As LED lights have fallen greatly in price and grown in smart technology, we've run out of excuses to use them. But if your home hasn't made the switch yet, you may be wondering where the best place to start is. That's easy: The current lights and sockets in your home are ideal places to start LED conversions. You just have to decide what area is the most important.
Our Picks
Why I like it:
Pros
- Great design and app
- Smart home support
- Color changing
- Light temperature adjustment for warmer colors
- Wi-Fi with no hub needed
Cons
- Not everyone wants the color options for floodlights
Why I like it:
Pros
- The latest Bridge hub offers high-tech interactions like motion sensing
- Apple support
- Easy dimming by app or voice assistant
- Easy to expand with other bulbs in the future
Cons
- An expensive hub, around $100, is needed to enable these bulbs with full capabilities
Why I like it:
Pros
- Color changing quality with an excellent app for control
- Built-in Wi-Fi
- Alexa, Google and Apple support with Matter
- Not much more expensive than white smart bulbs
Cons
- Not much use for those who don't use apps or smart features
Pros
- Ideal size for candelabra and similar home sockets
- Smart features with no extra hub needed
- Alexa, Google and Apple support
Cons
- B12 lights don't always benefit as much from smart features (although I still like them for dimming and scheduling)
Why I like it:
Pros
- Specifically designed to enhance the colors of other illuminated objects
- Affordable
Cons
- A little dimmer because of light filtering
- No smart features on these bulbs
Below, I've collected the best LED bulb choices for different spots and purposes in your house, both smart and simple. These are excellent places to start an LED transition or add capabilities you've been wanting for a long time, tested by me and other CNET experts to find the top performers.
Pros
- Great design and app
- Smart home support
- Color changing
- Light temperature adjustment for warmer colors
- Wi-Fi with no hub needed
Cons
- Not everyone wants the color options for floodlights
Why I like it:
GE Cync is one of the most reliable bulb brands I've tested, and this floodlight model is an excellent general-purpose pick for high ceilings, open floor plans and other areas where you need a floodlight. It's also very smart, offering you app controls, scheduling and support for platforms like Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
Like many modern bulbs, this Cync model also has Wi-Fi built in, so you can control it remotely without an extra hub. The color features are a nice bonus, but not strictly necessary.
Who this is for:
Anyone who wants an LED replace for high, out-of-reach floodlight bulbs.
Who shouldn’t buy it:
Buyers without high ceiling in their homes.
Pros
- The latest Bridge hub offers high-tech interactions like motion sensing
- Apple support
- Easy dimming by app or voice assistant
- Easy to expand with other bulbs in the future
Cons
- An expensive hub, around $100, is needed to enable these bulbs with full capabilities
Why I like it:
Philips Hue is one of the few brands that still requires a hub to enable Wi-Fi and remote control of bulbs. Fortunately, the brand has made that an easier sell with its latest Bridge Pro model, which supports the laetst advanced featuers including MotionAware, which adds motion sensing to lights with no add-ons needed.
The dimming results in our reviews were top-notch, with smooth steps up and down along with the ability to tell a voice assistant to set brightness to a certain percentage.
I suggest pairing the Bridge Pro with a pack of 800-lumen white Philips Hue bulbs. This hub and bulb combination is also one of the few that has good Apple Home support. Also, the hub will support many Philips Hue devices into the future if you want to keep expanding your LEDs.
Who this is for:
Buyers who don't mind paying extra for a $100 hub that adds motion sensing and Apple support.
Who shouldn’t buy it:
People wanting to save as much money as possible on LED conversions.
Pros
- Color changing quality with an excellent app for control
- Built-in Wi-Fi
- Alexa, Google and Apple support with Matter
- Not much more expensive than white smart bulbs
Cons
- Not much use for those who don't use apps or smart features
Why I like it:
GE Cync’s app is one of my favorite lighting apps, allowing you to quickly shift brightness and color or choose a general color theme depending on what you want. The bulb design is durable, and there’s support for both Amazon Alexa and Google Home. If you want to play around with color-changing capabilities, this is an excellent place to start.
If you had an eye on floodlights for color shifting, GE Cync also has high-quality color floodlight bulbs to choose from, especially its quadrant Dynamic Effect bulb.
Who this is for:
Anyone who wants to enhance their home lighting with different colors for parties, ambiance and other fun ideas.
Who shouldn’t buy it:
Buyers who’d rather not spend a few extra bucks on color lighting when shades of white will do just fine.
Pros
- Ideal size for candelabra and similar home sockets
- Smart features with no extra hub needed
- Alexa, Google and Apple support
Cons
- B12 lights don't always benefit as much from smart features (although I still like them for dimming and scheduling)
Why I like it:
Not every bulb is the standard A19 or BR30 shapes. Another common shape is the E12 base with B12 shape, the small candle flame-shaped bulbs that are most often used in candelabra and other areas where many small bulbs work together.
For these situations, I recommend these Wiz-connected, tunable white bulbs. Wiz (a Philips brand) performed very well in our tests, and it’s quite an affordable brand, which is important when you may have to buy several of these small bulbs at once. Philips also offers them in color, but that’s not usually necessary for candelabra bulbs, so the white versions are an easy way to save money.
Who this is for:
People who have smaller E12 sockets in their homes, especially for candelabra setups.
Who shouldn’t buy it:
Those without this type of smaller socket, or who plan on switching to a different lighting option in the future.
Pros
- Cree floodlights test very well for brightness
- Offer remote control for vacations without a hub
- Color changing options for the holidays
- Can automate to adjust to daylight cycles
- Weatherproof
Cons
- No Apple support
Why I like it:
Outdoor lights make great candidates for long-lasting LED bulbs. Cree tested very well for brightness in our reviews, making it a natural fit when outdoor illumination is required. This bulb offers built-in Wi-Fi so you can control it even when you’re on trips. I also chose the color-changing version here, because there are some creative ways to use outdoor color lights, especially around the holidays or when tied to specific alerts (turning red when a security alarm goes off, for example).
Who this is for:
Those with outdoor floodlights they want to convert to powerful LED versions.
Who shouldn’t buy it:
Buyers who are only interested in indoor LED lighting or who don't have outdoor floodlights.
Pros
- Specifically designed to enhance the colors of other illuminated objects
- Affordable
Cons
- A little dimmer because of light filtering
- No smart features on these bulbs
Why I like it:
GE's Reveal bulbs are specifically designed to enhance the color of objects they light up, highlighting contrasts (the effect of light on colors is often called color rendering). We've tested Reveal bulbs for years, and they've always been a top pick for this quality, ideal for illuminating artwork, centerpieces, alcoves and more.
They tend to cost slightly more per bulb, and most are a little less bright than the average LED light because they filter out some of excess yellow light for a better color temperature -- but those compromises are worth it if you're using them for accent lighting or to light up the spots in your home where you'll appreciate accurate, better-looking colors day in and day out.
Who this is for:
Buyers who want to illuminate colorful, important objects or areas around their homes.
Who shouldn’t buy it:
People who don't care about color rendering and prefer other features instead.
| Best LED Light Bulbs | GE Cync BR30 LED Bulb | Philips Hue White Starter Kit | GE Cync A19 Smart LED Light Bulb | Philips Wiz 40-Watt Equivalent B12 Smart White Bulbs | Cree Lighting Connected Max LED Bulb | GE Reveal LED Bulbs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price per bulb | $20 | $15 for bulbs, $100 for hub | $13 | $10 | $20 | $11 |
| Lumens/brightness | 750lm | 800lm | 800lm | 355lm | 1200lm | 610lm |
| Power draw/watts | N/A | 8.8W | 9.5W | 3.9W | Approv 14W | 8W |
| Color temperature changes | Yes | N/A | Yes | Yes | Yes | N/A |
| Dimmable | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Voice assistants | Amazon Alexa, Google Home/Gemini | Amazon Alexa, Google Home/Gemini, Apple Home/Siri | Amazon Alexa, Google Home/Gemini | Amazon Alexa, Google Home/Gemini, Apple Home/Siri | Amazon Alexa, Google Home | N/A |
Factors to consider when choosing an LED light bulb
Smart bulbs are cheap, support multiple voice assistants and have lots of fun tricks.
Your ceiling height
If you have rooms with high ceilings or recessed lighting -- an entryway, for instance, or maybe a staircase with overhead lights or a candelabra up above -- you'll want to prioritize brightness over softness in your light bulbs. After all, the higher up your light bulbs are, the brighter they'll need to be to light up the room.
The most common products for overhead lighting are BR30-shaped floodlights. The "BR" stands for "bulging reflector," and it means that the light inside the bulb sits above a reflective bowl, sort of like a little satellite dish. Screw a bulb like that up into your ceiling, and that bowl will catch all of the upward cast light, then reflect it back down and out the bottom, which bulges outward to produce the widest possible pool of bright light across the room.
Because these lights are so high up, they make good candidates for LED bulbs that don’t have to be replaced as often. But always check your sockets and space first. Some areas may only have room for the standard A19 shape.
Dimming lights in common areas
Some rooms serve just one or two basic functions, but other rooms get used in all sorts of ways. For instance, you might use your living room for watching TV, reading books, playing board games with the kids or any other number of activities. Rooms like that can really benefit from quality lights that can adapt to different activities.
The old-fashioned way to do it is to use a mix of lamps and fixtures for different purposes -- a reading lamp beside your favorite armchair, overhead lights for board game night, everything off when you're watching a movie and so on.
The better approach? Give yourself a full spectrum of lighting possibilities by making sure all of those lights are dimmable.
Upgrading your light switches to dimmer switches is one way to do it. But the easier way for many areas is to simply to replace your bulbs with dimmable smart bulbs.
Almost every smart bulb on the market is dimmable without flickering or buzzing, eliminating a common headache that comes with an in-wall dimmer switch. That also makes smart bulbs quality picks for bedrooms, where strong dimming performance and things like prescheduled wake-up fades can do wonders for your mood in the morning. Voice assistant support also means you can dim or brighten with a command, no matter where you are.
Bright colors for moods and more
Do you need specific mood lighting?
The more advanced smart LED bulbs available today offer color-changing capabilities, with the ability to switch to any hue you want via app. Having a few bulbs like this can be a surprising advantage: You can switch colors for parties, turn on mood lighting for workouts or romance, and even sync lights to a particular color pattern or music. Plus, color features don’t cost much more than white light bulbs these days.
Time and motion sensing
LED lights don’t have to have timers or motion-sensing capabilities, but it’s an easy way to save more money in the long term. Many LED bulbs even have daylight modes where they automatically get a warmer color temperature as the sun goes down, ideal for a comfortable home feeling.
Color rendering
That sepia glass wreaks havoc with the bulb's color rendering capabilities. Everything gets that orange tint.
I don’t mean color-changing bulbs this time. No, I'm talking about the colors that are already in your home -- artwork, furniture, the clothes in your closet, the fruits and veggies in your kitchen, you name it.
Whatever it is, if it's colorful, then it'll benefit from light bulbs with high color rendering scores -- bulbs that boost the color temperature and help colors look their best. This isn't always the easiest thing to shop for, as manufacturers aren't required to list their color rendering scores on the packaging, like they are with brightness and efficiency specs. Some bulbs that do claim to enhance colors are actually just so-so. My GE pick is made specifically for this purpose.
Wi-Fi hubs
Not everyone needs Wi-Fi for LED lights, especially if you prefer old-fashioned switches or only control lights via Bluetooth when you're at home. But if you want to control your LED lights remotely, you'll need Wi-Fi compatibility. Many, if not most, smart LED brands include built-in Wi-Fi, but some like Philips Hue require you to buy and plug in an additional hub. That's an extra cost and space, so you need to decide whether it's worth it.
