The reason the philips lightstrip plus costs so much is it has great color accuracy and they are designed to color match with the hue led bulbs.
Third party bulbs that work with philips hue.
For me the best third party bulbs that work with hue are the eria bulbs.
To that end it s sticking with the new friends of hue partnership program which.
When it comes to outfitting multiple rooms the 5 difference between the hue lux 20 and more economical bulbs like the cree connected and ge link both 15 is significant.
Third party bulbs that do work however are not part of the friends of hue program by philips then they will not have homekit siri support.
These companies sell quality smart bulbs that will work with hue out of the box.
They give comparable brightness and a reasonably similar color palette.
Even with the introduction of the economical hue lux system a white only bulb that s significantly cheaper than the original color changing hue bulbs the philips hue bulbs are still priced above the third party bulbs on the market like the cree connected and the ge link.
The hue system uses zigbee ll light link and does allow third party items to connect.
If i need a smart bulb in a location where quality doesn t matter much i m going with the cree connected bulbs.
The most notable name brand bulbs that work with hue are ge link ikea trådfri cree connected and sylvania smart aka osram lightify aka silvania lightify.
Philips uses a special type of led strip called rgbww red green blue warm white which features a separate led diode for the white colors to produce the right hues of white as well as great.
I can t stop you from buying these products but i d advise against it.