I’ve mentioned that I’ve got Philips Hue bulbs in almost all my lights in my condo now. I’ll admit my setup was very expensive, and I spread the purchases out over about four years. Prices started out at about $50 per bulb for the original color-changing bulbs, then they introduced some white-only bulbs, which were about $25/each as I recall. The best price I recall paying for any of my bulbs was about $15 each for white-only. But now Philips is offering a box with four Hue white-only bulbs for $42.49. That’s about $10.62 per bulb!
The bulbs are the white A19 60W-equivalent, dimmable LED smart bulbs. The bulbs use 9.5W to produce 840 lumens at 2700K, so they are soft-white bulbs – not color-changing. Of course, you’ll need to provide a Hue bridge to use these smart bulbs. And like all Philips Hue products, they are controllable with Amazon Echo devices, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant, Nest, IFTTT, and iOS and Android apps.
The Philips Hue White A19 60W Equivalent Dimmable LED Smart Light Bulb 4-Pack is $42.49 at Amazon.
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I’ve said it many times before: I don’t see “smart bulbs” as a smart investment except, perhaps, for small apartments. For everyone else, smart wall switches are by far the more economical way to achieve the same thing. For instance, my living room has 8 recessed lights and my kitchen area next to it another 8. We’re talking about $300+ to make those lights smart using Philips. My cost: $159 (2 Lutron Caseta wall switches) – and I don’t have to worry about expensive light bulbs burning out. Sure, I can’t control individual light bulbs – but who would do that? There’s a little wiring one has to do – but for modern homes at least, that’s very simple. I have no skills whatsoever and replaced a switch in less than 10 minutes.
Back up to $50.