If you're looking for some fancy smart bulbs but can't stretch to the price of a Philips Hue setup, the latest additions to the WiZ smart lighting range could be seriously tempting. Hue's sister brand sits in the more affordable end of the smart home market, and its new lights are seriously stylish and look like good value, too.
There are four new lights arriving within the next few weeks: the Full Colour Filament Spiral, the Neon Flex Strip, the SuperSlim Colour Luminaire and the Panel Ceiling. Each of these latest candidates for our best smart lighting guide have been designed to do something slightly different, and together they give you an impressive range of options.
So what does each one do?
WiZ's new smart lights: what do they actually do?
My favorite of the new lights is the Colour Filament Spiral. That looks like the retro filament bulbs you tend to see in hipster cafes and restaurants, but while this light can look just like them it also has the option to light up in any colour you like – something Hue's filament bulbs don't currently do. The closest Hue equivalent, the Colour Ellipse, is three times the price.
Next up there's the Neon Flex Strip, which looks much the same as the colour lightstrip I have behind my TV. Once again you can have any colour you like, and you can bend it into different shapes to suit the space you want to make more interesting.
The SuperSlim Colour Luminaire is a large, flat, circular ceiling light that comes in black or white finishes and lights up the room from above. And finally there's the Panel Ceiling, a larger rectangular or square light that's available in three different sizes and shapes to light up dark areas. I've got a hallway so dark it's probably haunted, so I'm quite keen to try this one.
The Panel Ceiling is on sale now, starting at £64.99 for a square one and rising to £119.99 for the largest rectangle on Amazon UK.
The other Wiz lights will go on sale in late June 2023. The Full Colour Filament Spiral is £27.99, the SuperSlim Colour Luminaire is £129.99 or £169.99 for the brighter 36W version and the Neon Flex Strip is £89.99.
