Once you outfit your home with smart lighting, it’s hard to go back. “Hey Siri, turn off the living room lights” is a daily utterance in my home. You can make lights turn on automatically when you come home, or at a certain time when you’re away. You can usually control brightness and sometimes color, too. After getting used to smart lights, your old switches and dimmers feel positively ancient.
But there are lots of different kinds of smart lights. Different networks, apps, and ecosystems used to control them. Some smart lighting solutions are only compatible with Alexa or Google Assistant, which will work with the appropriate apps on your iPhone, but won’t be as integrated as you’d like. To make a smart light seamlessly integrate into the Home app or with Siri, you really want lights that are compatible with HomeKit. This makes them easier to control with your iPhone or Mac, but also lets you integrated them into Automations that control several devices at once based on time, location, or the actions of other devices.
