The high CRI Philips Ultra Definition bulbs with a smart dimmer. I use them with a Z-Wave Leviton but there's ZigBee options too if you don't have a Z-Wave radio. Those bulbs make the most beautiful light... I use the warm ones 2700K or so because they're the best for the eyes. It seems Cree and Feit also have high CRI bulbs but I haven't tried them.
this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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I went with innr bulbs per the recommendation from the hookup and have had good experiences. I think I've switched most of my bulbs now and currently have 10.
Just bought some Third Reality bulbs to replace TP-Link wifi bulbs a couple of weeks ago. (The TP-Link bulbs require continual communication with TP-Link's Chinese servers or they reset every few seconds.)
Zigbee2MQTT detects the Third Reality bulbs immediately and they have been working perfectly. The same goes for TR power monitoring smart plugs.
Oh that's good to know. I have a handful of Kasa bulbs and I don't give them WAN access. They seem to be mostly fine without WAN, but I do get communication issues with them from time to time (which is why I'm exploring zigbee as an alternative). Thank you for the reply!
The bulb resets are known to TP-Link and they created a firmware version that fixed it. The company didn't release the update and now TP-Link support reps deny that the new firmware exists, so obviously the communication failures and resets are design intent.
https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/666612 - post #7
I use both Sengled and Innr bulbs with zha. Mqtt worked well with these also.
No issues from the few models I have from both. Innr has a decently bright tone controllable bulb, 270 series I think, easily the brightest I have. 260 series are bright enough and super cheap at about $7.50 each in packs.
Chiming in to let people know that SengLED bulbs do not act as repeaters and are thus the worst bulbs you can use to build a Zigbee network.
The positive for Sengled is the option of some sizes that I've not found in other brands.
My recommendation is based on use case. Not every device needs to be a router, and OP might be perfectly fine with this.
It is good to know, but I'd not call them the worst since they still are inexpensive and function in all other ways well for my needs.
Many devices fail to pair with Home Assistant. However, smart bulbs all work very well when they have Zigbee.
If you just want some lights that work, I would recommend picking some random Zigbee bulbs up from AliExpress. Far cheaper than the name brand stuff. Else IKEA also works.
I don't have any bulbs from them, but I did just recently get a smart plug from third reality. And so far I like it, although I've only had it a couple of days.