Philips Hue: You can use the phone app to control individual bulbs directly with bluetooth, but for more control you need also the Hue brigde, which talks to the bulbs over Zigbee (a wireless protocol), and to your phone app over your wifi. For initial setup, the bridge needs an internet connection, but otherwise it will work as long as your home wifi is up, even if there is no connection to outside internet. The features (timed schedules, scenes) live in the Hue brigde, so everything works also without outside internet.
LIFX: No Zigbee, no bridge. These bulbs connect to your 2.4GHz home wifi. More advanced features (schedules, scenes) live in the LIFX company server, so won't work without internet connection. But without outside internet connection, you can still use the phone app via your wifi router to control the color and brightness of individual bulbs. If you're a home automation hobbyist, you can give color and brightness commands to LIFX bulbs over your 2.4Ghz wifi, so you can program your own timed schedules that would work without outside internet connection.
Other smart bulbs: Cheaper. Philips Hue and LIFX are the two most expensive.
I understand LIFX is best for bright colors. But Philips Hue bulbs don't contain just RGB leds, but also leds for white and warn white, so the bulb may have 5 different types of leds. So Philips might produce better near-white "natural" light than same colors produced by combining only red,green,blue leds. Not sure if this matters to everyone or only to some lighting connoisseurs.
As someone who had Lifx due to them not needing a controller, don't buy them their software sucks. It worked fine for months at a time, but would then decide it no longer wanted to obey commands and you'd have to re-pair it, which usually took 30 minutes and 5 failed attempts where it would fail during the setup process after resetting the bulb.
Their bulbs also sometimes just ignored commands, so you'd have to just spam power off or the color you were trying to choose until it finally worked (this was in a room with the bulb and a hard wired wifi AP). The app was also slow and took awhile to start (on flagship Android phone at the time).
Eventually my bulbs died and I haven't gone back to smart lighting yet (though I'm considering ordering some hue or Ikea bulbs).
If you check /r/lifx on Reddit it's basically filled with people complaining about lifx's awful software.
In my experience the ikea bulbs are also awful, constant unpairing requiring multiple attempts to re-pair with the remote, especially if you have multiple bulbs in close proximity. In the end I gave up and just use them as normal bulbs. It would be a nice setup if it worked though, having a dedicated remote control is much more convenient than using a phone imo.
Damn, I was hoping they'd be a good hue alternative because I don't want to pay hue prices. I was looking at nanoleaf as they're using Thread, but they don't have any basic bridges (only homekit, eero, or one of their rgb wall panel things, none of which are things I want) and won't speak Matter.
At this point I feel like I might as well wait for Matter bridges to come out this fall, as hopefully companies will refresh their product lines then and we'll get some better quality lights.
The ikea setup might be worth a shot with the networking bridge they have to control multiple bulbs at once, but my experience with individual bulbs was bad.
> Their bulbs also sometimes just ignored commands, so you'd have to just spam power off or the color you were trying to choose until it finally worked (this was in a room with the bulb and a hard wired wifi AP). The app was also slow and took awhile to start (on flagship Android phone at the time).
Interesting. I have lifx bulbs going back to the first generation Kickstarter products and I've never had one die yet. I use them daily.
From what I understand the number one cause of led bulb failures is heat, which causes things like capacitors to fail prematurely or poor connections to break from the repeated expansion.
All my bulbs are used in lamps or fixtures which are not enclosed which means they have plenty of ventilation.
You'd think being in the same room as a Unifi UAP AC Pro in a non crowded area with a dedicated 2.4ghz ssid would fix those wifi issues, but it didn't.
I’ve a couple of LIFX bulbs in my home. I paired them directly to the Apple HomeKit Home app and never bothered with LIFX‘a app. They’ve been 99% reliable for me for about three years now. I don’t know if I’m lucky or that avoiding their app was worth it.
In my experience this is more reliable, but there's something off about the color temperature selections available within the Home app. LIFX bulbs have less than great color to begin with (their warm whites feel sickly and sallow), but it has the same problem with Hue. I end up setting colors within the Hue or LIFX app and then going "the color that is currently set" in Home. So not using their app has drawbacks too.
I have Nanoleaf bulbs that connect to my phone via Bluetooth. It’s kinda fun, these are my first ever RGB bulbs, but it’s super slow and finicky. I will probably upgrade to the Philips next year.
LIFX: No Zigbee, no bridge. These bulbs connect to your 2.4GHz home wifi. More advanced features (schedules, scenes) live in the LIFX company server, so won't work without internet connection. But without outside internet connection, you can still use the phone app via your wifi router to control the color and brightness of individual bulbs. If you're a home automation hobbyist, you can give color and brightness commands to LIFX bulbs over your 2.4Ghz wifi, so you can program your own timed schedules that would work without outside internet connection.
Other smart bulbs: Cheaper. Philips Hue and LIFX are the two most expensive.
I understand LIFX is best for bright colors. But Philips Hue bulbs don't contain just RGB leds, but also leds for white and warn white, so the bulb may have 5 different types of leds. So Philips might produce better near-white "natural" light than same colors produced by combining only red,green,blue leds. Not sure if this matters to everyone or only to some lighting connoisseurs.