I finally went ahead and purchased the Philips Hue Color smart lighting system and I'm extremely pleased. I'm a software engineer and a big nerd, and the concept of being able to control my lights with my voice has always interested me. I first saw the Philips Hue lights at a friends house during a party. He only had a couple bulbs but the brightness and range of color made his apartment look amazing! It was definitely a hot topic at the party as no one there had seen them before. He had also downloaded a third party app that let the lights sync with the music - which seems unnecessary but was still pretty cool. I eventually just decided to go for it and outfitted my whole house with the lights. The bulbs themselves are a bit pricey but you're getting a lot from them. Since they are LEDs they are inherently more energy efficient than normal lights. Even better, the fact that they are smart allows you to really conserve energy. It's easy to forget to turn off the lights, especially when you have other things going on. These smart lights make it easy though. And even if you forget to say "Alexa turn off the lights", you're able to actually set up rules within Alexa to have the lights be on a schedule or even automatically turn off when you leave your house, and turn on when you return. Lastly, the fact that these bulbs will last a really really long time means this is a one time expense. To me it's very much worth the investment. I love these lights and I would 100% recommend them.