Not only are LED smart bulbs more energy efficient than traditional incandescent 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, so of course, there are a plethora of smart bulb brands eager to get that “works with Google” badge. The question you need to ask yourself as a consumer is how many bulbs you need for your home and how much are you willing to spend?
Full-feature smart lights
To experience the best 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 — and often require a dedicated smart hub to relay between the bulbs and your home network — you’re going to want to choose a brand that can satisfy all your smart lighting needs or piece together your own house plan with bulbs that don’t need a hub.
Light your home with color
Philips Hue Color Smart Bulb Starter Kit (4-pack w/ Hub)
Staff pick
Philips is the leading manufacturers of wireless LED smart bulbs and for good reason. Philips Hue bulbs are so easy to set up and work like magic with custom voice controls. A good starting point is the 4-pack of multi-color bulbs that come with the necessary Philips Hue Bridge for connecting all your bulbs. One you get the Bridge set up it acts as a hub for connecting more Philips Hue products and converting your whole home to smart lights.
From $142 at Amazon
No hub required
LIFX Wi-Fi Smart LED Light Bulb (4-pack)
LIFX now offers its third generation of fully functional smart bulbs which are available in A19 and BR30 bulb styles for indoor and outdoor usage. Each bulb offers up to 1100 lumens of brightness, with the ability to customize your spaces with 16 million colors and 1000 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.
$196 at Amazon
Budget bulbs that require a hub
Sengled Element Classic Smart LED bulbs (2-pack w/Hub)
Sengled offers the best value for budget-conscious consumers looking to invest in smart bulbs — but you’re still going to need a dedicated hub. The good news is that once you have that hub you’re able to add up to 64 bulbs to your network, and Sengled has the best prices for buying bulbs in bulk.
$69 at Amazon
Smart bulbs from China
Xiaomi Yeelight Smart LED Bulbs (two-packs)
Xiaomi is a massive Chinese brand that offers smart bulbs that don’t require a hub to work with Google Home. The multi-color bulbs offer 800 lumens of brightness and can be synced to music or set in sync with your morning alarms. Xiaomi’s bulbs are only sold in two-packs or individually and dimmable white bulbs are also available.
$45 at Amazon
Geek chic lighting
Nanoleaf Rhythm Edition Smarter Kit
Do the Nanoleaf light panels actually fit the description of a smart bulb? That’s up for debate, but they are no doubt the coolest smart lighting kit you can control with Google Assistant. This kit includes the Rhythm Module and nine panels so you can mount a customized light fixure on the wall of any room in your home that will dance along with pulsing color to the ambiance of the room.
$200 at Amazon
LED magic
Minger Govee WiFi LED Strip Lights
These 16ft LED light strips are amazingly cheap and easy to install anywhere in your home. Each strip includes a dedicated on/off switch that also lets you changing colors without your phone or smart speaker, but you’ll definitely 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.
$30 at Amazon
Dimmable white smart bulbs
Let’s be real, not every smart bulb in your home needs to cycle through 16 million different colors, they just need to be 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 along with many options that only require a Wi-Fi connection.
Ease into the Hue ecosystem
Philips Hue White Smart Bulb 4-Pack
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.
$50 at Amazon
Mini bulbs for lamps and light fixtures
LIFX Mini A19 Smart LED Bulb
LIFX bulbs don’t require a hub, just a solid connection to the Wi-Fi network This bulb is comparable to a 50W soft white 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 & dusk bulbs that will change the color and warmth of the lighting based on the time of day. These are perfect for lamps on bedside tables.
From $17 at Amazon
Buy’em in bulk
Sengled Element Classic Smart LED bulbs (8-pack)
If you’ve already got a Sengled hub — or even a SmartThings or Wink hub — you can add an additional 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.
$77 at Amazon
For that retro Edison look
SEALIGHT Smart Bulb Glass Vintage LED Bulb (2-pack)
Check out this two-pack of SEALIGHT bulbs for the retro look of an incandescant bulb with all the convenience of a connected smart bulb. The per-bulb price is pretty good and no hub is required. These are standard A19 bulbs that are controllable through your phone or with Google Assistant are easy to dim and can be set on scheduled timers.
$30 at Amazon
Best Wi-Fi bulbs on a budget
TP-Link Kasa LED Bulbs (3-pack)
For those of you fine with standard white, dimmable smart bulbs and don’t want to spend a fortune, TP-Link’s Kasa bulbs are a good pick that offers the added benefit of no hub — just a solid connection to your home’s Wi-Fi network is required. The starter kit which includes three bulbs is a good starting point and connects easily with the Google Home app.
$60 at Amazon
Anker’s smart home brand
Eufy Lumos Smart Bulb (2-pack)
Last but not least, Eufy also offers a selection of smart bulbs that include soft white bulbs, tunable white bulbs that are capable of mimicking daylight, and a multi-color bulb that can groove along with your music. All bulbs include built-in Wi-Fi to get around needing a hub and can be easily added to your connected devices in the Google Home app.
$33 at Amazon
Don’t be afraid to mix and match
The best part about having so many smart lighting options available that all work with Google Home 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 Google Assistant.
Our top recommendation is the Philips Hue Starter kit which gets you all you need to start building out your dream smart home. Once you get all set up, you’ll want to start looking into other Hue products that are just as easy set up and control. If you really want to splurge you can create the perfect lighting ambiance for every room in your home using Hue smart lights.
Of course, the beautiful thing about using Google Home is that it works with countless other brands, so you can save on LED light strips by getting a 16ft Minger Govee LED smart strip for half the price of the Philips Hue equivalent. And then there are just dope accent pieces like the Nanoleaf Rhythm Smarter Kit that would look cool in any media room or gamer’s den.
