Phillips Hue smart bulbs are great, but they are ridiculously expensive for a man of limited means such as myself.

I currently have them in all my upstairs rooms and have been very happy with how they have worked. I especially love setting my bedroom light to gradually brighten with warm natural light in the morning to wake me up. The shrill sound of my alarm is now a backstop for the odd occasions when my fake sunrise fails to rouse me, rather than the miserable start to every work day that it used to be.

I also love being able to able to turn all the lights off in one go when I’m going to bed or leaving the house, and setting the mood by controlling the lighting via Alexa without needing to get up.

But I haven’t been able to afford to kit out the whole house yet.

So for the last few weeks, I’ve been looking at various cheaper alternatives. There are quite a few of them out there these days, and the price difference can be substantial.

At first, I held off making a purchase. I was too worried about wasting my money on something which turned out to be disappointing.

Then Lo and Behold! Fate smiled upon me.

I was walking through my local Tesco this weekend doing my weekly shopping when I noticed a sale on smart bulbs! The cheapest option available was for Calex bulbs which, at half their normal price, were being sold for just £12 each!

This was too much of a bargain for me to pass up so I bought 3 for my upstairs hallway and stairs.

Even at the regular retail price of £24, the Calex bulbs are well under half the cost of Phillips Hue. Not only that, but these new bulbs promise a greater range of features. Whereas Hue bulbs are either RGB colour changing or allow for changing between warm and cool whites, the Calex alternative offers both of these options in the same product.
Unlike Hue, Calex works over Wi-Fi, so you do not need to have a hub or bridge.
They also come with their own app which allows for setting scenes and grouping devices into rooms, and voice control via Alexa. Since I had been using Alexa to control my Hue smart bulbs rather than the app, this latter option was crucial for me.

Paper Comparison

Some key takeaways from the stats:

• Hue is much more energy efficient.
• Hue has a longer lifespan.
• Hue offers a larger range of whites.

Setting Up The Smart Bulbs

The setup was simple and trouble-free.

You just plug them in and enter your Wi-Fi details in the app. For Alexa control, you then need to enable to Calex smart skill.

Within a couple of minutes, everything was set up and working beautifully.

It would have been nice if the app remembered my Wi-Fi details rather than making me type it in for every new device I added. I can imagine if you bought devices to fit out a whole house this could quickly become a real chore. But for three devices it was a minor inconvenience that didn’t really bother me.

Living with Calex Smart Bulbs

Here are a few observations I made during my first few days using Calex:

• The smaller range of available whites is noticeable, but only likely to be an issue if you are very picky.
• The Calex app is much more basic than the Hue app, with fewer preset options and less of a slick and user-friendly interface. But if you want to control them using Alexa anyway, that doesn’t really matter.
• The range of colors is limited, but more than enough to have fun and set a mood.

Reliability

I have had no issues controlling the lights from the Calex app. They switch on and off pretty much instantly and work every time.

Controlling them from Alexa, however, has brought up reliability issues for me.

After the first couple of days, problems started to crop up. Every so often Alexa reports the devices as offline / not responding. When this happens, I can no longer control the lights by voice. This is despite the fact that they can still be controlled from the Calex app when this happens, making me think it is not due to Wi-Fi issues in my home.

Calex Vs Hue: My Conclusion

The substantially lower price point, increased range of features in a single unit, and ability to work without a hub or bridge device make Calex a very tempting alternative.

But for me, reliability trumps everything. I’d rather have a dumb bulb that works than a smart bulb which gets on my nerves.

I’ve never experienced reliability issues with Hue.

It’s also true that the longer lifespan and enhanced energy efficiency of Hue will repay the additional up-front cost if you keep them for long enough.

If you have good Wi-fi signals throughout your house and plan to control your devices via the app or using preset automated routines then Calex may be a good option for you. They may also be worth considering if you’ve never had smart bulbs before and want to give them a try before investing in a full setup.

But for me personally: I will be sticking with Hue (or maybe testing a different alternative) in the future.

View Phillips Hue on Amazon.com or on Amazon.co.uk

View Calex on Amazon.com or on Amazon.co.uk

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Calex smart bulbs: reviewing a cheaper alternative to Phillips Hue was originally published in Domestic Technology Review on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.