Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights
I've been using neopixels to great success in combination with particle.io chips. They have cloud events and you can send whatever data to them.  I'm sending a payload like `{ "color":"blue" }` and then all listening LEDs change. Plus they are individually addressable and are reusable for other projects.  It's not the same level of brightness I'm guessing.Adafruit has a 24 neopixel ring with a particle slot.  It's like $45 for everything for one. No hub.