Google Home, powered by Google Assistant, offers a convenient and intuitive way to control various aspects of your smart home.
If you’re new to the world of smart home automation or simply looking for a guide to help you connect your smart bulbs with Google Home, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we will show you step-by-step how to link smart bulbs with Google Home so that you can control your lighting from one central place.
How To Link Smart Bulbs with Google Home
To link smart bulbs with Google Home, all you need is:
- the app for your smart bulbs
- the smart bulb itself
- Your Wi-Fi password
- The Google Home app
Before we start, make sure your WiFi router is set to 2.4 GHz (and not 5GHz) and make sure that your smart bulb is compatible with Google Home (it will say on the box if it is compatible).
Step 1. Download the smart bulb app
Every brand of smart bulb has its own smartphone app. So, the first thing you need to do is download the app for your smart bulb.
I’m using an Arlec Smart Led Globe, so I need to download Grid Connect, the smart home hub for Arlec products.
Here are some of the main smart bulb brands:
Each of them has its own app, which you need to download from either Google Play (Android) or the App Store (iPhone).
Step 2. Screw the smart bulb into the fixture
Now insert the smart bulb into the fixture and turn on the light switch on the wall:
Step 3. Add the smart bulb to the app
Next, open the smart bulb app on your smartphone, register for a new account if you don’t already have one, and follow the instructions for adding a device.
Every smart bulb app will be slightly different, but you need to look for a plus icon:
Then choose ‘lighting’:
On the next screen, choose the WiFi network that you want to connect to and make sure it is 2.4 GHz and not 5 GHz:
Step 4. Connect to your WiFi
This is the one step where you may run into trouble. Turn the light switch on the wall on and off three times and then tap the ‘Connect’ button.
The app will then search for a connection to your home WiFi. This can take up to 2 minutes, so don’t panic if it doesn’t connect immediately.
If the app fails to connect with your WiFi, make sure that the smart bulb is flashing.
If it still doesn’t connect with your WiFi, check that you have the WiFi router set to 2.4 GHz (not 5 GHz), and then turn the router off and restart it.
Step 5. Link your smart bulb to Google Home
Open the Google Home app on your smartphone and tap on the ‘Add device’ button.
On the next screen, choose the ‘Works with Google’ option:
And then type the name of your smart bulb into the search box:
Search for your smart bulb app in Google Home.
Once you have located your smart bulb software, Google Home will ask for permission to link the software to Google:
Once your smart bulb has been linked to Google Home, you should have access to all the controls that you would have had in the software that came with the app.
In this case, Google Home gives me an On / Off switch, a Brightness adjuster, and a button for setting the color of the smart bulb:
And that’s it!
You can now control your ceiling lights from your smartphone.
Troubleshooting Smart Bulbs and Google Home
A common problem people encounter with smart bulbs is that most smart bulbs only work with a 2.4 GHz signal. But the Wi-Fi router is sending a 5ghz signal.
I had this problem a few years back. I had Google Wi-Fi Mesh connected to a Google Nest Audio. The strange thing was that the smart bulbs furthest away from the router were the ones that connected to the Wi-Fi network.
Someone finally explained to me the problem. In the farthest reaches of the house, the 5ghz signal was unavailable (it didn’t reach that far), only the 2.4ghz signal. And that’s why the smart bulbs furthest from the router were connecting.
To understand why this was happening, we need to understand the difference between 2.4ghz and 5ghz.
2.4 GHz provides Wi-Fi to a larger area but sacrifices the fast Internet speed. 5ghz provides faster Internet speeds but restricts itself to a smaller area.
The solution to this is to enable 2.5ghz on your router and disable 5ghz.
The instructions for doing this will vary depending on what brand of router you have. But the procedure will be similar to this.
On the back of your router, you will see a label with an IP address. Type that IP address into your browser and log in to your Wi-Fi account with username and password (which will also be on that label).
Go to ‘Modem Settings’ and you’ll see if you have 5 GHz enabled or disabled:
You now need to disable 5ghz.
Look for a button that says 5ghz, click on that, and then toggle the ON/OFF button to the OFF position:
Your Wi-Fi router will now give a uniform 2.4 GHz signal throughout your house. That’s the Wi-Fi signal your smart bulbs need in order to connect to your network.
Conclusion
Smart bulbs are bulbs that are connected to the WiFi of your house. You can control them from an app on your smartphone. The main advantages of having a smart bulb are that you can turn lights on and off without getting up, you can change the hue or color of the light, and you can adjust the brightness of the light.
Smart bulbs can help you save energy, especially when coupled with motion sensors that turn your lights off when someone leaves the room.
Smart bulbs are also more affordable than other smart home devices.
It’s easy to link smart bulbs to Google Home – just follow the five steps outlined in this article.
Related Questions
Why won’t my smart lights connect to my Google Home?
If the Google Home app can’t find your smart bulb during setup, try adding the device directly to Google Home (instead of linking Google Home to the smart bulb app). If that doesn’t work, turn the light switch on the wall off for 10 seconds and then back on. You can also try rebooting your WiFi router.
How do I schedule Google Home to turn lights on and off?
To set up a schedule for your smart bulb, go into the Google Home app, tap ‘Routines’, and then tap the plus icon in the bottom right corner:
Next, create a ‘Starter’ and choose ‘When time is’:
Then tap on ‘Add action’ and choose ‘Adjust home devices’ and then ‘Adjust lights, plugs, more’:
Choose a device from the list of devices and then tap the ‘Turn on’ option:
Set the time you want the smart bulb to turn on. Then, add another action where you tell Google Home what time you want the smart bulb to turn off.
What lights does Google Home work with?
Google Home recognizes two kinds of smart bulbs. ‘Made for Google’ light bulbs are bulbs that you can set up from start to finish in the Google Home app. You won’t need a bridge or the bulb maker’s app – you can add them directly to Google Home.
‘Works with Google’ light bulbs are compatible with Google Assistant but are not made for Google. To set up Works with Google bulbs, you’ll need both the Google Home app and the bulb maker’s app (which acts as a bridge between the smart bulb and Google Home).
Bulbs that are made for Google include:
- Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance
- Philips WiZ Color Bulbs
- Philips Hue Econic Colour Ambience Outdoor Wall Light
- LIFX Mini Smart Color Bulb
- Wyze Bulb Color
- Yeelight Dimmable Light Bulb
- Nanoleaf Rhythm Edition Smarter Kit
- Govee RGBIC LED Light Strip