I was an early backer of LIFX bulbs. It was a great idea. One becomes a hub and connects to Wi-Fi, and the others all communicate via a mesh network. But it meant two radios in a light bulb, which cost more money, and money always wins.picta said:This is very useful information, makes sense at explaining my experience with Lifx. I have observed decrease of stability in my lights based on the date of purchase, but since they were also different models I thought it was model dependent. Lifx mini is the most recent and the least stable.
So today you can buy Wi-Fi light bulbs. The con is they usually are only 2.4Ghz, and each one takes on IP address, and home routers aren't good at dealing with all these devices if you have many. The pro is, if you have Wi-Fi your all set. Your phone has Wi-Fi, so you can control them.
Other bulbs, like the Hue are Zigbee. Zigbee is cheaper than Wi-Fi, but phones don't have a Zigbee chip, so you need some type of bridge, usually. SmartThings, Habitat, and the Hue Bridge can all work as a bridge. Newer Echo Shows and Echo Plus also contains Zigbee, so it can be a hub.
Now here is something VERY important. A Zigbee network can only have ONE and only ONE controller. So like have an Echo Plus, SmartThings Hub, and Omni Controller with Zigbee. If you have a Zigbee bulb, it can only be on ONE of these networks. That, actually is a pain. Hopefully they will work on a workaround for that.