Smart lighting is the gateway drug to a smart home, but smart lighting doesn’t just come in one form. If your mind goes straight to smart bulbs, then prepare yourself, because there’s a whole world of Matter-compatible smart lighting I’m about to introduce you to.
Each of these types of lights uses built-in LED bulbs designed to last for years. As Matter products, they’re compatible with all the major commercial smart home platforms, be that Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings. You can also use them with lesser-known options such as Aqara, Homey, or Tapo TP-Link. Then there’s also Home Assistant, the community-developed smart home platform that’s fully private and open source. After you’ve settled on a platform, it’s time to start buying some lights!
Floor lamps
Floor lamps can bring adequate area lighting to any type of home, be that a dorm room, a studio apartment, a multi-story town home or a sprawling ranch. They offer an affordable way to bring smart lighting into a room that may have ceiling lights you aren’t quite ready to replace. For these reasons, floor lamps are a good place to start.
I own the Govee Floor Lamp 2, and it’s an easy recommendation. I have two of them placed in the living room to provide ambient lighting as the sun goes down in the evening, saving us from turning on the many recessed lights in the ceiling overhead. Yet if I were buying a lamp today, I’d opt for the newer Govee Lantern Floor Lamp instead.
Govee Lantern Floor Lamp
A minimalist, lantern-inspired floor lamp that combines soft halo-style gradients with powerful, adaptable lighting for both ambience and everyday use.
Govee Floor Lamp 3
A high-output smart floor lamp designed to produce smooth, natural-looking color and full-room ambient lighting without visible hotspots.
Matter floor lamps tend to have a more contemporary design. If none speak to you, keep in mind that you can place a Matter-compatible smart bulb in any floor lamp of your choice. You can get the feel for how this works from our Linkind A19 smart bulb review.
Desk Lamps
I find my home office to be one of the locations where I appreciate smart lighting the most. I am sensitive to bright lighting, and I find it difficult to work in the late evening or the prime early morning writing hours with the overhead ceiling lights on.
For a while, I had several Umbra Cono portable smart lamps scattered about the room. These lamps aren’t official supported anymore, which shows the importance of Matter for product longevity. I loved the light they provided, but the short battery life grew tedious for everyday use. I’d recommend seeking out an option you can leave plugged in, like the Philips Hue Go portable lamp.
Umbra Cono Portable Smart Lamp
The Umbra Cono Lamp is an extended color light compatible with Matter, offering a diverse color palette for personalized home lighting.
Govee Table Lamp 2
Summary: A smart, touch-sensitive bedside lamp with millions of colors, voice control, and full dimming for personalized lighting around the clock.
That said, here is an area where I personally turn to smart bulbs. There aren’t many desk lamp options, so for my office I’ve opted to purchase a lamp that suits my style from IKEA and placed a KAJPLATS E12 smart bulb inside it.
Recessed lights
My house is filled with recessed lighting all throughout the ceiling. It would be an expensive undertaking, but I dream of replacing all of the existing bulbs with Matter-compatible lights. That’s not a project I intent to take on any time soon, but it’s good to know that the necessary bulbs already exist.
If you are eager to tackle the lights in your ceiling, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the various Matter-compatible recessed light brands available.
Nanoleaf Matter Ultra Slim 4-inch Recessed Downlight
The Nanoleaf Essentials Downlight is a color-changing LED bulb compatible with the Matter smart home standard, offering a wide spectrum of 16+ million colors and tunable whites, controlled via app or voice.
Tapo Smart Recessed Downlight (4 and 6 inch)
A recessed smart downlight kit with colorful scene lighting, tunable whites, ultra-low dimming, scheduling, and stable dual-protocol connectivity.
Portable lamps
I’ve mentioned portable lamps already, but there is a difference between tabletop lamps that happen to be battery-powered and lanterns that are primarily designed to be carried from place to place. The latter is ideal for emergencies, task-lighting, camping, and outdoor adventures.
It wasn’t that long ago that portable lighting in and of itself was novel. Now these lights can dim, change color, and set to automations. Consider the Wiz portable light for its carrying handle and a practical design.
WiZ Mobile Smart Portable Light
Best Price
String lights
String lights serve various purposes. Whether you want string lights for your back porch or patio or you’re looking for those you can string around a Christmas tree, you have options available that can integrate with your smart home.
If you’re going to place string lights outdoor, make sure you purchase those explicitly intended for use outside. These lights also tend to have an IP rating.
Govee Christmas String Lights 2 (66ft)
The ultimate smart Christmas tree lights, with hundreds of shape mapped scenes for your festive displays
Govee Outdoor String Lights 2 (15M)
Govee Outdoor String Lights 2 with RGBICW Light Effects
Light strips
Strip lighting allows you to get creative. You can run a strip underneath your kitchen cabinets to inject colorful lighting into your cooking area. You can place lights behind your television and sync them to whatever you’re watching or playing. Furthermore, you can place them in the office behind your monitor or along a desk.
Whatever you are in the mood for, these light strips can be shaped to your desired configuration and cut to the necessary size. We’ve provided a list of great Matter-compatible strip lights, but this is an area with quite a bit of competition, so there are also newer options like the Dreame Strip Lights P11.
Aqara LED Strip T1
The Aqara LED Strip T1 by lumiunited is a customizable lighting solution that can be extended up to 10 meters, cut at 20 cm intervals, and re-attached using third-party 5-pin LED strip connectors, offering versatility for various smart home projects, while its compatibility with Matter ensures seamless integration with other smart devices.
Dreame Strip Lights P11
Smart LED light strip with 4-in-1 IC technology, 60 LEDs per meter, 50 customizable segments, music sync, indoor or outdoor use, and Matter support for Apple HomeKit, Alexa, and Google Assistant.
Outdoor post lights
Matter-compatible post lights allow you to introduce granular control to a light that’s often on throughout night. You can dim it to something that is less glaring through your window or change it to a fun color on party nights. Your house is easier to spot if you can tell friends that it is the one with the lights flickering back and forth between blue and purple. You can also automate it to adjust how bright it is based on the time of day.
While you can save money by sticking a smart bulb in an existing lamp post, a Matter lamp may come with additional features like motion sensors. You can get a feel for whether this type of light is for you in our review of the Govee Outdoor Lamp Post. This lamp post is also easy to place anywhere in the yard, without the need for an electrician to perform the installation.
Govee Outdoor Lamp Post Light
Best Price
Outdoor wall lights
Not every home has enough space for a post lamp. Fortunately, that’s hardly the extent of outdoor lighting. Our review of the Govee UpDown Wall Light shows how much fun the light next to your door can be.
To really spice up your curb appeal, consider the Nanoleaf Multicolor Permanent Outdoor Lights, which provide lighting all around the line of your roof. Then there are the Govee Outdoor Spotlights Lite, which stake into the ground and project diffuse lighting at your walls.
Nanoleaf Essentials Matter Smart Multicolor Outdoor String Lights
Nanoleaf Essentials Matter Smart Multicolor Outdoor String Lights Smarter Kit with Addressable RGBICW LED Bulbs
Govee Outdoor UpDown Wall Light
Smart outdoor wall washer with dynamic four-sided RGB lighting, adjustable white illumination, and Matter compatibility.
Garden lights
It’s time to consider landscaping. Matter-compatible lights extend the granular controls you’ve come to expect inside your home out into the garden. The Govee Garden Lights look just as at home in a flower bed as they do lining a walkway to your front door. If you’re not feeling that look, you have options. Consider the Philips Hue Pathway Light instead.
Out in the garden, lighting is just the beginning. There is plenty of other Matter tech you can extend to your garden as well.
Govee Outdoor Garden Lights
Smart garden lights that combine durable design and rich color control to enhance outdoor spaces year-round.
We’re still just scratching the surface
As extensive as this list is, there’s more. Consider projection-based lighting, like the Govee Skyline. Then there’s the Govee Lightwall, which could be described as a Lite Brite for adults. While filling your home with smart lighting isn’t cheap, it’s no longer exclusive to the rich and famous, either.
I once considered smart lighting to be an unnecessary splurge. Now, seeing the impact being able to adjust the precise brightness and hue of my lights has had on my quality of life, it’s an investment I wholeheartedly recommend.
