Gadgetory

tis the season for color changing light and if you want ones that work with your smart home set up your top two options are Philips you and lifx both are well reviewed both have a lot of fans and both are pretty expensive so which one should you get will unwrap it all in this smart home showdown now don't get me wrong color-changing smart bulbs like these are definitely an expensive novelty especially when you can get tinted incandescent for just a couple of bucks apiece still it's fun to be able to change the color of your lights right on your phone or using an integration from Amazon's Alexa or apple homekit to control things with Siri commands there's a lot of charm to all of it to pick a winner let's take a look at how these two options stack up in three main categories hardware the bulbs themselves software the apps that control them and then platforms the connections they make with third-party services and devices to help build a bigger smartphone ecosystem in your house so let's start there with the platforms they both do a nice job on this front they both work with Alexa with nest with the if automation platform online but I give you the edge here you also works with apple homekit so you can control them using Siri commands another big win for philips is that you can use that hue bridge to control relatively inexpensive third-party bulbs and expand your setup without breaking the bank next let's talk about the hardware the bulbs themselves at the flagship level the main Phillips hue bulb is its new third gen white and color ambience bulb and on the life Exide we've got the new third gen lifx bulbs and lifx Plus bulbs lifx bulbs are also much brighter than philips hue bulbs and they offer very accurate colors Phillip team caught up on the color front they've got nice greens now a nice blues if you have the most recent bulbs but lifx is still the better brighter bulb as far as specs are concerned it only uses one more watt than the philips hue third gen bulb but at a lot of important settings it's putting out almost two or three times as much light finally let's talk about the software the apps that you use to control these lights are really important they're how you'll set them up they're how you'll program your lighting changes or how you'll make quick lighting changes on the fly both of them do a nice job and make it fairly easy to do all of that but I prefer lifx because it's got a nicer way of choosing colors that color wheel there in the app it's a lot easier to use and better than the ocean of pixels in the Philips uf I also appreciate that lifx has a couple of extra features that Philips you doesn't it has a music visualizer it has the ability to do some limited color cycling stuff you can't do that Philip to you in that core app so I give lifx the edge here as well now both of these bulbs are pretty expensive Philips Hughes third gen bulbs cost $50 apiece whereas the lifx third gen bulbs start at 60 bucks apiece Philips EU has a very strong lighting platform in a worthwhile one but if I'm spending that much money on colors like these effects like these I want the colors that look the brightest and the best along with an app that's really easy to use for me that's why life x is the color changing smart bulb of choice