buy in. Wirecutter's evaluation found Hue's Zigbee network held reliable connectivity across installations of more than 40 bulbs, which pure Wi-Fi setups struggled to match. Each bulb repeats the signal to its neighbors, so the far corner of the basement isn't relying on your router. If you're lighting one room, this doesn't matter much. If you're lighting a house, it's the whole ballgame.

The app is the other half. PCMag rated Hue's app as offering the deepest routine and geofencing customization of any bulb ecosystem it evaluated. You can set lights to fade up over 30 minutes before your alarm, trigger a scene when your phone crosses a geofence, or build a wind-down routine that shifts everything amber after 9 p.m. Plenty of apps claim this. Hue's actually holds up when you stack rules on top of each other.

From our review of 7 smart light bulbs

What we like

• +Hue's mesh is the reason to buy in
• +The app is the other half
• +RTINGS measured these bulbs at roughly 800 lumens across a 2700K to 6500K range
• +The accessory lineup is what locks people in

What to know

• –Hue is the most expensive way to light a room on this list, and it gets worse as you add bulbs
• –The bridge isn't included
• –Color saturation is good, not extraordinary