Amazon Prime Day 2021 starts Monday: Here are the smart lights already on sale - CNET

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This story is part of Amazon Prime Day 2021, CNET's guide on everything you need to know and how to make sure you get the best deal.

Amazon Prime Day starts this Monday, but if you're eager to get shopping a bit early, you can already find lots of deals from manufacturers and competitors looking to keep up with the Prime Day draw. That includes deals on a variety of smart lights, many of which are live right now.

That makes this month a great time to try out a color-changing bulb, or to build upon whatever smart lighting setup you've already installed. I've dug through the latest discounts to point out the offers currently worth considering -- just keep in mind that we're extremely likely to see even more deals starting on Monday.

Lifx

Let's start with Lifx, one of the more established names in smart lighting. The company's Wi-Fi Lightstrips work with all of the major smart home platforms and voice assistants -- HomeKit, Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT, you name it -- and they're capable of putting out multiple colors at once, which is a fun feature to play with no matter where you end up sticking them.

Usually $90, the 80-inch version of the Lifx Lightstrip is currently marked down to $75 on Amazon and at Best Buy. That's the lowest price I've seen for this newest version of the Lightstrip, which was originally called Lifx Z when I first reviewed it back in 2016. It's also $5 less than the Philips Hue Lightstrip, which can only put out one color at a time, and significantly less than the souped-up Philips Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip, which puts out multiple colors but costs a ridiculous $230.

Read our Lifx Lightstrip review.

Lifx

It's not just strips -- just about everything in the Lifx catalog is currently on sale, including the company's smart bulbs. Among all of the deals I've seen, one of the best is on this two-pack of Lifx Color LEDs, currently on sale for $50 at Best Buy. That's $15 less than usual and just $25 per bulb, which is very good given that this is one of the best-looking color-changing bulbs you can buy. And remember, Lifx lights work with just about everything you'd want them to work with, including voice controls via Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant.

Other Lifx deals currently worth considering include:

Read our Lifx Mini review.

Kasa

If you'd rather smarten things up at the switch than upgrade your bulbs, you won't find a much better deal than this three-pack from Kasa, TP-Link's smart home offshoot brand. Just a few years ago, this bundle would have cost more than $100, but right now, you can find it marked all the way down to $35 on Amazon, which is $10 off the regular cost and as low a price as we've ever seen for it.

The switches themselves are nothing fancy -- no dimming, no built-in voice assistant -- but if you just want to automate a few extra lights around the house, here's a great way to get the job done.

Read our smart switch buying guide.

Signify

Philips Hue is a terrific smart lighting platform -- and it gets better and better as you expand it with additional lights throughout your home. The problem is that Philips Hue stuff runs on the pricey side, so it's wise to keep your eyes out for deals around Prime Day and Black Friday. One such deal available right now is this three-pack of full-color, current-gen Philips Hue bulbs, which you'll find marked down to $100 at Best Buy.

Anything that gets you a Hue bulb for less than $40 each is a pretty decent deal, and you'll only catch this three-pack at that price a couple of times per year, so give this one some consideration -- but keep in mind that there's a reasonable chance we see a wider sale from the Philips Hue team once Prime Day kicks off.

Read our guide to Philips Hue.

GE Lighting

Don't care about colors? Then go with white-light smart bulbs and save some money. These C by GE bulbs will do the trick, and you can currently score a four-pack for $30 at Best Buy -- just $7.50 per bulb. They support app controls and voice control via Alexa or Google Assistant, but they're an especially good fit with the latter since GE Lighting is a Made by Google partner brand.

Earlier this year, GE Lighting rebranded its C by GE smart home brand as Cync, so perhaps this is a bit of clearance on last year's packaging. Regardless, it's a decent deal, and a cheap way to pick up some additional bulbs to help expand the smart lighting coverage in your home.