Following the wizard in the app, it’s pretty easy to get the bulbs connected to the app. Once there, WiZ gets you to organise bulbs into rooms, so you can control groups of lights together. You’ll need good Wi-Fi where you want to connect your lights. As WiZ uses Wi-Fi, the number of bulbs you can connect depends on your router. Typically, routers support up to 254 devices in total, but that includes your computers, TVs and so on. Realistically, you’re unlikely to hit the limit of your router, unless you want a massive installation of WiZ bulbs. There’s also an LED lightstrip, available as a 2m strip, plus you can buy 1m extension cables to create a total maximum length of 10m.

In addition, WiZ also has a range of light fittings, including spotlights and ceiling lamps. The range here isn’t as good as Hue’s but there’s more choice than with other Wi-Fi brands. Bulbs are available in three types: dimmable, tunable white (typically a warm 2700K to cold 6500K light) and full colour (does everything the other bulbs do plus you get the full range of millions of colours to choose from. Dim your lights to your desired brightness level via your smartphone, the WiZmote or your voice. No need to install an expensive dimmer.

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Osram Sylvania (formerly Lightify) Smart+ bulbs have had a bad rep in the past with many users reporting trouble connecting them to a Philips Hue bridge. However, a firmware update seems to have solved these issues so ensure you have updated them before trying to connect. Adding your third party bulbs to Hue is generally an easy process, but often requires one extra step that can vary by manufacturer.

As the WiZ bulbs use Wi-Fi to connect, they can be a bit slow to register in the app if they’ve been turned off at the light switch: I found that they could take up to 30 seconds to appear, which is quite a lot slower than Hue bulbs take, with Zigbee being much faster and more reliable. Samsung SmartThings support is available. That’s handy if you use that system for your automations, and further expands the scope of the WiZ system. Performance WiZ also has a series of filament bulbs, available in the tuneable white series. They go from cold white to warm white, as well as dimming, which is an improvement over the Hue version, which dims only and has a set colour temperature.Just to point out that only Osram Smart+ bulbs in Europe work with Hue, if you’ve imported them from the USA then they will use a different Zigbee standard (ZHA) which doesn’t work with Hue.