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Smart bulbs are LED bulbs with a small radio built in, so you can control them from an app, by voice or on a schedule. To choose one, first decide how it connects, Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Bluetooth or Matter, depending on how many bulbs you want and what you already own. Then check the base, the lumens and the colour.
A smart bulb is the easiest way to make a light controllable without touching any wiring: it goes into the lampholder in place of an ordinary bulb. In Ireland that raises a question straight away, because most ceiling roses and pendant sets in Irish homes take a B22 bayonet bulb, while many modern light fittings, including most of the pendants and ceiling lights in our range, take an E27 screw bulb. Smart bulbs exist in both, as well as in E14 and GU10, so the base is rarely the obstacle. The real difficulty is choosing how the bulb talks to the rest of the house, a choice that packaging tends to bury under brand names. This guide explains what each connection type changes, what a smart bulb really uses on standby, and the traps to avoid before you fit out the whole house.
What is a smart bulb?
It is an ordinary LED bulb with a radio receiver and a little control electronics added. Once paired, it responds to an app on your phone, to a voice assistant, to a wireless switch or to a sensor. It can switch on and off, dim, change from one white to another or to a colour, and follow a schedule you set.
One condition follows from the way it works: the bulb has to stay powered to hear your commands. If you turn it off at the wall switch, it receives nothing, and the app reports it as unreachable. So the wall switch stays on, or it is replaced by a compatible wireless switch stuck to the wall in the same place. This is the single most common complaint from people who have just fitted smart bulbs, and it is worth explaining to everyone in the house before you start: the switch by the door is no longer the way to turn the light off.
Smart bulbs are not a separate kind of lighting. On the inside they are LED bulbs like any other, with the same efficiency, the same long life and the same need for a lampholder of the right size. What changes is the control. That is why the choice starts with the connection, not with the bulb itself.
Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Bluetooth or Matter: which should you choose?
The connection type, or protocol, is the language the bulb and its controller speak. It decides everything else: what extra equipment you need, how many bulbs you can run, whether the lights still work when the internet is down, and which makes you can mix.
Wi-Fi: the simplest way to start
A Wi-Fi smart bulb connects straight to your broadband router, with no other device. You screw or push it in, add it in the maker’s app, and you can control it from outside the house too, through the manufacturer’s servers. Watch the frequency band: many Wi-Fi bulbs only connect on the 2.4 GHz band, not on 5 GHz. If your router broadcasts both bands under the same network name, pairing can fail; the fix is usually a setting in the router, or pairing while you stand close to the bulb. Wi-Fi suits a handful of bulbs well. Beyond ten or so, every bulb takes a place on the router’s network, and a basic router supplied with a broadband package can start to struggle.
Zigbee: for the whole house
Zigbee is a low-power radio network designed for home automation. The bulbs do not talk to the router but to a hub, sometimes called a bridge, which is connected to the router by a cable. In a Zigbee mesh, mains-powered devices such as bulbs pass the signal on to one another, so the range grows as you add more of them. That makes it the most stable choice for a large number of lights, and the lights keep responding to their switches and schedules through the hub even if the broadband goes down. The price is the hub itself, which you buy once.
Bluetooth: one room, no router
With Bluetooth, your phone controls the bulb directly, with no router and no hub. It is handy for a bedroom, an apartment or a rented home where you do not want to set anything up. The trade-off is range, limited to the room or not much more, and you cannot control the light from outside the house without a separate relay device. Many recent bulbs combine Bluetooth with Zigbee: you start with Bluetooth and add a hub later if the project grows.
Matter: a common language between brands
Matter is a standard developed by the Connectivity Standards Alliance, which brings together the main players in the smart home. Version 1.0 of the specification was published in October 2022. Its aim is simple: devices from different makers should work together, and with the main voice assistants and smart home apps. Matter runs over Wi-Fi, Ethernet and Thread, a low-power mesh network similar in spirit to Zigbee. Thread needs a border router to reach the rest of the home network, a role that is often played by a smart speaker or a home hub you may already have. Matter devices are designed to work locally, without depending on an internet connection for their core functions, and Zigbee devices can join a Matter system through a compatible bridge. Choosing a Matter-compatible bulb keeps your options open if you change systems later.
| Protocol | Extra equipment | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wi-Fi | None, the router is enough | One to a few bulbs | 2.4 GHz band, load on the router |
| Zigbee | A hub or bridge | The whole house | Cost of the hub |
| Bluetooth | None | One room, a rented home | Range, no remote control |
| Matter | Depending on the network, a Thread border router | Mixing brands and assistants | Check for the Matter logo on the box |
If you are unsure, a simple rule works for most homes. For one or two lamps, Wi-Fi. For a whole floor or the whole house, Zigbee with a hub, or Matter if you already own a device that acts as a Thread border router. For a single room you rent, Bluetooth. Whatever you choose, try to stay with one system: two apps for two sets of bulbs in the same room soon become a nuisance.
White, tunable white or colour?
Smart bulbs come in three families, and the price rises with what they can do.
A white smart bulb only dims, in a single white, usually warm. That is enough to schedule the lights, to make the house look lived in while you are away, or to bring the light down in the evening. A tunable white bulb can also move from a warm white, around 2,700 K, to a cool white close to daylight: a crisp white in the kitchen in the morning, a warm white in the living room at night. A colour bulb adds millions of shades, for a party, a glow behind the television or a wake-up light that brightens slowly on dark winter mornings.
For everyday use, tunable white is often the best compromise. Colour earns its place in a living room, a teenager’s bedroom or behind a screen, where it will actually be used. And think about the fitting as well as the bulb: an exposed bulb, in a bulb pendant light for example, shows its colour directly, while a closed shade softens it and makes a cool white look far less harsh.
Which base and how bright should a smart bulb be?
You choose a smart bulb first like any other bulb: its base has to match the lampholder. In Ireland the most common is the B22 bayonet, the push-and-twist base found on most traditional pendant sets and ceiling roses. The E27, the large Edison screw, is the norm on most continental and designer fittings, and it is the base on 324 of the fittings in our catalogue, from pendants to ceiling lights. The E14, the small screw, fits many wall lights and bedside lamps, and the GU10, with its two short pins and a quarter turn, is the base of most spotlights. The code is printed on the old bulb and on the page of each light fitting. Smart bulbs are sold in all four, so check the fitting before you buy, not after.
For brightness, think in lumens, not watts. Under the European rules on lamp packaging, an LED bulb may only claim to replace a 60 W incandescent bulb if it gives at least 806 lumens. Also check the maximum wattage the fitting accepts, shown on its product page, and the space inside it: the radio module makes some smart bulbs a little longer or wider than a standard bulb, which can be a problem under a narrow lampshade or inside a closed globe.
In a living room pendant, a single E27 smart bulb of around 800 to 1,000 lumens is usually enough for the main light. Our round Scandinavian pendant light in natural wood takes one E27 bulb of up to 15 W, and its open dome lets every change of white or colour reach the room. You will find plenty of other E27 models among our living room pendant lights.
Do smart bulbs use more electricity?
When they are on, smart bulbs use the same as an LED bulb giving the same amount of light. The difference is standby: switched off from the app, the bulb stays powered so that it can listen to the network. European ecodesign rules cap that consumption. Under Regulation (EU) 2019/2020, which has applied since 1 September 2021, the networked standby power of a connected light source may not exceed 0.5 W.
Take the worst case. A bulb sitting on standby all year at 0.5 W uses 0.5 W x 8,760 hours, or 4.38 kWh a year at most. That is little for one bulb, but it adds up across a house with twenty smart lights: at most 87.6 kWh a year, the same as a single 10 W LED bulb left on day and night for a whole year. On the other side of the scale, schedules and sensors stop lights being left on in empty rooms, which often more than makes up for it. So smart bulbs do not raise the electricity bill in any meaningful way, as long as you use their features to switch lights off rather than simply to change their colour.
A word on smart bulbs in bathrooms and outdoors. The bulb itself carries no protection against water: what protects it is the fitting around it. In a bathroom or a porch, the IP rating to check is the one printed on the light fitting, and the fitting must be suitable for that location in the first place; a smart bulb does not change that. Outdoors, a smart bulb inside a closed, weatherproof wall light works well on a schedule, but do not pair it with a fitting that has its own built-in motion sensor. The sensor cuts the power between detections, so the bulb drops off the network each time and the app loses track of it. If you want both, choose a fitting without a sensor and use a compatible wireless motion sensor from the same system instead.
If standby worries you, the fix is simple: use smart bulbs only where you will really use the smart features, and plain LED bulbs elsewhere. A hallway light on a schedule, a living room with scenes and a bedroom with a slow wake-up light earn their standby. A bulb in the attic does not.
How to install and control a smart bulb
- Switch off at the wall, take out the old bulb and fit the smart bulb.
- Switch back on: the bulb lights up and goes into pairing mode.
- Add it in the app of the maker, or in your smart home app if it is Matter-compatible, often by scanning a QR code on the bulb or the box.
- Put it in a room in the app and group the bulbs of the same fitting, so they switch together.
- Set up your routines: a slow wake-up in the morning, everything off when you leave the house, lights that come on while you are on holidays.
To switch a bulb on from outside the house, something has to link it to the internet: the router for a Wi-Fi bulb, the hub for Zigbee, the border router for Thread. With Bluetooth alone, control stops at the range of your phone. For routines that need no phone at all, a compatible motion sensor can switch on the hall or landing light as you pass.
Wall switches, two-way switching and smart switches
The wall switch is where smart bulbs meet real life. On a staircase or a long hallway with two-way switching, a switch at the top and another at the bottom, anyone who flicks either switch off cuts the power to the bulb. You have three options. Leave the switches on and use a stick-on wireless switch made for your system, which needs no wiring at all. Put a simple cover over the switch so it is not turned off by habit. Or replace the wall switch with a smart switch and keep ordinary LED bulbs. That last option means working on the fixed wiring of the house: in Ireland, have it done by a Registered Electrical Contractor, and switch off at the distribution board before anyone touches a switch.
Privacy and security
A smart bulb is a small computer on your home network, and it deserves the same basic care as any other connected device. Keep the app and the bulbs up to date: manufacturers fix faults and security holes through firmware updates, and most apps install them automatically if you let them. Use a strong password on your broadband router, and change the default one if you have never done so. If your router offers a guest network, putting smart home devices on it keeps them apart from the laptops and phones where your personal data lives. Be wary of bulbs with no clear maker, no updates and an app that asks for far more permissions than a light needs. And when you move house or pass a bulb on, reset it to its factory settings so that it drops off your account.
Local control is also a privacy choice. A Zigbee hub or a Matter system that works on the home network does not need to send every switch of every light to a server abroad. If that matters to you, check on the box or in the app whether the bulbs keep working when the internet is cut, and prefer those that do.
The drawbacks you should know
A smart bulb depends on an app and, for some features, on the maker’s servers: if the manufacturer stops supporting a product, features can disappear. Matter, and Zigbee with a local hub, limit that risk. The other trap is the dimmer. A smart bulb handles its own dimming, and a wall dimmer switch in front of it can make it flicker or buzz: check the instructions before fitting one on a dimmer circuit, and if the light is on a dimmer, ask your electrician whether to replace it with a standard switch. Smart bulbs also cost more than plain LED bulbs, and a very cheap one may have a short life or an app that is poorly maintained. Buy from a system you can see yourself using for years.
Which light fittings suit smart bulbs?
The fitting matters as much as the bulb. A pendant with an open shade lets all the light and every change of colour through: it is the best partner for a tunable white bulb above a table or a sofa. A fitting with several bulbs lets you create scenes by lighting only some of them, and a multi-light pendant over a dining table is a good example. Our living room ceiling light in light wood and glass takes two E27 bulbs behind frosted glass: with two smart bulbs, one can stay warm and low for the evening while both come up to full brightness when you need to see.
For a reading corner, a spotlight with a GU10 lampholder takes a smart bulb with the same base, which you can schedule to come on at a set time or dim from your chair. Our reading wall lights include several GU10 models, and a spot ceiling light with several heads works the same way on the ceiling. If what you want is a line of light under a unit or in a cove rather than a bulb, integrated fittings from our LED lights range are an alternative: many are dimmable, though their built-in LEDs cannot be swapped for smart bulbs, so plan the control before you buy.
Smart bulbs room by room
Not every room gains the same from a smart bulb, and the best results come from matching the feature to the way the room is used.
In the bedroom, the star feature is the slow wake-up. On a dark January morning, a bulb that brightens gradually over twenty or thirty minutes before the alarm makes getting up far easier than a light snapped on at full power. In the evening, the same bulb can drop to a warm, low glow for reading, then switch off on a timer once you are asleep. A tunable white bulb in a bedside lamp or a wall light beside the bed covers both ends of the day.
In the hall and on the landing, smart bulbs earn their keep with schedules and sensors. A light that comes on at dusk and dims late at night makes the house safer on the stairs, and a low night-light setting on the landing helps anyone getting up in the small hours without waking the whole house. This is also where the two-way switching problem described above bites hardest, so plan the switches first.
In the kitchen, a tunable white bulb gives a crisp, neutral white while you cook and a warmer tone when the table is cleared and the room becomes a place to sit. In the living room, scenes are what matter: one for watching television, with the main light low and a lamp glowing in the corner, one for reading, and one for when friends call round. Once they are set, one tap or one word replaces a walk round the room turning lamps on and off.
And think about the long Irish winter. When it is dark before five o’clock, a few lights on a schedule make the house look lived in while you are still at work, and you come home to a lit hall rather than a dark one. It is one of the simplest uses of smart bulbs, and one of the most appreciated.
The right order to get started: choose the protocol according to the size of the project, check the base and the maximum wattage on the fitting’s page, then choose between white, tunable white and colour. Start with one room, try out the routines, and extend from there once you know what you actually use.
Smart bulbs: frequently asked questions
What does a smart bulb do?
A smart bulb is an LED bulb with a radio built in. Once paired, you can switch it on and off, dim it and, depending on the model, change its white or its colour from an app, by voice, with a wireless switch or on a schedule. It fits an ordinary lampholder, B22, E27, E14 or GU10, with no change to the wiring.
Can I put a smart bulb in any lamp?
In most lamps, yes, as long as the base matches the lampholder and the bulb fits inside the shade: the radio module makes some smart bulbs a little bigger than a standard bulb. Check the fitting’s maximum wattage, and avoid lamps or circuits with a dimmer, which can make a smart bulb flicker. The lamp’s own switch must stay on.
Do smart bulbs work without internet?
It depends on the protocol. A Bluetooth bulb works from your phone with no internet. A Zigbee system with a hub keeps working on the home network if the broadband goes down, and Matter devices are designed to work locally. A Wi-Fi-only bulb needs the router, and some features, such as control from outside the house, rely on the internet.
Do smart bulbs raise the electric bill?
Hardly. When on, they use the same as an LED bulb with the same light output. On standby they keep listening to the network, but EU Regulation 2019/2020 caps that at 0.5 W, which is at most 4.38 kWh a year for a bulb on standby all year. Schedules and sensors that switch lights off in empty rooms usually save more than that.
What do you need for a smart bulb to work?
A lampholder with the right base, the power left on at the wall switch, and a way to control it: a phone app for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, a hub for Zigbee, or a Matter-compatible app or speaker for Matter. For control from outside the house, the bulb must be linked to the internet through the router, the hub or a Thread border router.
What are the disadvantages of smart bulbs?
They must stay powered, so turning off the wall switch makes them unreachable. They depend on an app, sometimes on the maker’s servers, and a wall dimmer in front of them can make them flicker. They cost more than a plain LED bulb. Matter and hubs that work without the internet reduce your dependence on a single brand.
Sources
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2019/2020 laying down ecodesign requirements for light sources, Annex II: standby and networked standby power of connected light sources limited to 0.5 W, applying from 1 September 2021. EUR-Lex
- Commission Regulation (EC) No 244/2009 on ecodesign requirements for non-directional household lamps, Table 6: 806 lm as the reference flux for a claimed 60 W equivalent LED lamp. EUR-Lex
- Matter (standard): Connectivity Standards Alliance, version 1.0 of October 2022, Wi-Fi, Ethernet and Thread transports, local operation and Zigbee bridges. Wikipedia
Related products
Round Scandinavian pendant light in metal and natural wood
Scandinavian living room ceiling light in light wood and glass
Oak wood spot wall light
See also
Teal Bedroom Ideas: Colours, Gold Accents and the Right Light for a Dark Wall
Downstairs Toilet Lighting: The Right Light for a Small, Windowless WC or Cloakroom
Wabi-Sabi Interior Design: The Beauty of Imperfection, Right Down to the Light
