Once you have a ZigBee Bridge: Philips Hue Bridge, Amazon Echo Plus, or Raspberry Pi, or any other setup, you can add most of the available generic Zigbee bulbs. The biggest advantage of ZigBee? The more bulbs you put, the better the signal to all of them, as they relay control messages to each other.

Philips Hue: the reference vendor

Being it bulbs or strips, white or color, or special form factors, Hue offers it all. Some interesting models below, or click on the full list to get more possibilities. In general, the white bulbs support both cool and warm white. Don't expect the color lights to lighten up a room, consider them as providing a 'touch of color'.

United States: full list

Continental EU: click here for a full list

Alternative bulbs

The advantage of ZigBee is that it's a standard, which means you should have no issues with connecting different brands to your smart hub. I've never encountered any so far.

Theoretically, ZigBee lights can get firmware updates, but compared to Wifi bulbs, these are rather limited, and less necessary from a security perspective.

Sending updates to your bulbs/strips could be limited to the bulb's of the same brand as your hub. In case of any issue, a ZigBee USB stick connected to a PC with the right software would probably be able to do that one time job. 

My advice? If you've bought a Hue bridge and you have a choice, go for Hue bulbs/strips/plugs. If Hue doesn't have what you're looking for, don't hesitate to try any other brand. Some interesting bulbs (price-wise or form factor) underneath:

 US: Click here for a full list

EU: click here for a full list

Zigbee plugs - another alternative

If you're only interested in switching your lights one and of, and already have some fancy design light bulbs that you don't want to replace, you can definitely consider plugging your existing lights into a Zigbee power plug, which gives you easy control via your Zigbee smart Hub and connected voice assistant.

In case you've chosen the Hue bridge, I would prefer the Hue plug, same goes for the Samsung plug and the SmartThings hub.

Out of the ordinary: 12 Volt GU5.3 smart bulb

 One of my personal favorites and the only 12 Volt GU5.3 smart light bulbs I've found on the market can be found on the right-hand side. A perfect solution to replace your halogen bulbs in the bathroom or other 'wet environment', even offering both cool and warm white in a single light bulb.

Important remark: if you're replacing halogen spots with LED, you probably need to change your 12V transfo, as a classic halogen transfo does not handle the extremely low power current of this bulb, especially when it is turned off, although still powered and listening to Zigbee commands. If you want to avoid killing your bulb, make sure to replace the transfo, this is the one I used: LED Leuchmittel Trafo 12V DC 0,5 - 15 Watt Typ: MF090009 Netzteil Treiber G4 Transformator

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