Which smart bulbs keep time?

How closely each light model follows the beat, from measurements DiscoBeat users chose to share. Updated monthly.

Every smart light takes a moment to respond to a command, and the moment is different for every model. DiscoBeat's calibrator measures each light with the phone's camera and sends each one its command early by exactly that delay. What it cannot fix is a light whose delay varies from one change to the next: that spread is what decides whether a light can ever feel tight.

September 2026

No model has enough measurements yet. A model appears here once people who chose to share light latency have measured it on at least 5 separate days. Until then nothing is listed, rather than a guess.

Tight: varies by 15 ms or less, so it lands on the beat once calibrated. OK: up to 30 ms. Loose: more than 30 ms, which no calibration can hide. A model is listed once it has been measured on at least 5 separate days.

Measured by us

Philips Hue, through a Hue Bridge entertainment area — 17 September 2026. Eight lights driven as one stream held 10 updates a second with no errors and timing jitter under 5.1 ms (99th percentile). At 25 and 50 updates a second commands began to queue over a 30-second run. This is a test of the brand's fastest local path, not of a bulb model's delay, which is why it is not in the table above. The other brands get the same test as the hardware arrives.

How the table is made

• Only from people who switched on Share light latency. Each sample is one calibration: the light's brand and model, its median delay and how much it varied. Nothing ties a sample to a person, a phone or a home (privacy).
• A model appears only after it has been measured on enough separate days, so one person's afternoon cannot put a model on the list.
• The tier comes from the spread, not the delay: a slow light that is always slow by the same amount can be corrected; a light that varies cannot.
• Your own calibration is the number that counts for your lights. The app may show the crowd's tier beside a light you have not measured, and never uses it as your light's measurement.

Which brands DiscoBeat works with, and how to set each one up, is on the home page.