Best Matter-Compatible Smart Light Bulbs: Illuminating Your Smart Home

Smart home technology has revolutionized the way we interact with our living spaces, and smart lighting is a key component of this transformation. What's a smart home without being able to turn off your lights using only your voice or an app?

Matter aims to streamline the smart home experience by ensuring that devices from different brands can work together seamlessly. With Matter, you can control your smart lights from a single app, regardless of the manufacturer.

Matter-Compatible Smart Light Bulbs: Considerations Before You Buy

Before you go ordering Matter-compatible smart bulbs on Amazon, there are a few key factors to consider first.

Features

What features are important to you? Do you want a bulb that can change colors or just your standard white color? Do you need a bulb that is dimmable for your home? Or are you looking for a stylish filament bulb that will give your home decor a trendy boost?

Knowing your feature requirements is the first step towards deciding what product to buy. Each bulb is different in its own way.

Brightness

Next up, you need to think about how bright you need—or want—your bulb to be. This will depend on the size of your room and how much light you need.

Unlike in the past, when a bulb's brightness was determined by its wattage, the light output of LED/smart light bulbs is measured in lumens. To simplify things, you'll only need to remember that the higher the number the brighter the bulb.

Connectivity

You'll also need to take your existing smart home network into consideration. If you have a hub from vendors like Philips Hue in your home, you can simply pick up a compatible bulb and pair it right away by following the instructions in the associated app.

If you don't already own a hub, you can skip the middleman and go with a bulb that utilizes Wi-Fi or Thread for connectivity. Wi-Fi is ubiquitous in most homes these days so you can be up and running in just a few seconds with Matter's seamless pairing process.

However, having too many devices on your Wi-Fi network can be detrimental to its overall performance. Technologies like Thread avoid this problem by creating their own mesh network similar to older protocols like ZigBee.

To take advantage of Thread, you'll need a Border Router setup in your home. Chances are though, you may already have one as the latest Google Nest Hubs, Apple HomePods, and Amazon Echos all support Border Router functionality.

Price

Now the really important question—how much are you willing to spend on a smart light bulb? Smart light bulbs can range in price from around $10 to $50 or more.

 It obviously depends on what company you choose with top name brands like Philips Hue being amongst the priciest. But like anything in life, you get what you pay for.

Also bear in mind that you can usually pick up a nice discount if you buy bulbs in bulk. This is definitely a good strategy if you are often at home.

The Top 5 Matter-Compatible Smart Light Bulbs

Now that we have covered the essential criteria, these are our picks for the best Matter-compatible smart light bulbs on the market.

Nanoleaf Essentials A19 Matter Smart Bulb

Available in Wi-Fi and Thread variants, the Nanoleaf Essentials A19 Matter Smart Bulb is a solid choice for those just starting their smart home journey as well as seasoned vets. As its name suggests, Nanoleaf's A19 bulb provides all the essentials: tunable shades of white, the ability to display over 16 million different colors, and full 1-100% dimming.

When it comes to brightness, Nanoleaf's bulb produces up to 806 lumens when choosing colors, and a maximum of 1,100 lumens for white lighting. The Essentials bulb is also compatible with Apple Home's incredibly handy Adaptive Lighting feature that automatically shifts color temperature based on the time of day.

Tapo TL135E Smart Wi-Fi Light Bulb

The Tapo TL135E Smart Wi-Fi Light Bulb won us over in our hands-on review, with its excellent performance, color reproduction, customization, and reliability. It also didn't hurt that its price is the cheapest around with it often going for around $10 each.

The TL135E can brighten up the darkest of areas with its high 1,100 lumens light output, and it is perfectly suited for get-togethers with support for millions of colors and dynamic effects. Other highlights include energy monitoring through the Tapo app, tuneable white color temperatures ranging from 2,500 to 6,500K, and frustration-free Matter-over-Wi-Fi connectivity.

Philips Hue White Ambiance 100W E26 Smart Bulb

Signify's Philips Hue line has been the gold standard for smart lighting products for years thanks to its color reproduction. However, its non-color offering—the Hue White Ambiance 100W E26 Smart Bulb—is especially worth considering due to its incredible brightness output at a whopping 1,600 lumens.

All that power does come with a price though, with this bulb being the highest on our list with a retail price of just under $22 each, and it requires the Hue Bridge—an additional expense. Of course, you also get tunable whites, dimming, and access to one of the most reliable smart home systems on the market so it is well worth the investment.

WiZ Connected ST19 Tunable Smart Filament Bulb

Also from Signify, the WiZ Connected ST19 Tunable Smart Filament Bulb forgoes the color in favor of style with its trendy design. Despite being clear glass, these filament bulbs are capable of tuneable whites ranging from 2,700 to 5,000k and can serve as functional task lighting with a peak brightness of 500 lumens.

WiZ's bulb also has one more unique trick up its sleeve—SpaceSense motion sensing technology. When two or more of the ST19's are placed in the same room, they can automatically turn on or off by measuring disturbances in their Wi-Fi waves as you move across the room—no additional motion sensor needed.

GE Cync Reveal HD+ A19 Smart Bulb

The GE Cync Reveal HD+ A19 Smart Bulb is another affordable full color option that doesn't skimp on the extras. Like its competitors, this 800 lumen bulb supports millions of rich colors, dimming, convenient remote controls, and tunable white temperatures—all of which are covered by a three year warranty.

Plus, with Wi-Fi connectivity, the GE Cync A19 bulb doesn't require any additional hubs or hardware. Just screw it in, scan the Matter QR pairing code, and go.

Matter-Compatible Smart Light Bulbs: Illuminating Your Smart Home

Whether you want to set the mood with a light bulb with dimming capabilities or if you want to elevate your next party with fun colors, Matter has got you covered. Matter provides convenient remote controls that are compatible with all of the major smart home ecosystems as well as hassle-free pairing that can get your lights connected to Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, or Apple Home in no time.

For more smart lighting ideas, be sure to check out our guides to the best Matter-compatible lamps, strip lights, and light switches.