I only recently, as in two weeks ago, purchased my first home automation product in the form of a few Philips hue bulbs. Not so much for the automation aspect, but the ability to control the color temp and brightness. The automation will be nice when I take my next vacation and want to give the appearance of someone being home during that time. As for what happens when the WiFi goes down or the bridge fails, simply power cycling the lights returns them to a default color/brightness state like a normal bulb.