Signify, the former Philips Lighting, took over WiZ ‘s range of smart lighting last year . WiZ is known as an affordable solution for smart lighting. By offering smart lighting cheaper to consumers, WiZ hopes to make its Smart lamps more accessible. I was able to test the smart lighting and accompanying accessories from WiZ for a few weeks. I would like to tell you what the positive and negative points are of this ‘cheaper’ smart lighting.
WiZ smart lighting: the pluses
1. Extensive range
The package that was sent to me contained a list of all smart lighting that WiZ sells. You have a very wide choice in different shapes and sizes. You can choose from standard lamps, filament lamps, light strips, spots and fixtures, with colored or white light. They also sell accessories such as motion sensors, smart plugs and a remote control to control your lights. I think with this range you have enough choice to get started with smart lighting in your home.
WiZ A60, WiZ A67, WiZ ST64 Edison
2. Excellent quality
I tested the regular colored bulbs A60 (806 Lumen), the slightly larger A67 bulb (1521 Lumen) and the Filament ST64 amber bulb (640 Lumen). The colored lamps can display 16 million colors. The Filament lamps have an adjustable color temperature between 2000 and 5000 K, so from cool white light to cozy warm candlelight. Thanks to the amber color of the glass, you can use the lamp in your interior without a fixture.
The light output of these lamps is of excellent quality and the colors are very pleasant to look at
3. Easy installation
The nice thing about WiZ’s smart lighting is that you only need the lamp and the app. The connection is via built-in WiFi in the lamp. So you don’t need a bridge, which is the case with smart lighting from Ikea and Philips Hue. WiZ is certainly not the only manufacturer of smart lighting that does not use a bridge. We already saw this way of working with LIFX smart lighting. The disadvantage of this way of working is often that you have to create an account with the manufacturer of the lighting. This means that this manufacturer can track what you do with your smart lighting, so you give up some of your privacy. This is not the case with smart lighting. You can choose whether you create an account or use the smart lamps without an account. You can therefore remain ‘anonymous’.
The installation is very simple. You press add lamp in the app and choose the WiFi network that the lamp should connect to. You switch off the lamp and switch the lamp on three times quickly. The lamp starts to light up in a blue color, after which you continue with the installation in the app. The app will guide you step by step and further adjust the lamp. As soon as the Wi-Fi connection with the lamp is completed, you only have to indicate in the app in which room the lamp is located.
5. Voice control via Google Assistant
The WiZ smart lighting can be linked to the Google Assistant and added to the Google Home app. This allows you to control the lamps not only via the WiZ app, but also by voice commands. You can also add the lamps to Google Home and involve the lamps in the handy routines . For example, you can have all lights switch off automatically when you leave the house.
6. Recovery after power outage
If you only want to operate smart lighting via the WiZ app or voice control, the switch of the lamp must remain switched on. In the event of a power failure, this does mean that lamps will switch on. This isn’t too bad when you’re at home, but imagine you’re on vacation and the lights stay on for a whole week? Your energy supplier will be very satisfied with that.
That is why I am glad that there is a function in the WiZ app that activates a recovery in the event of a power failure. As a result, the lamp will simply turn off when power is restored after an interruption.
7. Smart functions
Although the smart WiZ lighting is more budget-friendly than, for example, Philips Hue, you still get a nice range of smart functions within the WiZ app. You can assign each lamp to a room and thus merge lamps. You can control each lamp in a room individually via the app and adjust the light intensity or color and heat. For the color and warmth you can choose from pre-programmed settings or set manually to your own wishes.
In addition to these settings, you can also create schedules, scene and rhythms. For example, you determine when lamps switch on and off. Via the ‘rhythms’ you can automate the lamps with scene transitions during the day. There is the ‘Circadian Rhythm’ that adjusts the lighting of the lamps to the rhythm of the day. Your lamp will wake you up in the morning and this lamp will take on a productive color during the day, to change to a cozy warm color in the evening. I think this is an ideal function for the office, but at home I prefer the lights to be switched off during the day.
Wiz smart lighting: the cons
1. Room-specific operation
Most of the smart functions available in the WiZ app are set per room. As a result, you cannot, for example, set light scenes or schedules per lamp. This has enormous consequences for flexibility. For example, you cannot ensure that only the mood lighting comes on at sunset, if you also use other lamps in the same room.
2. Accessories with one major drawback
In addition to the smart WiZ lighting, I also tested the remote control and the motion sensor. The remote control has a button for switching the lights on and off, a night light button, four scene buttons and a brightness button. A handy accessory so that everyone in the house can control your lights, without using a smartphone.
The smart lighting can also be switched on automatically by the WiZ motion sensor. You can place this somewhere or hang it up. Handy, for example in a dark room to automatically switch on the light when you step inside. You can set in the app what action should be done when the sensor detects movement. In addition, you can set how long it takes before the lights switch off when there is no movement. This way you avoid that the light goes out if you sit still on the toilet for too long.
Personally, I find the motion sensor less user-friendly because it does not take into account the brightness in the room. I had this sensor installed in the hall. The lighting switched on automatically as soon as I entered the hall. Unfortunately, the lamp turned on not only at night, but also during the day, which is not the intention.
The biggest disadvantage of these accessories is that they can only be connected to a room. So you operate all the lamps in that room and you have no possibility to operate lamps in another room. If you want to do this, you will need multiple accessories or adjust the settings in the app.
Conclusion
WIZ has a very extensive budget-friendly range of smart lighting. The light quality of the lamps is excellent and you can adjust the lamps via the extensive color choices to create different atmospheres. The lamps can be operated via the WiZ app, the Google Home app or via voice commands.
The lamps also have an internal memory where you can store two scenes. The lamp also remembers the last used scene and will reactivate it when the lamp is switched on. This allows you to use your ‘normal switch’ to operate this smart lighting.
You can create scenes and rhythms via the WiZ app so that the lights switch on and off automatically at specific times. The biggest disadvantage of the WiZ app is that lamps have to be divided into rooms. All settings such as scenes, rhythms, but also the use of accessories are linked to this room. This limitation ensures that scenes cannot be activated per lamp or can operate each lamp individually with an accessory.
I would rather recommend this smart lighting to people who are just starting to use smart lighting, want to use their old switches and are less concerned with the available smart functions. Do you want more flexibility to set up your smart lighting? Then you can also look at lighting from manufacturers such as LIFX and Philips Hue .
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