Each bulb also uses a warm white color to create more varied shades and tones for mood-setting. That amounts to 40 preset scene modes and fully customizable effects, along with a music-sync mode that reacts to the audio your phone hears. It can also change colors, but the colored light isn’t nearly as bright or vivid as comparable indoor lights. The fully dimmable white light tops off at an impressive 1200 lumens, with temperature tunable between 2200 Kelvin and 6500 Kelvin.

This 14-watt LED bulb has a brightness equivalent to a 120-watt incandescent light bulb, making it much more energy efficient. When it comes to smart lighting ecosystems, though, Philips Hue has one of the more comprehensive, high-quality catalogs of indoor and outdoor lighting solutions you can invest in. Not to mention additional Calla extension units if you want to set up multiple lights. If you don’t already use one, it adds more cost to a product that’s pricey on its own. Using the Hue Calla and its robust smart features requires a Philips Hue bridge to serve as a hub. It’s our recommendation for those willing to invest in a premium smart lighting platform. Our favorite is the Philips Hue Calla Smart Pathway Outdoor Bollard Light Base Kit, which offers excellent colors, detailed control options, simple installation, and comprehensive smart features. “You can control everything together with an app or lighting system…It’s really a continuation of the technology you have in a smart home.”Īfter speaking with Sutton about the key features of the best outdoor smart lights, we researched and chose top outdoor and landscape options based on ease of installation, useful features, and brightness and color customization. “You can use a timer to automatically turn everything off late at night,” says Giles Sutton, a long-time smart home integrator and executive at the home technology association CEDIA.

Use smartlight as timer