Me holding one of my Hue GU10 color smart bulbs How Smart Bulbs Work With Regular (Dumb) Switches smart bulbs with a regular switch, or regular bulbs with smart switches). In many cases, people only use one or the other (i.e. Of course, you don’t need to mix smart bulbs and switches and have both in a room.

Whilst this may seem like a limitation, it actually makes your smart home feel more natural because the smart switch will work in an expected way – unlike smart bulbs which can have a few quirks (as I explore below). This also means that a smart switch is tied to the light bulbs that the old switch controlled. This is because smart switches are hardwired into your house’s electrics, replacing your existing wall switch. Smart switches, on the other hand, can also be turned on/off in various ways and can be controlled with smart speakers too, but they don’t allow color changes and most smart switches don’t support dimming either. You can also use your smart speaker to control your bulbs, such as saying “ Alexa, turn off my hallway light” or “ Hey Google, dim the lights“. Since they’re a smart home product, you can also integrate them with your other smart devices – for example, turning on a smart light when someone rings your smart doorbell, or when your smart camera detects someone walking past. Whilst they aren’t the cheapest smart product (a quality color smart bulb can be around $50), I was recently converted to smart bulbs after realizing that I could save a couple of hours each month using them. Smart bulbs can be turned on/off via various of methods (including on a timer), and can be dimmed and have their color changed too.

My Amazon Echo next to a Philips Hue E14 (candle) box.

Decora smart switch