I like smart bulbs

This is my 10th blog post for the Blaugust 2026 community blogging project. Join me all this month for more blogging. I have a couple of table lamps with smart bulbs. Years ago, I set these lamps up with Philips Hue smart bulbs. One lamp in the living area comes on at dusk and dims to nightlight-level at midnight. The other is a reading light in my music practice area that is controlled by a Matter switch. I’ve been thinking about moving away from Philips Hue for a while. I was initially drawn to the Philips Hue product for two reasons. First, it is based on the Zigbee smart home standard. The other is the bulbs were good quality electronics that produced high quality lighting. This was back at a time when LED bulbs, especially smart LED bulbs, were iffy on quality and reliability. But now I wanted out of the Philips Hue ecosystem for two reasons. First, they are mandating that people create cloud accounts to use their app. I use their app to configure the bulbs, but everything…