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Philips Hue was not only the first smart lighting system on the market but is still one of the most popular. Can the newer LIFX and TP-Link Kasa systems keep up?
In this article, you will find the answer and detailed comparisons of these three systems.
Table of Contents
What Do I Need Smart Lighting For?
Good smart lighting is one of the best things about a smart home.
With a smart lighting system, you can control the lights in your house with your smartphone, motion detectors or a voice assistant like Alexa. With functions such as timer or energy consumption display, smart lamps offer you not only a plus in comfort, but also great savings potential.
There are now quite a few suppliers of smart lighting systems. In this article, we focus on three of the most popular systems: Philips Hue, TP-Link Kasa, and LIFX.
Smart Light Bulbs
There are big differences in smart light bulbs. There are some with all the functions you can imagine with a smart light bulb and an excellent Smart Home integration and those that just light up and can be operated via smartphone or voice command.
We have therefore divided our selection into three categories, the top products with the most features, the standard products, and the low-cost variants. In each category, the best products from each of the three manufacturers are compared.
Top Products: Smart Light Bulbs
In the upper class of smart light bulbs, there are products that can change their color at will and bring with them many smart home features.
What all the light bulbs presented here have in common is that they are based on LED technology and therefore have a very long life span and are much more environmentally friendly than the old energy-saving bulbs.
| 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preview |   * |   * |   * |
| Name | Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance* | TP-Link Kasa KL130 Smart WiFi Light Bulb, Multicolor* | LIFX (A19) Wi-Fi Smart LED Light Bulb* |
| Max. Brightness (Lumens) | 806 | 800 | 800 |
| Dimmable? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Timer? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Colors | 16 million | 16 million | 16 million |
| Connection via | Wifi with Hue Bridge* | Wifi | Wifi |
| Power consumption | 9,5 Watt | 10 Watt | 9 Watt |
| Price range | 40-50 $ | 35-40 $ | 45-60 $ |
| Smart Home Compatibility | Alexa, Google Home, IFTTT, Apple HomeKit | Alexa, Google Home, IFTTT | Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home |
Our Favorite: Philips Hue White & Color Ambiance LED
In the upper price range, the winner is definitely Philips Hue, as expected. This is the best smart light bulb on the market!
The latest generation of this smart light bulb is compatible with all current Smart Home systems and is easy to install and operate.
The quality and the user-friendly use of the numerous features speak for themselves. However, Philips also had more time to perfect its products in this sector than the other two companies.
The latest generation of this Philips Hue light bulb doesn’t make a big leap forward compared to its predecessor in terms of features, but it shows less and less annoying corners and edges.
There’s hardly anything negative about this product anymore – except maybe the price, which this product earned with the delivered quality.
Performance
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The brightness can be continuously dimmed. So you can always adjust the brightness to the conditions and e.g. read a book in the evening without being dazzled.
The perceived infinite range of colors gives you the opportunity to define different presets for different situations. A romantic red for special evenings or a cold blue for your favorite sci-fi series?
You can choose any color from intense, pure tones to pastel shades in different color temperatures. Actually, any color is possible. There are also preset color modes that you can try out.
Installation and Setup
Installing a smart light bulb from Philips Hue is very easy. You screw it into the desired lamp or fixture, connect it to the Hue Bridge*, download the app and you can operate the smart LED lamp.
You can control your smart light bulbs either by voice command via a voice assistant like Alexa or through your smartphone.
The interesting thing about this is that you can control it from anywhere in the world as long as you have Internet. This offers you a safety aspect that you don’t have with normal light bulbs. You can fake your presence even though you’re not home. So burglars don’t get any stupid ideas.
Operation
As already indicated, Philips Hue has almost perfected its products. The controls have also become increasingly user-friendly and intuitive.
The new app solves many of the problems that its predecessor still had. It convinces with a very streamlined design and easier operation than before. You can now find the color palette, the color temperatures and the lighting recipes all on the same page.
Grouping multiple light bulbs is now much easier than before. You can create a group called e.g. “living room” and group all smart light bulbs that are in the living room together. So you can adjust and operate all light bulbs at once and don’t have to touch each one. Of course, you can still control each one individually.
In the app, you can also create schedules when something should happen. You can select different days and times and program various events – on/off, color, brightness, etc.
A classic application for this is the light in front of the door or the automatic dimming of the lights in a room at a certain time. I’m a big fan of putting a blue filter over all my lights and screens in the evening. With the colored Philips Hue light bulbs, I can do this also with my light and sleep better at night.
Philips Hue White & Color Ambiance LED Starter Kit
If you’re just beginning to equip your home with smart light bulbs, consider getting a Starter Kit*.
These starter kits contain all the necessary things you can start with. At Philips Hue, this means that the Hue Bridge is included and some smart light bulbs.
Of course, you could also buy the products individually, but the starter kit in the bundle is usually much cheaper!
Standard Products: Smart Light Bulbs
In the middle class, there are not quite as many features as in the top products. The most obvious feature you lose here is the color selection. A smart light bulb from the standard category only glows white. Some products can still adjust the color temperature, but not different colors.
In this category, the TP-Link KL120 Kasa Smart Wifi light bulb wins the first place!
| 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preview |   * |   * |   * |
| Name | TP-Link KL120 Kasa Smart light bulb* | Philips Hue White Ambiance* | LIFX Mini Day & Dusk* |
| Max. Brightness (Lumens) | 800 | 800 | 800 |
| Dimmable? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Timer? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Colors | White (adjustable color temperature) | White (adjustable color temperature) | White (adjustable color temperature) |
| Connection via | Wifi | Wifi with Hue Bridge* | Wifi |
| Power consumption | 10 Watt | 9 Watt | 9 Watt |
| Price range | 25-30 $ | 25-30 $ | 25-30 $ |
| Smart Home Compatibility | Alexa, Google Home, IFTTT | Alexa, Google Home, Apple HomeKit, IFTTT | Alexa, Google Home, Apple HomeKit, IFTTT |
Our Favorite: TP-Link KL120 KASA Smart Wifi light bulb
Our favorite in this price segment does not have an infinite number of colors like the top products, but an adjustable white. The spectrum ranges from warm, pleasant white to bright daylight.
This smart light bulb is of course also compatible with all popular smart home systems such as Alexa, Google Assistant, and many others. So you can also control them by voice command.
An advantage that the TP-Link smart lighting system has over Philips Hue is that you don’t need a base station or hub. You can integrate the individual light bulbs directly into your Smart Home.
You may miss some of Philips Hue’s ingenious features, but it also saves you some money if you don’t want to equip your entire house with smart light bulbs.
The Kasa Smart App contains a lot of features. You can create plans or program scenes that immerse your room in special atmospheres. So you can be woken up in the morning by a warm, dimmed light and work with bright, white daylight in the afternoon.
Low-Cost Variants: Smart Light Bulbs
Although the cheapest variants of smart light bulbs can still be operated via smartphone and voice command, they have no other features apart from adjustable schedules.
They emit a normal white light which cannot be adjusted. So if you’re looking for a normal light bulb that can also be controlled smartly, these cheap variants of smart light bulbs are the right thing for you.
| 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preview | * |   * |   * |
| Name | Philips Hue White* | LIFX Mini White* | TP-Link KL110 White* |
| Max. Brightness (Lumens) | 806 | 800 | 800 |
| Dimmable? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Timer? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Colors | White | White | White |
| Connection via | Wifi + Hue Bridge* | Wifi | Wifi |
| Power consumption | 9 Watt | 9 Watt | 10 Watt |
| Price range | ~15 $ | ~25 $ | ~25 $ |
| Smart Home Compatibility | Alexa | Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant | Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT |
Our Favorite: Philips Hue White Smart LED
It all started with this smart light bulb. With the simplest smart light bulb, Philips Hue has to offer, you can equip your Smart Home very cheaply with smart lighting.
The price is unbeatable, but it is only compatible with Alexa.
There’s also a Starter Kit* for this smart light bulb that lets you get the base station, the Philips Hue Bridge, directly to integrate all your light bulbs into your Smart Home.
When I equipped my living room with Philips Hue, I replaced almost all light bulbs with this standard bulb from Philips Hue. The remaining two I exchanged with the winner of the upper class.
In order to create a colorful atmosphere, not every single light bulb in the room needs to change its color. Especially if it may be a little darker.
The Starter Kit includes 4 light bulbs and the Hue Bridge at a great price in a bundle.
If you don’t have a single smart light bulb in your household yet and just want to try it out a bit, I can also recommend the Dimming Kit* with a light bulb and a light switch for dimming.
The installation and operation of this inexpensive variant of the Philips Hue bulb is the same as with all the others. All you have to do is screw it in, download the app and connect the light bulb to the Wifi.
Smart Lamps
In this category, you cannot compare the 3 companies, because only Philips Hue offers smart lamps. Philips Hue has dozens of these lamps for outdoors and indoors in different designs.
Each of these lamps is just as easy to install and operate as the smart light bulbs.
  * | Philips Hue Go* | |
  * | Philips Hue Bar Light* | |
  * | Philips Hue Table Lamp* | |
  * | Philips Hue Ceiling Lamp* |
Featured: Philips Hue Go
The Philips Hue Go is a small portable smart lamp that provides a virtually infinite range of colors, allowing rooms to be immersed in different atmospheres.
The Hue Go stands out with its design, functions, and mobility from the mass of other table lamps and is, therefore, one of the best lamps for indirect light.
The lamp is held in a simple white and resembles a hemisphere. Through a small stand on the back you can either put the lamp on its back and let it shine directly upwards, or you can put it on so that the light shines upwards at an angle of 45°.
A big advantage of the Hue Go is that you can operate the lamp completely without App or Hue System.
The lamp can be switched on at the touch of a button. If you keep the button pressed, the lamp will toggle between the seven preset colors. Among these preset colors, there are, among others, normal white light, warm white, candlelight, and various colors.
If you want to set your own color directly at the lamp, you can double press the button and then hold it to scroll through all available colors. When you have reached the color you want, just release the button. If you turn off the Hue Go with the individual color and then turn it on again, it will keep the color and not forget it.
The Hue Go* has a built-in battery that lasts about 3 hours in continuous operation. It’s best to power it by cable at their standard location and only use the mobile function if you want to set them up somewhere else for a certain period of time. Since the battery is insensitive to overcharging, my Hue Go is 90 % of the time plugged in.
If you want to use the full range of functions, you have to integrate them into the Hue system with the bridge. Then you can control it just like any other smart lighting from Philips Hue via the app or via a voice assistant like Alexa.
You can use the app to adjust the color and brightness from a distance. The app gives you much more adjustment options than the button on the lamp. As with other Philips Hue lamps, you can also use the app to create schedules.
Smart Garden Lamps
Philips Hue is also alone in the outdoor category. There is now a very wide range of smart garden lamps that offer the same wide variety of functions and colors as the indoor ones.
All Philips Hue garden lamps are designed for special outdoor environments like rain and dust.
  * | Philips Hue Calla* | |
  * | Philips Hue Inara* | |
  * | Philips Hue Spot* | |
  * | Philips Hue Econic* |
Featured: Philips Hue Calla
The Philips Hue Calla is a smart path light for your garden. You can illuminate your outdoor area in 16 million colors and combine them with other Philips Hue smart lamps to create a smart lighting system for your garden.
The maximum brightness is 600 lumens, which corresponds to about a 50-watt classic light bulb. You can just stick the path light is simply into the ground where you want to position it and then connect it with the supplied power cables.
Philips Hue Calla is IP65 certified, protecting it from dust and water jets. So it can withstand heavy rain and the water jet of your garden hose.
The ingenious thing about this system from Philips Hue is that you can not only control up to 50 lamps with one Hue Bridge*, but you can also connect 4 more path lights in a row to the original one.
You can use the app to preset different lighting scenarios. You can set the colors and the color temperature as you like and save them as individual settings, which can be adjusted at the push of a button. You can also create schedules when the lamps should switch on and off with which settings. So you can make the brightness and colors depending on the time of day and always immerse your garden in a suitable atmosphere.
I’ve set my lights to go on at sunset and off at sunrise. And if I want to spend special evenings in my garden, I have various atmospheric lighting settings stored – for example, for barbecue evenings or relaxed reading in the hammock.
A big advantage of smart garden lighting that many people underestimate is the safety aspect. With automatic power on/off and remote control from anywhere in the world, you can fake your presence and make it look like you’re at home.
Smart Light Strips
In this category, only Philips Hue and LIFX compete against each other, as TP-Link has no light strips in its portfolio.
The first big difference between Philips Hue and LIFX is that you can cut the Philips Hue light strips and split them into several working parts. Lifx cannot do this.
| 1st Place | 2nd Place | |
|---|---|---|
| Preview |   * |   * |
| Name | Philips Hue LightStrip Plus* | LIFX Z LED strip light* |
| Max. Brightness (Lumens) | 1600 | 1400 |
| Dimmable? | Yes | Yes |
| Timer? | Yes | Yes |
| Colors | 16 million | 16 million |
| Length | 2 meters (80 inches) | 2 meter (80 inches) |
| Max. length | 12 meters (40 feet) | 10 meters (33 feet) |
| Connection via | Wifi + Hue Bridge* | Wifi |
| Power consumption | 10 watts per meter | 8 watts per meter |
| Price range | 80-90 $ | 80-90 $ |
| Smart Home Compatibility | Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant | Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant |
Our Favorite: Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance LightStrip Plus
This light strip from Philips Hue is not a normal smart light bulb. This light strip is an expandable plastic strip with integrated LEDs with which you can set light accents in your house.
As with all other Philips Hue products, you need the Hue Bridge* to control the light strip via Wifi with the app or via voice command with Alexa. Integrating the Philips Hue light strip into an existing Philips Hue system is as easy as adding a new light bulb.
In the basic version, the light strip is 2m long and can be extended to a length of up to 12 meters (40 feet) by means of extension packages. As mentioned above, you can also cut out the light strip if it is too long. But you can’t expand it after that.
On the back of the light strip, you will find an adhesive strip that sticks to almost all surfaces.
In contrast to its predecessor, the new LightStrip Plus has not only improved its expandability but can now also cover color temperatures from 2000 Kelvin to 6500 Kelvin and is much brighter with up to 1600 lumens.
For such a thin strip, 1600 lumens is a lot – but of course, you can also dim it. To achieve this performance, however, you must supply it with power via a cable.
Which is the Best App?
In addition to the smart lamp or light bulb itself, the operation via the app is also important to compare Philips Hue, LIFX and TP-Link Kasa with each other.
The three apps are designed to make the operation and installation of smart lighting as easy as possible. However, there are differences between the different vendors in terms of features and overall ease of use.
First Place: Philips Hue App
The app of Philips Hue offers a lot of features and is updated regularly. Philips Hue has over 30 preset lighting settings that you can use if you don’t want to create your own.
You can also analyze the color from a photo and transfer it to the lighting. Only Philips Hue has this ingenious feature at the moment. It also lets you take a foto of a picture on the wall with your smartphone and adjust the lighting to match the picture, bringing it out even more.
Philips Hue’s Home & Away feature is extremely useful because it uses your location to automatically turn the lights on and off. When the Philips Hue system detects that you are leaving the house, it automatically turns off the lights. Of course, you can set this individually.
In addition to operation via the app, you can also operate the lamps automatically via a motion sensor or voice commands with a voice assistant like Alexa.
Second Place: TP-Link Kasa App
The TP-Link Kasa App has much fewer features than the other two but is at least as reliable. Since TP-Link offers not only smart lighting but also Wifi routers and other Wifi products, it is not surprising that TP-Link’s smart light bulbs make an excellent connection and hardly ever show any problems.
In the Casa App, there is also a real-time display of power consumption and shows you how long light has been on, allowing you to optimize its behavior and thus power consumption.
Just like LIFX, TP-Link Kasa light bulbs do not need a base station like Philips Hue with its Bridge. This is especially advantageous if you only want to equip one or two lamps with a smart light bulb.
Third Place: LIFX App
The LIFX Go App has similar features as the Philips Hue App but less streamlined and user-friendly.
You can control your lamps from anywhere, create and select different lighting settings and even set a flickering effect like a candle. A special feature is a reaction to music – the light adapts to the rhythm of the music.
Bottom Line
The bottom line is that the winner is by far Philips Hue, followed by TP-Link and LIFX. Philips Hue offers the best quality, functionality, and selection.
However, which smart lighting system you choose in the end depends on your personal preferences and a few constraints. If you’ve set your Smart Home to focus on a specific voice assistant like Apple HomeKit, you’ll have a much smaller selection to choose from. If you just want to equip a few bulbs with smart bulbs and control them from your smartphone, you can do it with any smart bulb.
If you’re just starting to equip your Smart Home with smart lighting, I can only recommend a Philips Hue Starter Kit. These Kits contain everything you need to get started at a very good price when compared to the sum of the individual products.
Attention: When installing electronic equipment, please be sure to observe the manufacturer’s safety instructions. You have to take care of your own safety. The information on this site only helps you to learn.
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