I’m fine either way, we currently use the bulbs and I went a bit nuts buying discounted starter kits, so I have extras I’m not using. They definitely have a “shelf” though the app seems to allow some pretty fine-grained control, and if I remember my research you can use the Zigbee (that’s what it was) protocol and manually drive them (even doing things the app won’t let you do, such as the white LED full on AND the three RGB full on).
I’ll check if I can find some old Crees - I had some but I think they committed hari-kari quite quickly (the “lifetime” of LED bulbs is way overstated, those things seem to die about as often as I remember incandescents). At least they’re not compact florescent.
Any comments on halogen compared to incandescent? The local grocery store is clearing out a bunch of “incandescent replacement halogen” bulbs and I’m considering grabbing some.