The Best Smart Bulbs for Apple HomeKit of 2024 (2024)

Wondering which smart lights work best with Apple HomeKit? While the offerings aren’t as robust as smart light bulbs that work with Alexa and Google Assistant, there are a growing number of Apple HomeKit light bulbs that work exclusively with your iOS devices.

With the best HomeKit light bulbs, any of your old light fixtures can become compatible with your Apple smart home—and you can control them using Siri via an Apple smart speaker like the HomePod Mini or the Home app for iOS.

After extensive testing, we are confident the best HomeKit light bulbs are the Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance Starter Kit (available at Amazon) , which continuously ranks in the top spot for its bright colors, simple setup, easy-to-use app, and ample versatility.

However, we tested plenty of other HomeKit light bulbs for you to choose from.

Other Smart Bulbs We Tested

How We Test Smart Bulbs for the Apple HomeKit

The Tester

Hi, I’m Rachel Murphy, Reviewed’s home editor, and I’ve been covering smart home devices for several years now.

I'm adding to the previous testing by Sarah Kovac, Reviewed’s accessibility (and former smart home) editor.

The Tests

To find out which smart bulb is best for Apple HomeKit, we bought the bestselling, highest rated bulbs and tested them in an actual home with lamps and various light fixtures.

Each bulb was tested using the Home app on an iPhone or iPad. We also tested the companion app for each bulb on iOS devices to see whether the experience was the same on both platforms, testing response times over the Wi-Fi network and data.

Finally, we tested each bulb with Siri to measure the bulb’s functionality and responsiveness to voice commands.

What to Know About Apple HomeKit Smart Bulbs

All About Apple Home Hubs

An Apple Home Hub is required to control your HomeKit-enabled devices and run automations when you’re away from home using the Home app or Siri voice control.

The Apple Home Hub serves as the middleman between you and your devices for remote control when you're not home.

An iPad, HomePod Mini, Apple TV, or the discontinued HomePod (if you have one) all work as a Home Hub.

The Home Hub must stay at home, near your HomeKit gadgets, in order for you to control them when you're away from the house.

How to Set Up Apple HomeKit Light Bulbs

All HomeKit devices have a scannable barcode with an eight-digit number, which is unique to your specific device. This code is necessary in order to add your HomeKit light bulb to the Apple Home app.

To set up an Apple HomeKit bulb, screw it into a light fixture. Open the Home app on your iOS device > tap the plus sign icon > tap “Add accessory.”

Scan the barcode on the bulb in the Home app, enter the code manually, or wait for the accessory to appear in the app (make sure it’s powered on).

A second barcode can typically be found in the instruction manual if you have trouble scanning the code directly from the bulb.

The Home app walks you through the final steps, but it shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to get your Homekit light bulbs online.

Apple HomeKit Lighting Features To Try

A Home Hub is also necessary to take advantage of Apple’s adaptive lighting feature. This is an optional feature that allows your bulbs to change color temperatures based on the time of day. Basically, it’s autopilot for anyone who doesn’t want to fiddle with their bulbs throughout the day, but you won’t find it on every HomeKit smart bulb.

The Home app offers other useful automations like turning the lights on when the first person arrives home and turning them off when the last person leaves.

Privacy and Apple HomeKit

There’s always a security risk when using internet-connected devices at home, but there are ways you can protect your privacy when using HomeKit devices.

Apple claims that all HomeKit user data is encrypted end-to-end locally (meaning on your Home Hub) before being transmitted to the cloud so that no one has access to it but you.

HomeKit's infrastructure uses iCloud, iOS, iPadOs, and macOS to "protect and sync private data without exposing it" to others, including Apple employees. To secure your account further, enable two-factor authentication and make sure your password is unique and hard to guess.

You can read more about Apple's HomeKit data security policy.

One thing to know is that Apple, by default, keeps your Siri voice interactions (one of the primary ways to control HomeKit accessories) and may review the audio clips to help improve Siri’s accuracy.

You can opt-out of this by turning off Siri and Diction in the Settings > Privacy > Analytics & Improvement > toggle off Improve Siri & Dictation.

To delete your Siri voice history on a HomePod, open the Home app, press and hold the HomePod icon, select Siri History > tap Delete Siri History, and tap to confirm the deletion.

To delete your Siri voice history on an iPhone or iPad, open Settings > Siri & Search > Siri & Dictation History > Delete Siri & Dictation History. For more information, check out Apple’s Siri dictation and privacy disclaimer.

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Sarah Kovac

Editor, Accessibility

@thesarahkovac

Sarah Kovac is an award-winning author and accessibility editor for Reviewed. Previously, she worked with a multitude of outlets such as Wirecutter, TIME, PCMag, Prevention, The Atlantic, Reviews.com, CNN, GOOD, Upworthy, Mom.me, and SheKnows.

Rachel Murphy

Editor, Home

@rachel_murphy

Rachel Murphy is Reviewed's home editor. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Central Florida. Prior to joining the team, she worked as a freelance writer for publications like Insider and Mashable, and as an associate editorial producer for Good Morning America. Aside from smart home tech, her interests include food, travel, parenting, and home renovation. You can usually find her sipping on coffee at any time of the day.