I have recessed lighting throughout my house, so swapping to bulbs for all of them would have been an expensive pain. So I opted for smart switches. I got innovelli reds, because they were the best there was at the time. You can get them with any protocol you want (zigbee/zwave/wifi)

With a smart switch, you can control lots of lights with only one device. Originally I just added Shelly relays behind each switch, but I wanted the dimming capability of the innoveli.

If you do still want bulbs, nothing beats hue. But they are by far the most expensive.

[–] 123@programming.dev 1 points 44 minutes ago

As an alternative, we have found bulbs that can run tasmota with the MQTT integration to be perhaps the most reliable part of our smart home (as long as the hardware already had a descent CRI). I've heard good things about ESP home too, but we have not tried it.

If someone has some light bulbs that are laggy (due to cloud integrations) or a pain to use due to software, its worth checking out of tasmota or esp home can be installed on them to locally pair with something like home assistant. It turned a regretful purchase into a nice addition.

With that said, we don't buy connected devices any longer without checking internet and cloud requirements first.

[–] Tinidril@midwest.social 1 points 1 hour ago

It depends on the rest of your setup, but I recommend going with zigbee or matter/thread for the connectivity. I definitely wouldn't put any "smart" devices on my general purpose wifi. That stuff is never going to be secure. Also, consider if smart switches would work for you instead. That way you don't have to pay the premium when a bulb burns out.