5 Affordable Smart Lighting Alternatives To Philips Hue Worth Buying

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Philips Hue is among the most well-known smart light brands, and for good reason. Its lineup offers brilliant lighting, a premium feature set, and Philips' brand reliability. But that premium branding comes at a cost, literally. Browse the Philips Hue smart lighting section, and you'll see simple bulb kits with prices upwards of $150, specialty fixtures for $500 or more, and accessories like the Hue bridge that you have to account for on top of it all. But with affordable Philips Hue alternatives like Govee, GE Cync, Nanoleaf, Kasa, and Lifx, you can get comparable — and in some cases even better — performance and personalization at a fraction of the price.

Whether you're looking for a cheap but effective A19 smart light bulb kit, LED strips for TV backlighting, or some RGB light bars to add to your gaming setup, you can find it for a lower price than you would searching the Philips Hue collection. You don't have to sacrifice on features, either; most of these recommendations offer excellent customization and functionality through dedicated apps and smart assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit.

Govee has exploded in popularity over the past decade for providing a range of smart lighting products at reasonable prices. Starting with the common A19 smart bulb, Govee carries a 4-pack of 1200-lumen RGBWW Bulbs for $79.99. Meanwhile, Philips Hue sells its 800-lumen Essential A19 E26 Smart Bulb bundle (2-pack) for $49.98. Not only does Philips provide half the number of bulbs for close to the same price (buying four bulbs would cost $100), but the bulbs aren't as bright. On top of that, the Govee app offers a fantastic suite of customization options for brightness, colors, effects, scheduling, and more.

The Govee Floor Lamp 3 ($169.99 at Govee) is also a great comparison to the Philips Hue Signe gradient floor lamp ($379.99 at Philips) despite a $210 difference. The Govee Floor Lamp 3 also offers gradient coloration via individual RGBWWIC lighting zones, and its max brightness of 2,100 lumens is very close to the 2,550 lumens offered in the Hue Signe gradient floor lamp. Govee's lamp actually offers a more comprehensive temperature range of 1000K-10000K compared to the Hue Signe's 2000–6500K, and the Floor Lamp 3 also is compatible with all of the usual smart assistants, including Alexa, Google Home, and Matter — no smart hub (like the Hue Bridge) required.

Govee also offers some pretty cool reactivity with smart lights like the Govee Envisual TV Backlight T2 ($139.99 at Govee). It uses a tiny camera pointed down at the screen to detect and automatically match the backlighting to what's happening on-screen. At Philips, you have to pay $119.99 for just the Philips Hue Play screen sync and no included lights.

GE Cync lights are an excellent budget alternative to Philips Hue. The GE Cync A19 Smart LED Light Bulbs are only $8.01 (at GE) for a 2-pack of full-color, 800-lumen bulbs — a 2-pack of 800-lumen bulbs at Philips is over six times more expensive. Yet, the GE Cync bulbs offer all of the same features customizable through the Cync app, including cool and warm lighting control, millions of RGB colors to choose from, automated schedules, and voice control through smart assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit.

The GE Cync Dynamic Effects Full Color Smart LED Hexagon Panel($127.99 at GE) is a set of panel lights that you can mold into whatever shape you like using the included mounting system and layout templates. Like the Cync A19 Smart LED bulbs, the Smart LED Hexagon Panels are fully controllable through either the Cync app on your smartphone or a smart speaker. You can even sync the panels to music for dynamic effects that match the audio. If you want to control these and the light bulbs at the same time, you don't need any expensive accessories like a hub; you just select both of them in the Cync app and customize. The light panels, which come in either a 7-pack or 10-pack, are fairly dim at 200 lumens, making them a better choice for accent lighting rather than illuminating a room. If you want something malleable but a bit brighter to spice up your desk setup or media center, the GE Cync Dynamic Effects Smart LED Thin Profile Light Strip ($27.99 at GE) comes in at 1600 lumens and can be bent, snipped, and shaped however you like.

Kasa, owned by TP-Link, only sells a few different kinds of smart lights, but they check both the affordable and reliable boxes. The A19 Kasa Smart Light Bulbs come in a 2-pack of 800-lumen bulbs for $21.98 at Amazon, which is less than half the price of equivalent Philips Hue bulbs. They come with all of the customization options you'd expect to find loaded in the Tapo app, including automatic on/off scheduling, color and temperature control, grouping with other bulbs, and compatibility with smart assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home. 

If you want the same functionality in a brighter bulb, Kasa also sells the Kasa Smart Light Bulbs KL135P2 1000-lumen model for $25.99 at Amazon. Despite the shape, power draw (9W for the 800-lumen variant versus 10.5W), brightness output, and temperature range (2500K-6500K versus 2500K-9000K) being slightly different, the two bulb types have identical feature sets. The Kasa Smart LED Light Strip ($24.99 at Amazon) offers 16.4 or 32.8 feet of LEDs that you can shape and cut however you like, making it a solid budget choice for framing a desk or TV. These smart lights also fit well in your bedroom around a nightstand or bedframe for nighttime navigation. At a maximum rating of 1600 lumens, these get pretty bright, and like other Kasa smart lights, you can customize everything from color to scheduling via smartphone or smart speaker. Group these with a pair of Kasa Smart Light Bulbs to control everything at once for full-room ambience.

Lifx has its own A19 Smart Light 2-Pack (800 lumens) for $29.98, but the real reason to check out its catalogue is for all of the interesting, unique smart lights they offer. The Lifx Smart Mirror ($249.98 at Lifx), for example, is a vanity mirror with smart lights built-in. But it also has some useful features outside of pretty lights. It comes with a de-fog button to clear the mirror of steam after a hot shower and a Makeup Check mode that shifts to bright white lighting. The 50 individual color zones are customizable from the Lifx app or a smart assistant, including temperature, color, effects, and automation.

If you're looking to spruce up the garden, walkway, or garage, the SuperColor Spot Light ($79 at Lifx) is a great weather-resistant option. Aside from their IP66 resistance rating, they're fully RGB, offer a temperature range of 1500K–9000K, and they're pretty bright at 1600 lumens, too. Each light has three lighting zones for all kinds of colors and effects, which can be a lot of fun around the holidays. You can set up an automatic on/off schedule too, which is useful as pseudo-security lighting, or if you come home late and want to light up the driveway. Though the SuperColor Path Light Round ($99 at Lifx) does an even better job at that. The Lifx Supercolor 26-inch Ceiling Light ($139 at Lifx) clocks in at a seriously impressive 5000 lumens. If you want diffused room lighting ambience, this ceiling light is the way to go. Of course, it comes with the same customization potential across 121 lighting zones as Lifx's other smart lights.

Nanoleaf's Smart LED Bulbs come in a 4-pack of 1000-lumen bulbs for $49.99 at Nanoleaf, which is the same price as two 800-lumen bulbs from Philips Hue. But like Lifx, Nanoleaf is worth a look for a catalogue you won't find anywhere else. Its Nanoleaf Blocks ($159.99 at Nanoleaf) are particularly interesting because they blend form and function by placing smart lights behind shelves and pegboards, allowing you to add a pop of color to your setup and shine some light on your favorite collectibles. Plus, they actually look like a wall decoration rather than a random light fixture — especially since you can configure the Blocks however you like. They have a respectable color range of 1200K to 6500K and a brightness of 320 Lumens.

If you like the idea of the Nanoleaf Blocks but want to keep your walls free, you can opt for the Nanoleaf Skylight ($199.99 at Nanoleaf) instead, which is the same concept but on your ceiling (though there's no potential for storage). For your desk setup, there's the Nanoleaf Smart LED Monitor Stand ($169.99 at Nanoleaf), which features a down-facing lightbar and enough room for your monitor, speakers, and knick-knacks. The 102 lighting zones are fully customizable in the Nanoleaf app, and there are built-in touch controls on the stand for quick adjustments. If you want some movie-night ambience, the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror ($99.99 at Nanoleaf) is the same concept as the Govee Envisual TV Backlight T2 at a cheaper price point. It uses a camera mounted atop the TV to match backlighting to the scene on-screen, and it can sync with other Nanoleaf smart lights to create a full-room experience.

To select these smart light options, we first browsed the Philips Hue catalogue to gather accurate, up-to-date pricing information on various bulbs and fixtures. Then, we determined the key criteria to evaluate whether a smart light setup was worth recommending. Lights were evaluated based on affordability, luminosity, feature set, reliability, and ease of customization. We then searched across all major smart light manufacturers, including Govee, TP-Link, Nanoleaf, GE Cync, and more to find smart lights that fit the bill.

Using our own testing and analysis from guides like 5 Cheaper Smart Lights That Work With Google Home and We Tested 52 Different Smart Light Bulbs To Find The Best Ones, we narrowed the list of recommendations down. We also took user and expert reviews into account, and we placed a particular emphasis on reviews that detailed real-world usage situations. We also took availability into account, as well as which smart lights were most applicable to the majority of people. In other words, do we believe the smart light kit is genuinely worth recommending to most customers in the market for a set of bulbs, wall decoration, or backlight setup? If so, we listed it here.