I've experimented with color-changing bulbs that don't require a hub (mainly because I only need two of them, so I thought it was a home action), but the behavior was incredibly erratic. In an effort to troubleshoot this, I tried bulbs from both Meross (MSL120 HK) and Sylvania (SMART + Bluetooth Mesh) bulbs (and yes, I made sure the bulbs were updated in the apps respectively, I run the latest version of iOS and Homekit, and both bulbs are in the same room as the main router with wifi network and Homepod Mini) and in both cases there are so many bugs that it makes them virtually unusable beyond simple use of an ordinary mute light bulb! I know that the Homekit native color picker is awful (and wow is bad, especially for an Apple design), but behind it, for example, the call for red lights (either directly through Siri or through automation) causes you to exit completely and partially to disconnect. However, requesting a red-like color (such as "scarlet") makes it a more orange hue. Applying for green gives you a basic yellow etc. Beyond that, dialing for any color is hit or miss, and sometimes multiple bulbs will display completely different colors for the same request. Moreover, if the lights were last set to any color (such as warm white) and then an automation is performed that should cause them to turn on another color (such as blue), they will turn on. usually and they will stay the color they were in before or just drive me crazy and give me something random. In addition to all this, they have wild colors and intensity jumps between settings. Sometimes switching from 50% blue to 75% green causes the bulbs to first pass through a range of 100% white, which can be super annoying at night. Is it common for everyone? I thought trying 2 different brands would rule out most of the problems, but I think this is an Apple issue with Homekit? Overall, I tried to avoid jumping to the Philips Hue system, not only because of the price, but also because I think adding an entire hub for a few bulbs seems excessive, but if that's the only way to do it, it works the way it used to. expected, I can be persuaded to go for it.