Why You Can Trust CNET Amazon Prime Day 2021: Best deals on smart lights and color-changing bulbs
If you're in the market for new smart lights, here's what's marked down for the big Prime Day sale.
- 10 years product testing experience with the CNET Home team
Amazon Prime Day is still going strong here on Tuesday (they should really call it Prime Days), and that means you can still expect to find lots of deals from all sorts of manufacturers in all kinds of categories. That includes deals on a variety of smart lights, many of which are live right now with prices that are about as tempting as it gets.
That makes this a great time to try out a color-changing bulb, or to build upon whatever smart lighting setup you've already installed. I've dug through all of the latest discounts -- from Amazon and also from rival retailers slashing their prices to keep up -- to point out the offers currently worth considering. Here's the full rundown, and I'll update as deals come and go.
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Let's start with Lifx, one of the more established names in smart lighting. The company's Wi-Fi Lightstrips work with all of the major smart home platforms and voice assistants -- HomeKit, Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT, you name it -- and they're capable of multiple colors at once, which is a fun feature to play with no matter where you end up putting them.
Usually $90, the 80-inch version of the Lifx Lightstrip was marked down to $75 just ahead of Prime Day on Amazon and at Best Buy -- and now that Prime Day is here, Amazon shoppers can take an extra $10 off at checkout, bringing the cost down to $65 (you'll see those extra savings in your cart, at checkout).
That's the lowest price I've seen for this newest version of the Lightstrip, which was originally called Lifx Z when I first reviewed it back in 2016. It's also $15 less than the Philips Hue Lightstrip, which can only put out one color at a time, and significantly less than the souped-up Philips Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip, which puts out multiple colors but costs a ridiculous $230.
It's not just strips -- just about everything in the Lifx catalog is currently on sale, including the company's smart bulbs. Among all of the deals I've seen, one of the best is on this two-pack of Lifx Color LEDs, currently on sale for $50 at Best Buy. That's $15 less than usual and just $25 per bulb, which is very good given that this is one of the best-looking color-changing bulbs you can buy. And remember, Lifx lights work with just about everything you'd want them to work with, including voice controls via Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant.
Don't need two bulbs, and would rather start with just one? For Prime Day, Amazon has that same $25 per bulb price for single bulbs (again, with most of these Amazon Lifx offers, you'll see the final sale price in your cart, at checkout).
Other Lifx deals currently worth considering include:
- Lifx 75-watt replacement LEDs for $35 ($15 off): Good for additional brightness
- Lifx Color BR30 LED for $35 ($15 off): Same brightness as above, in floodlight form
- Lifx Nightvision LED for $34 ($26 off): Adds in invisible infrared diodes that help your cameras see in the dark
- Lifx Clean LED for $60 ($10 off): Adds in high-energy violet diodes capable of safely killing bacteria
- Lifx Beam for $96 (save $54): Magnetic, modular, multi-color light bars, good for show-offy smart homes
You'll find a variety of deals available from Philips Hue, too, but they're mostly concentrated on the brand's fixtures and accessories, rather than the bulbs themselves. For instance, you can score this 2-meter Philips Hue Lightstrip plus a 1-meter extension strip for $85, or $20 off.
That's not a bad deal if you have a lot of ground for those strips to cover, and these are the newest versions, which feature both Zigbee and Bluetooth radios -- the latter of which lets you control them from your phone without need for the Philips Hue Bridge. Just remember: These only put out one color at a time.
Also on sale from Philips Hue: the Adore smart-lighted mirror, which comes with a dimmer switch to help you dial into the perfect white light setting for your morning makeup routine. It's usually $250, but Prime Day shoppers can grab one for almost $70 off.
Like I said, I'm not seeing any great deals on Hue's bulbs -- for that, you'll want to check out other brands, like Sylvania. The company sells color-changing Wi-Fi smart bulbs that work with Alexa and Google Assistant -- you'll usually find a four-pack available for $35, but Prime Day shoppers get an extra 25% off, bringing the total down to $26. That's only $6.50 per bulb.
Prefer the BR30 floodlight versions? That four-pack is on sale today, too, with a final cost of $38, or $9.50 per bulb.
They don't come with a Google smart speaker, but the C by GE line of smart bulbs do pair particularly well with Google Assistant thanks to the fact that GE Lighting was an early Made by Google partner. If you don't care about colors, you can score a two-pack of the company's soft white "Direct Connect" smart bulbs, which don't need a hub to pair with Alexa or the Google Assistant, for just $13.
Maybe you like the idea of lights with extra tricks up their sleeve, but you aren't crazy about the notion of adding light bulbs to your Wi-Fi network. If that's the case, then you ought to consider the LED Plus lineup from GE, a series of gadgety light bulbs with built-in features, but no cloud connectivity whatsoever.
For instance, this one pictured above uses a built-in ambient light sensor to turn on when the sun sets and off when it rises gain. It's a couple of bucks off for Prime Day, so if you've got some outdoor fixtures that could use new bulbs, today might be a perfect time to stock up.
Other bulbs from that nonconnected LED Plus family are on sale, too, including bulbs with built-in motion detectors and built-in batteries for power outages, as well as bulbs that double as Bluetooth speakers.
Outdoor smart plugs are great to have on hand when the holidays come around and you get that itch to automate some decorative outdoor lights. In the past, weatherized smart plugs like those sold at a premium, but the costs have come down in recent years. Now, for Prime Day, GE Lighting will sell you one with two outlets for just $21. That's a great deal, especially considering that the Bluetooth/Wi-Fi plug requires no hub and supports voice commands via Alexa and Google Assistant.
If you'd rather smarten things up at the switch than upgrade your bulbs, you won't find a much better deal than this three-pack from Kasa, TP-Link's smart home offshoot brand. Just a few years ago, this bundle would have cost more than $100, but right now, you can find it marked all the way down to $35 on Amazon, which is $10 off the regular cost and as low a price as we've ever seen for it.
The switches themselves are nothing fancy -- no dimming, no built-in voice assistant -- but if you just want to automate a few extra lights around the house, here's a great way to get the job done.
Just looking to score a quick Prime Day deal on some simple, workable smart bulbs that can change colors via voice? This Kasa smart bulb two-pack was already easy to afford at $25, but it's currently marked down to $20. That's two perfectly decent, color-changing smart bulbs that need no hub and support voice control via either Alexa or Google Assistant, for just $10 each.
I haven't tested these out and can't speak to how good they are, but these multicolor lightstrips from Govee look like a budget-minded alternative to those fancy Lifx strips, complete with multiple colors at once, music syncing modes, and voice controls via Alexa and Google Assistant. They were relatively cheap to begin with at $30 per strip, but for Prime Day, Govee's knocking that down to $24.