Specifically LED bulbs. They're fantastic, a miracle of modern technology. Efficient, non-toxic, cheap, a myriad of choices, but it's killing me. The number of times I've bought bulbs and they've been the wrong colour temperature or brightness. Most recently I've been fitting dimmers and that's a minefield in itself, the majority of those buzz incessantly and the best of them inject an annoying delay to the lights turning on. But how come the 3000k 1400 lumen bulb in my hallway seems ten times as white as the three 2700k 806 lumen bulbs I've just fitted to the living room? The 4000k units they're replacing seem no different to the 3000k. I'd exchange them but Philips have decided to only supply the 4000k units in ES, and they already project above the light fitting so adapters are out of the question. Perhaps I can get the soldering iron out and make my own? Urgh, has anyone else suffered from this or am I just fussy?
It's one of the reasons I standardised on Hue throughout the house. Consistant colour temperature & the ability to adjust it throughout the day are key for me
I bought something like 40 GU10 from Wicks and fitted them all to selected rooms. Got a few spare in case need to replace. Smart bulbs becomes really expensive if you have multiple down lights. My living room have 10, my kitchen have 10. Fit them all with cheapest Ikea white ones would cost £140 in bulbs alone! I ended up with mixture of ambient LED strips and in-wall switch replacements to smarten up my lighting. One tip I can give is that for cheap smart lighting, don't get locked into one brand, use likes of SmartThings or Home Assistant with Deconz (I'm using latter) to allow you to buy and use whatever is on offer. Dimming is something I'd avoid. As said, it's a total minefield. Easier and cheaper to buy a floor lamp and put a really bright smart bulb in there.
For LEDs and dimmers you need the proper drivers. We had two light strips built into our bedroom wall and we needed an LED driver for each to allow the dimmer to work.
I didn't know that TP-Link made lights. I've head that the Xiaomi Yeelights are a good value but I haven't tried them. I would go with Hue but to set up your whole home ... I can't justify that price.
TP-Link have 2 brands even, Kasa and Tapo. Go for the Kasa, its app has widgets for on/off and colour/brightness profiles while tapo you have to open the app to do it. I've had my Kasa light for over a year now, I love the one in my bedroom as I have it set to do a soft turn on when my alarm goes off and them is set to automatic so it mimics daylight. In the evenings I have it lower the light so I can begin to wind down. The only annoying thing is there's no rainbow mode for the RGB ones!!!
I briefly looked at smart bulbs but they seemed like too much hassle to operate, never mind the expense and various standards. For now, I've slapped in some 4000k LAP bulbs from ScrewFix and they're ticking a lot of boxes.
