Light bulbs have revolutionised the way we navigate the world at night since its invention in 1879. Across the centuries, they have gradually evolved into various shapes and sizes, mostly for commercial use.
For homes, not so much until in the recent decade where Philips Lighting reimagined the way we install lights at home. It changed the way we see lights such as giving it more temperature and colour variations. It also gave it intelligence to turn on and off by schedule, and with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) assistants like Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa.
Is WiZ a competition of Philips Lighting?
Now many of you would have noticed another brand in the market that seems like a copy of the Philips Lighting called WiZ. To be exact, the company that owns it is Signify. Before you bring out your pitchfork, Signify is Philips Lighting. It is a company that spun off from Philips. So whatever you think of Philips Lighting’s products, you can expect that in Signify’s. This is a good thing since it has already been well positioned in the market.
So when Signify asked if I want to review a couple of their products, there’s only yes to say.
What I received for the product review is the WiZ LED Strip 2M Starter Kit and the other is the WiZ Tunable White Smart Bulb E27. Here are my thoughts.
WiZ LED Strip 2M Starter Kit
Right out of the box, the WiZ LED Strip 2M Starter Kit comes ready for you to plug and play. Just plug it into the power socket, download the WiZ app, connect it and you are ready to go. There are no special features on the hardware as it’s full functionalities lie within the app, except that you can trim it to the size you need. This means that you can cut the 2M length LED strip to fit a 1.8M TV console. Practical!
With the app, you can:
- set the colour theme you want (literally whole lot of choices for different mood, 16 million);
- the intensity of the lights;
- save a scene you want to use in the future;
- change the colours based on the different time of the day and for the activity you do such as Yoga, HIIT, etc.;
- schedule when to turn on the lights with the colour you want; and
- check the lights energy consumption.
This is a smart light strip so you can use Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa to command it to turn on or off, brighten or dim, change colour and set custom light scenes.
Apart from bringing more colours into my life, I mean my bedroom, the considerably low energy consumption allows me to have it on at night for the elderly folks to navigate around when going to the toilet. The WiZ LED Strip 2M Starter Kit is not just cool, but it is also practical.
WiZ Tunable White Smart Bulb E27
Out of the box, the WiZ Tunable White Smart Bulb E27 has nothing else but the bulb. All the tech is built in so you only need to screw it into an E27 compatible light socket for it to work.
Syncing the WiZ Tunable White Smart Bulb E27 is easy. It is the same process as the WiZ LED Strip 2M Starter Kit. Select the WiZ accessory to connect and you are set!
The colour selections are not as bountiful as the WiZ LED Strip 2M Starter Kit though. I mean it is called White Smart Bulb for a reason. It only has a variations of cool and warm light, which makes sense to me since I use it in my bedroom not in a club.
Other than that, the rest of the functionalities of the WiZ Tunable White Smart Bulb E27 is the same as the WiZ LED Strip 2M Starter Kit. So, no surprises. Life is itself complicated. Smart household stuff should not add on to it.
Concluding thoughts
I love these lights. They certainly bring freshness to my home. I can easily adjust the mood of the lights to match my activities like reading, chilling with a glass of wine, watching Netflix, etc.
I am not very sure how much bulbs cost these days but with the added intelligence, S$25.90 for the WiZ Tunable White Smart Bulb E27 sounds like a good investment.
The WiZ LED Strip 2M Starter Kit is priced at S$104.90. It is a little steep but again, given the added intelligence and 16 million colours to play with, I think it’s worth it.
Do you own a WiZ too? Share your thoughts with us!
