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| # | Product | Best for | Lumens | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | WiZ WiZ Connected Color A19 Smart Bulb The cheapest way into hub-free smart lighting | A bulb swap on your own Wi-Fi. No hub, no wiring, no switch change. | Not published | Check price on Amazon #ad No live price right now, so we show none. How we earn |
| 02 | LIFX LIFX A19 Smart Bulb Color range and brightness without a bridge | A bulb swap on your own Wi-Fi. No hub and no wiring. | 1,100 lm | Check price on Amazon #ad No live price right now, so we show none. How we earn |
| 03 | Sengled Matter LED Smart Light Bulb Matter-first homes that want no vendor lock-in | A bulb swap. No hub, no switch change, no wiring. | Not published | Check price on Amazon #ad No live price right now, so we show none. How we earn |
Specifications are the manufacturer or retailer published figures, compiled by hand. We have not measured them, and where a figure is not published we write "Not published" rather than guess.
01
The comparison, above the fold
| Smart bulb | Smart switch | |
|---|---|---|
| Installation | Screw it in | Replace a wall switch - electrical work |
| Needs a neutral wire | No | Usually yes |
| Landlord permission | None needed | Generally required |
| Cost for one fixture | Price of a bulb | Price of a switch plus install |
| Cost for a 5-bulb fixture | Five bulbs | One switch |
| Wall switch keeps working | Only if nobody uses it | Yes, normally |
| Goes offline if switched off | Yes | No |
| Per-bulb color and dimming | Yes | No - the whole circuit together |
| Comes with you when you move | Yes | No |
Choose bulbs if you rent. The permission and neutral-wire rows decide it, and nothing in the other rows is worth the process.
Choose switches if you own and the fixture has several bulbs in it, or the household will not stop using the wall switch.
Choose a smart plug for anything that is a lamp rather than a fixture. It sits between the lamp and the outlet, works with any bulb, needs no wiring, and is usually the cheapest of the three.
02
The neutral wire, explained once
A conventional switch is a gap in a wire. It needs no power of its own, because when it is open, nothing needs to happen.
A smart switch has a radio and a processor in it that must stay awake while the light is off, so it needs a complete circuit of its own - a live and a neutral. Many older homes ran only a switched live loop to the switch box, so there is no neutral there to connect to.
No-neutral smart switches exist. They work by trickling a tiny current through the light fixture itself, which is fine with an incandescent bulb and can cause faint glow or flicker with a low-load LED. That trade-off is the same physics as the LED dimmer flicker problem.
03
The permission line
Screwing in a bulb is not an alteration to a property. Replacing a switch is - it is a change to fixed electrical installation, it stays behind when you leave, and regulations in most places apply to the work rather than to who owns the building.
This is not a technicality invented by cautious landlords. It is the same line that separates a plug-in fixture from a hardwired one, and it runs through everything on this site. It is set out in full, with the standard caveat that we are describing general practice and not giving legal advice, in can you change a light fixture in an apartment.
The picks
The products behind this page
01
The cheapest way into hub-free smart lighting
WiZ WiZ Connected Color A19 Smart Bulb
#ad No live price right now, so we show none. How we earn
Wi-Fi and Matter with no bridge to buy, at roughly the price of two ordinary bulbs - the sensible default when you are lighting a rental you may leave next year.
| Lumens | Not published |
|---|---|
| Color temperature | Tunable white plus color |
| CRI | Not published |
| Power source | Screws into a standard E26 socket |
| Dimmable | Yes - in app |
| Renter-safe method | A bulb swap on your own Wi-Fi. No hub, no wiring, no switch change. |
What it gets right
- No bridge, no hub, nothing extra plugged into the router
- Matter support, so it is not locked to one ecosystem
- Cheap enough to do a whole apartment rather than one room
What it costs you
- Wi-Fi bulbs each take an address on your network
- CRI and lumen figures are not published per SKU
- Anyone flipping the wall switch takes the bulb offline
Spec source: PCWorld smart bulb guide (attributed) - retrieved September 3, 2026.
02
Color range and brightness without a bridge
LIFX LIFX A19 Smart Bulb
#ad No live price right now, so we show none. How we earn
1,100 lumens and CRI 90+ with no bridge required - the one hub-free bulb bright enough to be a room's actual light source rather than an accent.
| Lumens | 1,100 lm |
|---|---|
| Color temperature | Tunable white plus color |
| CRI | 90+ |
| Power source | Screws into a standard E26 socket |
| Dimmable | Yes - in app |
| Renter-safe method | A bulb swap on your own Wi-Fi. No hub and no wiring. |
What it gets right
- 1,100 lumens - genuinely enough to light a small room from one socket
- CRI 90+ published, unusual for a color smart bulb
- No bridge to buy, power or find shelf space for
What it costs you
- Two to three times the price of a WiZ bulb
- Wi-Fi only, so it depends on router coverage
- Still offline if someone kills the wall switch
Spec source: Smart Home Explorer guide (attributed) - retrieved September 3, 2026.
03
Matter-first homes that want no vendor lock-in
Sengled Matter LED Smart Light Bulb
#ad No live price right now, so we show none. How we earn
A Matter bulb with no hub, which means it answers to Apple Home, Google Home and Alexa on equal terms instead of picking a side for you.
| Lumens | Not published |
|---|---|
| Color temperature | Tunable white |
| CRI | Not published |
| Power source | Screws into a standard E26 socket |
| Dimmable | Yes - in app |
| Renter-safe method | A bulb swap. No hub, no switch change, no wiring. |
What it gets right
- Matter native, so it is not stranded if you change phone ecosystem
- No hub and no bridge
- Priced for whole-home coverage
What it costs you
- Lumens and CRI are not published per SKU
- Matter setup can still be fiddly on older routers
- Tunable white only in this version - no color
Spec source: Smart Home Explorer guide (attributed) - retrieved September 3, 2026.
FAQ
Questions people actually ask
+Are smart switches better than smart bulbs?
Technically, mostly yes - one switch controls every bulb on the circuit, the wall switch keeps working normally, and nothing goes offline when someone flips it. But installing one is electrical work that needs a neutral wire and, in a rental, a landlord's permission. For renters the bulb wins on that basis alone.
+Do smart switches need a neutral wire?
Most do. A smart switch has to stay powered when the light is off, which needs a neutral return, and many older homes wired only a switched live to the switch box. There are no-neutral models, but they are more expensive and can flicker with low-load LED fixtures.
+Can a renter install a smart switch?
Replacing a switch is an electrical alteration to the property, so a standard lease will generally require the landlord's agreement, and in many places the work is regulated regardless of who owns the building. This is general information, not legal advice - read your lease and check local rules.
+Can you use smart bulbs and smart switches together?
Only carefully. A smart switch cutting power to a smart bulb takes the bulb off the network, which is the worst of both. If you have both, the switch should be a scene controller that never actually cuts power - not a load-switching one.
Sources
Where the numbers came from
All sources retrieved September 3, 2026.
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About the author
Sawyer V. An enthusiast who reads the spec sheets and does the arithmetic. No lab, no test bench.