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Jan 13, 2024

7 Smart Lamps for Home 2023

Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links.

Who's using a simple plug in when you can go full smart home?

Smart lamps are one of those tech gadgets that make us question why anyone ever says they believe they were born in the wrong century. What's up with that? You wish you were born before lights could *listen* to you? You wish you couldn't control the hue and intensity and thus the entire vibe of your home? Turn a rented apartment into a full-blown smart house? Even for the self-identified old souls, smart lamps are a modern invention than can convince even the greatest skeptics to check out something new.

Smart lamps do more than just turn on and off, some more than others. Generally, they'll use LED lights and connect to an external tool for control. That tool might be an app on your phone or a separate smart device, like an Echo or Google Home. You'll often be able to do that turning on and off with your phone, and turn that light from cool to warm, white to blue, or bright to dim. Some even wake you wake up and have reading light features.

Ahead, we have seven smart lamps that can fit in your space. Some art small, meant for a bedside table or a desk. There are floor and wall lamps, too, that light up an entire room. Your journey to a smart house or apartment begins in earnest, here.

If you're going to lean into modernity, you might as well do it with the best. Philips Hue specializes in light innovation, and this floor lamp highlights the expertise. It connects to Bluetooth so you can control it in the app or with your voice. Stick the minimal lamp in a lonely corner where you can then dim the light and switch from white to gradient color.

Dyson's engineers are always figuring out new ways to smarten up and design out new home technology, lights included. This task light is meant to mimic the sun's light cycle, which could potentially mean less eye strain while you work. If you tend to have sleepy afternoons or err on the side of light-sensitive seasonal affective disorder, this is for you.

Casper's Glow Light is a gentle, eye-sensitive light meant to live and work on your nightstand. Like the Dyson, it keeps the sun's light patterns in mind but with an emphasis on the rise and set to keep melatonin release on track. At night, you can set it so the light fades into a more restful red hue (rather than harsh blue that most screens and lights have) that preps your eyes and body for sleeping the whole night through.

Hatch's Restore lamp is similar but it triples as an alarm clock and a noise machine. It is the choice for bad sleepers of all makes and models. You can preset everything—including for that light to come on slowly in time with your alarm—so you can actually keep your phone's blue light from wrecking your sleep.

If you're already an Alexa household, the Echo Glow is a seamless addition to your increasingly smart setup. You need to connect to an Alexa for it to run, but once it's connected, you'll be able to control the color and brightness with your voice. This is a favorite for kids but good lighting is ageless.

Philips Hue makes a table lamp that lights up an entire wall—and does work in elevating the ambiance of a room. For people who want plenty of light without any of the harshness of an overhead, this small and mighty lamp will gladly take its place. You can't move it around the house, but you can make it light up in millions of colors. Millions of vibes.

OK, this is not actually a smart lamp but it is a smart light bulb that can smarten up just a regular lamp you already have. We're getting smarter and so are the lights, so you don't need to makeover your entire home if you already have some light in the works. The light has a sizable range of dim to bright with 16 million color options and white light temperature control. Control it in the Wyze app.

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