The lifx bulbs require a bridge/base station.. it just happens to be a much more ubiquitous standard: WiFi. The Philips Hue bulbs are pretty open. I use them w

The lifx bulbs require a bridge/base station.. it just happens to be a much more ubiquitous standard: WiFi. The Philips Hue bulbs are pretty open. I use them with a Zigbee module on a raspi with no Philips Hue hub. Ie they work fine with standard Zigbee kit. You can theoretically pair them direct to other Zigbee devices without even a controller, at the expense of flexibility.