Philips Hue outshone? Wyze Bulb Color launches super-cheap smart bulbs

Wyze isn’t as big of a name in the smart lighting arena as the likes of Philips Hue, but it’s a no less capable brand and a whole lot easier on the purse strings. 

Now, it’s just dropped pre-orders for its new Wyze Bulb Color: at a cost of $35/£25/AU$45, you'll get a very generous four-pack of RGB-equipped, 1,100-lumen color smart bulbs. 

Shipping next month, the connected color-changing bulbs are far cheaper than competitors’ products, such as Philips Hue and LIFX, which are both in a constant war for smart-lighting supremacy. These smart brands will leave you out-of-pocket pretty quickly if you break one of the bulbs. And we think you'll agree that's very easily done when flittering through the house.

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As with Wyze’s wider smart product range, the Wyze Bulb Color connects to Wi-Fi, which removes the need for a hub to connect to your wireless network. Wyze’s mobile app uses Bluetooth to oversee your lighting setup, allowing you to manage it directly from one of our best phones. Great for when you're stuck on the couch and about to partake in another lockdown boxset-binge. 

Wyze promises a 90+ color rendering index (CRI) rating for its bulbs, which is just short of the maximum of 100, and should vividly illuminate any stretch of your home. As with any smart lighting bulb worth its salt, it hooks up to Google Assistant through your Google Nest Mini; it easily works with Alexa through the likes of the Amazon Echo Dot or Amazon Echo, as well.

Wyze's Bulb Color will sparkle into life through voice commands and integrate with routines. It’s likely that it’ll offer some compatibility with Amazon’s Alexa Hunches, letting you dial up the functionality of Wyze's Bulb Color as part of a more autonomous smart system, although this is still unconfirmed.

Anything that squeezes functionality out of our picks of the best Alexa speakers, uniting our smart lighting into a tranquil utopia to unwind – well, we’re certainly on board. Although Philips Hue routinely tops our best smart bulbs, the individual bulbs can be exorbitantly priced, so this should offer a solid alternative to more comprehensively kit out your home at a much lower cost.

Source: Engadget