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WiZ Connected Lights Review
Summary
I have been quite impressed with the WiZ products. They are affordable and good quality. There is a wide range of product options allowing you to expand your system across your home. The extensive integrations will enable you to build an advanced smart home system cheaply.
Following on from my comparison between Wiz, Tapo and Philips Hue.
Wiz was recently kind enough to send me some samples to test out. This included:
WiZ Luminaire Mobile Portable LightWiz 18.5W LED (150W equivalent) E27Wiz 8W B22
It would seem that I don’t have any lights with the bayonet-style fitting, so I haven’t tested that one.
WiZ A80 18.5W LED Bulb (150W equivalent)
The Wiz 18.5W is more interesting, though. At 18.5W, this is the equivalent of a 150W incandescent light bulb, and it is huge. WiZ claims that it can provide 2452 lumens of brightness. The 8W B22 I was sent provides just 806 lumens. The brightest bulb Hue has on offer is 1600lm.
As you can see from the comparison of the two WiZ bulbs, the WiZ 18.5W is not going to be suitable for all scenarios. Thankfully I had a lamp with a large shade that easily hid the bulb, and it works well in this situation.
Using this one bulb in my lamp, it can provide enough light to comfortable light up my full room. So it is quite a good option if you don’t have a lot of lights in a room. In comparison, my 800lm Hue bulb struggles to provide enough light just by itself.
WiZ A80 18.5W LED Bulb
800lm Philips Hue Bulb
WiZ Luminaire Mobile Portable Light
The Mobile Portable Light is an interesting product. As the name suggests, it is battery powered, and WiZ claims it will get 10 hours of battery. Sadly, it is not IP-rated, so not suitable to take outside (unless it is dry).
Being battery-powered, they have kept the overall brightness quite low. It has a luminosity of just 400lm, half of what a standard bulb is capable of. It is, therefore, more for decoration than providing significant light. It does seem like it would make an excellent night light for a child or a wake-up light for anyone that struggles to get up in the morning.
It connects via WiFi just like the other lights and works with all the smart features within WiZ, so you can easily set up a schedule for when your child goes to sleep.
Colour and Light Options
All the colour bulbs and lights within the WiZ range have a good selection of colour options to choose from.
Two of these are a 30-minute progressive wake-up or bedtime routine where the light will get gradually brighter/darker and use an appropriate colour temperature.
Alternatively, there is a range of dynamic options that will gradually change colours. You then have options for both the brightness and speed the colours changes.
As you’d expect, there are your typical static options. These are more limited than Hue, there are not as many options, and I think grouped bulbs all take the same colour, rather than the scenes from Hue. You can manually select your own colour, so you can still end up with an impressive-looking set-up.
Rhythms & Schedules
One feature that is quite good is the rhythm options. It is basically just a schedule, and you can do this with any light. However, this allows you to set up a whole day schedule based on different times of the day. So you can use the wake-up light in the morning set to 2700K cool white to provide you with some energy, then through the day, the colour temperature warms with the evening shifting to a warm white, which should help relax you ready for bed.
While this is possible with most smart lights, it is a good, user-friendly way to visualise and set up the light schedule.
Accessories & Power Monitoring
You will notice that there is a power monitoring section in the app. At first, I thought that each bulb could monitor its own power usage, which would have been quite a unique feature.
Sadly not; this is used for one of the WiZ smart plugs, which has a power meter built in.
As well as smart plugs, WiZ has a motion sensor and smart button.
They don’t seem to sell it by itself, but there is also a WiZmote included with some of the bundles. This provides some basic control for setting colours, and brightness and switching the lights on and off.
Integration
Wiz has a good selection of built-in 3rd party integrations. The three that stood out for me were IFTTT, Homey and SmartThings. I no longer use SmartThings, but it does work perfectly well with Home Assistant, and you can therefore integrate any of the Wiz bulbs with a complex smart home system.
Price and Availability
At the time of writing, the 18.5W bulb does not appear available to buy, but the press release states it will be £27.99. The 100W equivalent variant is available on Amazon for £18.
The WiZ portable lamp should retail for £79.99.
Overall
I have become so entrenched with the Philips Hue ecosystem that I sometimes struggle to get enthusiastic about other smart light systems.
However, I have been quite impressed with the WiZ products. They are affordable and good quality. There is a wide range of product options allowing you to expand your system across your home. The extensive integrations will enable you to build an advanced smart home system cheaply.