7 Best Alexa Light Bulbs in the UK [With + Without Hubs] (2024)

Amazon’s Alexa has become a huge part of the home and thanks to Alexa skills, you can control almost any smart home device using your voice, including your lights.

There are now a ton of smart bulbs that make great Alexa accessories, including from traditional incandescent bulb manufacturers to cheap imported brands.

We’ve reviewed all of the popular products and found that Philips Hue is still the best Alexa-compatible bulb on the market in the UK. This is thanks to reliability, third party integrations and the option to use it offline when the internet is down.

Keep reading for our buyers guide and full product recommendations.

Quick Summary

In a rush? Here are my top three smart bulbs that work with Alexa. Find the full list below.

Image	Summary
	Best Overall: Philips Hue • Most reliable smart bulb • Available in every size and fitting with colour and white options • Sync your lights with Spotify	View on Amazon
	Best Without a Hub: LIFX • No hub required so set-up fees are lower • Brighter than Philips Hue at 1100lumens • Both white and colour bulbs are dimmable	View on Amazon
	Budget Pick: Lepro • Also work via Wi-Fi so no hub is required • Most affordable Alexa light bulb • App can be buggy	View on Amazon

Hub vs No Hub Smart Bulbs

If you have an existing smart home hub, you’ll want to ensure the bulbs will integrate with this whereas if you don’t yet have a hub, you’ll need to consider if you want to invest in one.

All of the lightbulbs in this list operate either using WiFi or Zigbee.

• WIFI: The benefit of WiFi connected devices is that you don’t need a hub, they connect directly to the router or a repeater so you’ll need to ensure it’s within range.

• Zigbee: This is an alternative mesh network, meaning that your device only needs to be within range of one other Zigbee device to work. However, you will need a hub of some sort.

Best Alexa Light Bulbs

Here are the 7 best smart light bulbs that work with Alexa:

• Best Overall: Philips Hue
• Best Without a Hub: LIFX Bulb
• Budget Pick: Lepro Smart Bulbs
• Brightest Bulbs: Novostello
• Best for Tracking Energy: Kasa by TP link
• Best for Offline Use: Sengled Bluetooth
• Best Hue Alternative: Innr

Below you’ll find our full reviews of these recommendations, with pros and cons of each.

At the end of the article, I’ve added a side-by-side comparison table for easy comparisons between the products.

Philips Hue – Best Overall

Brightness: 800 lumens (Equivalent to 60W) Fitting: Available as Screw, Bayonet and Spotlight Wireless Protocol: Zigbee

Philips Hue bulbs were one of the original smart lights and still remain one of the best to this day. They are compatible with a huge range of other smart devices, from syncing with your TV for a home cinema experience, to syncing with smart plugs and lamps. For me, the reliability of Hue is what earns them a top spot, you know that your lights will work every time which can’t be said of many other brands.

If you have an Echo Plus or an Echo Show, you can connect your Hue devices directly without the need for a hub. However, if you have another Alexa device, or to access the full range of Hue features, you’ll need a Hue bridge. Some of these other features include syncing with your TV (Hue sync box required) and with your music on Spotify.

You’ll find a huge range of options to choose from, with fittings for screw, bayonet or spotlights and the option to have white only or full colour. The coloured bulbs have 16 million colours to choose from, whilst the white bulbs have 50,000 shades of white, so you’ll always get to play around with scenes to suit you.

The Hue bridge connects directly to your router via a wired connection to your router which reduces any problems that other bulbs can encounter such as being incompatible with 5Ghz Wi-Fi bands.

If you’re new to Hue lights, then we recommend you take a look at the starter kit which gets you best value for money with a Hue bridge included. You can also pick up some Hue smart switches for a unified experience.

LIFX A60 – Best Without a Hub

Fitting: Bayonet or Edison screw fitting Wireless Protocol: WiFi

LIFX have a variety of bulbs on offer including mini sized, plus sized and candle shaped, but we’d recommend starting off with their signature A60 colour changing bulb that can be purchased as Bayonet or Edison fitting.

By the way, the A60 is called the A19 outside of the UK just to confuse you, but these are the same device. One of the benefits of these bulbs is that they are dimmable like the Hue bulbs, even the colour ones.

LIFX bulbs work with WiFi, this means they connect directly to your router and don’t require a hub, once connected to the cloud you’ll be able to add them to your Alexa smart home and install the LIFX Skill for added functionality.

Unfortunately, the fact that they connect directly to your router does prove difficult if you have to change routers as you’ll need to reconnect every device.

The LIFX A60 bulbs are far brighter than many bulbs listed here, at a whopping 1,100 lumens and outshine the Philips Hue. LIFX also has some other features that competitors don’t offer including randomly turning your lights on when you’re away to make it look like you’re home or integrating with smoke detectors.

Lepro – Best On A Budget

Brightness: 800 lumen (60w equivalent) Fitting: Edison Screw and Bayonet Wireless Protocol: WiFi

If you’re on a tighter budget, then the Lepro Alexa compatible light bulbs are a great choice. As far as the basics go, it’s not too dissimilar to the market leading Philips Hue with a similar number of colours to choose from and 60W equivalent lighting.

There is both a white and colour changing bulb available, however at less than £12 per bulb it’s worth going for the colour changing every time to futureproof your purchase.

These bulbs connect over WiFi like the LIFX and Kasa, however they will only work over 2.4Ghz WiFi. Once connected, integrating with Alexa is simple.

Some users have reported trouble setting the bulbs up using the official Lepro app with many suggesting that the Smart Life app is a much better way to set them up.

Kasa by TP link – Track Energy Conumption

Brightness: 800 lumen (60w equivalent) Wireless Protocol: WiFi Fitting: Bayonet or Edison screw

As you’d expect from a brand that made its name selling WiFi routers, the Kasa by TP-link range of smart home devices also runs over WiFi, eliminating the need for a hub.

The light integrates easily with Alexa via the TP-link Kasa Alexa skill which can be used to control them with voice commands.

The app is very easy to use and if anything is a bit basic compared to the rest of the Alexa light bulbs listed here, however a nice feature is the energy consumption meter which helps track your efficiency.

As far as integrations with other devices, the TP-link does fall behind, with no support for Apple HomeKit, Logitech Harmony and a few other key players in the smart home world.

The light isn’t as bright as the LIFX; however, it does have a much wider beam angle at 220 degrees compared to the LIFXs 135 degrees.

Novostello – Brightest Bulbs

So far, most of the bulbs I’ve shared have fallen between 800 and 1,100 lumens. However, Novostello have taken things to the next level with their 1,300 lumen Alexa-compatible bulbs which makes them equivalent to 120 watts. This is great for lighting up larger rooms, studies, or even outdoor areas (with a waterproof casing).

They connect via Wi-Fi so similar constraints apply as the other Wi-Fi bulbs I’ve shared such as the need to be within range of the router and no offline capability.

Whilst both Edison E27 and Bayonet B22 fittings are available, the 1,300 lumen bulbs from Novostello’s range are only available as RGB coloured bulbs. However, this isn’t a huge problem since they are affordable and still include dimming.

Innr – Best Hue Alternatives

If having a bulb that both looks good and works with Alexa, then look no further than Innrs range.

Similar to the Hue bulbs, these work via the Zigbee protocol which means you’ll need a hub. Whilst you can use the Innr hub, one of the biggest selling points is that Innr bulbs are compatible with Philips Hue which means you can add them to the Hue bridge as a cheap alternative. They are also compatible with the smart things hub or the Amazon Echo Plus or Show.

They have Edison, Bayonet, spotlights and many others in the range. One of my favourites is their vintage bulb which has been designed to mirror the retro look of a filament style bulb and has a golden coating to finish off the vintage look. There is also a globe version of the bulb which makes great decorative lighting even without any case or lamp shade.

Their bulbs are fully compatible with Alexa and have the usual smart functions that you’d expect, including routines, dimming, voice control, and more.

Sengled Bluetooth – Best for Offline

Sengled offer a range of smart bulbs including some that connect via Zigbee and others that use Wi-Fi. For the most-part, they have similar features to others on the market. However, one bulb that caught my eye was their Bluetooth Low Energy bulb.

Unlike the other bulbs in this guide which connect to the cloud via the router before speaking to Alexa, these ones can be connected directly to an Echo smart speaker. The advantage of this is that you can control them even when the internet goes down.

Typically, Bluetooth devices only work over a short distance. However, Sengeld have also incorporated mesh technology which means that each bulb only needs to be within range of another bulb and not the Echo device itself so it extends your coverage significantly as you add more bulbs.

Unfortunately, these specific bulbs are only available in white so you won’t have access to the full colour spectrum as with others on this list. However, there’s both an Edison and bayonet fitting.

Comparison Table

Here’s a side-by-side comparison that shows the key specs of each smart bulb range shared in this guide:

	Philips Hue	LIFX	Lepro	Kasa	Innr	Sengledd Bluetooth	Novostello
Wireless Protocol	Zigbee	Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi	Zigbee	Bluetooth	Wi-Fi
Works Without a Hub?	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Use Echo as Hub	Yes
White or Colour	Both	Both	Both	Both	Both	Both	Colour
E27	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
B22	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
GU10	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No
Light Strip	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Where to buy	Amazon	Amazon	Amazon	Amazon	Amazon	Amazon	Amazon

Other Bulbs that Work with Alexa

So those are my top picks, but there’s a huge range of brands to choose from.

Here’s a full list of bulbs that work with Alexa in the UK:

• Lepro
• LIFX
• Govee
• Hive
• Innr
• Linkind
• Makion
• Meross
• Novostello
• Philips Hue
• Sengled
• TP-Link Kasa

Controlling Lights with Alexa

Once you’ve set up your bulbs or switches in the Alexa app, you’ll be able to execute a range of Alexa commands using your voice. Out of the box, Alexa will be able to turn your lights on and off or dim them if supported. You can also include light bulbs within routines, see my full list of Alexa routine ideas for inspiration.

However, many of the product mentioned here come with their own Alexa skills, once these are enabled, you’ll be able to access a wider array of functions such as:

• Accessing the full spectrum of colours
• Creating scenes
• Custom voice commands

Offline Alexa Controls

When considering using Alexa to control basic home appliances, most consumers are keen to understand what happens when the internet is down.

With Alexa, you can control any smart home device that is connected directly to an Echo, even without internet. To do this, you will need:

• An Amazon Echo Plus or Show (these have a built in Zigbee hub)
• A bulb that runs on the Zigbee wireless protocol

We have outlined which devices run on Zigbee in our reviews to help you choose.