Gabe: Hey, folks. Did you ever wonder if you could get into the smart bulb market for under
$10? Wyze is here to say that you can. So today I'm reviewing the Wyze bulb.
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Gabe: If you'd like to see a list of our favorite smart bulbs, google "Security Baron best smart
bulbs." If you have question about today's review, leave us a comment and I'll get back
to you.
In today's review of the Wyze bulb, I'm going to look at its design, its feature set, the
installation experience before diving into its mobile application, the Wyze app, to make
sure you have all the information you need to make the right decision.
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Gabe: Let's kick off today's review of the Wyze bulb looking at its design. Note that
it basically resembles your typical a 19 bulb. It has an E-26 base and you'll note that it
does have a pretty significantly larger midsection than other bulbs. It's made out of a hard
plastic. Here, you'll see that the surface area of the actual bulb itself which is LED
is a little bit smaller.
Now one thing to note is that on the back they have a few different almost like stats
for the bulb itself and let you know that it's 800 lumens. You have the QR code and
you have this really I think pretty aesthetically pleasing Wyze logo but remember that most
of this is going to be covered by your lampshade anyway.
Overall, I'm a fan of the Wyze bulb especially its heft. It's got a substantive feel for
it which is important in considering how affordable it is. So that's our look at the design of
the Wyze bulb. Now that we've gone over the design of the Wyze bulb, let's talk about
its feature set.
Of course, the main draw with a smart bulb is the ability to control it remotely. You
don't have to walk over somewhere and yank on a string up and down to get the lights
on or off. It works really well with the Wyze bulb. One thing I do want to note in terms
of that feature set and the ability to control it remotely is that you are going to be controlling
it essentially just in terms of temperature and brightness.
This is not a bulb that has blue, red, green, pink. This bulb is basically going to get
you from a pretty bright room white to a pretty low dim room, and yellow. That's where the
Wyze bulb really works.
In terms of its competitors, you might see that they can really switch the game up in
terms of the feel and vibe of a room through multiple colors. That's just not something
you're going to get with the Wyze bulb. That being said, you still have the ability to
set scenes, to set schedules. There is a sunrise and sunset capability with your Wyze bulb.
You're not going to see any geo-fencing but there is a vacation mode. So if you want to
make it both think that you're at home when you're really 3,000 miles away, you can do
so right in the Wyze app. On top of that, if you don't think that controlling it with
your hand is enough you have integration with Amazon and Google smart platforms. You can
just use your voice to control the system.
Overall, I'm pretty impressed with the feature set on the Wyze bulb.
[music]
Gabe: Hold on. I hope you're enjoying today's review of the Wyze smart bulb. If you want
to be kept up to date on all the news regarding smart bulbs, smart home security, and cyber
security, subscribe to our channel, Security Baron, dropping new, hot videos weekly.
All right. Let's get back to the video. Now that we've gone over the design and feature
set of the Wyze bulb, let's talk about that installation experience, which honestly for
me, it was quite simple and convenient. You're going to want to make sure you have the Wyze
app downloaded. You want to make sure you have your WiFi and password ready to go.
We're going to go into your lamp. Put your Wyze bulb. You'll see it come on. Like so,
you're going to want to switch it on and off three times so they can enter that pairing
mode. It'll begin to pulse different colors and once it's pulsing, you simply hit next.
In the app, it'll direct you to essentially connect to the WiFi of the bulb itself. You'll
connect to that WiFi then that'll allow it to connect to your overall WiFi. From there,
you're basically ready to go. You of course want to upgrade any firmware or software that
is necessary, but overall the process takes you well fewer than five minutes and is ready
to go.
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Gabe: Now, I want to look at the Wyze mobile application. Now, the Wyze app is where you're
going to be doing most of the interfacing with the Wyze bulb. Remember that you can
also be controlling your Wyze Sense or Wyze Cam, Wyze Cam Pan, all inside of that mobile
app.
It does fairly well in the various app stores. In the Google Play store, it has a 3.7 out
of 5-star rating, and does slightly worse in the Apple App Store where it's at 3.5 out
of 5-star rating. Let's go ahead and check it out on my iPhone 7 Plus.
Here I am checking out the Wyze mobile application for my Wyze bulbs. Now you'll note here, I've
got two bulbs called Wyze Baron bulb and Wyze Baron bulb 2. You'll also note some of the
other Wyze devices here in the application.
Now, I want to go ahead and just show you how intuitive this application can be. It's
not everything in the same space. Overall, I found it to be a pretty nice intuitive app,
especially for such an affordable device. If I click of course on and off I can just
turn them on and off. Now, here I am in darkness.
Let's turn these back on. Just by tapping right there. Now it's pretty straightforward,
which is which, because of the names you have your icons here to help you understand what
you're actually looking at.
I want to go in, and actually do a little bit more with the Wyze Baron bulb. If you
note here, I actually have the timer turned on in the upper left-hand corner. It says
off in 54 minutes, I can cancel that. You'll see here that I have a brightness at the top.
Lastly, actually change the brightness of the bulb. I can even change the kind of tone
of the bulb.
You've got White, Daylight, and Cool White all available to you.
Let's go down to daylight. Turn their brightness down for the Baron bulb and let's go ahead
and just add a new scene. I can go to "Add Scene." Now this is a new scene for me. Let's
just call it SB scene. I've saved it and this is going to save the current brightness and
color temperature settings.
I've already made a few other scenes from my Wyze Baron bulb. One is almost dark and
this is for this bulb here and another one called perfect dark. Perfect dark is pretty
low in terms of the color and the temperature. Shout out to Nintendo 64.
If I want to go ahead and make this work in conjunction with one another, I'll go out,
click on that upper left hand corner. I'll go to the upper right hand corner and now,
it says group products. So now I want to go to group products and you'll see it says Wyze
cam group, contact sensors, motion sensors.
I'm going to go to the very last one which is bulbs. I tap on bulbs and I say Baron home,
made the name and I'm going to select both of these bulbs. Now, Baron home is the actual
device in my system. They're both in the same space. Now I can hit on and off and turn them
both on and off. Like so. Turn it back on.
And then I can just create scenes for each bulb individually. If I want to go to Baron
bulb II and make it as bright as possible and go to other Wyze Baron bulb and make it
as bright as possible. I can then just set this as a scene.
[pause]
Gabe: Let's go here. Let's call it brightness. Here I have now made the Baron home brightness
scene which is really useful to be able to have these bulbs work in conjunction with
one another. In terms of setting a schedule, I will note that it is not as straightforward
as what you might see with some of the other bulbs in the market.
I do want to show you how to do so. You're going to go to the top at its shortcuts. Create
shortcut. And then you're going to have it say something like bulbs on and the actions
will be to turn on both of your bulbs. Now these are saved. I want more action
and then what I've done here, we automate it. Automation is going to be set at let's
say 4:00 PM.
Let's say for 4:30 PM and we'll have a repeat on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
but not Saturday and Sunday. We hit save. Boom. Now, we have this automated shortcut
to turn on both of our bulbs 4:30 PM on weekdays. I hit done. Voila.
Now, it's ready to go. Now, you see that shortcut any place in the Wyze app. Just to be clear,
that is not as intuitive and as straightforward as we've seen with some of the other scheduling
on various apps for other competitors, but you can figure it out.
Once you've done it a couple of times, it does become pretty much second nature. Now,
you see the bulbs on shortcut or schedule in the upper left-hand corner.
The final thing I want to show you, which is necessary and useful, I think, is the ability
to hit on that upper left-hand clock, and just turn the lights on or off after a set
number of hours or even minutes. If I want to turn it off after 15 minutes, I can do
so. I hit start. Now, both of these lights will turn off in 15 minutes.
This is something to help you get yourself prepared to go to bed, if you know you're
forgetful in the morning, you know you're going to leave for work. You can say, "OK".
You don't want to set necessarily a schedule. You can say, "OK, have these lights go off
in 30 minutes," so that you know that once you've actually made it out of the house,
the lights will go out.
Overall, I'm pretty impressed with the manner by which the features for the Wyze bulb work
in the Wyze mobile application. That's our look at the Wyze mobile app.
Sometimes, I may not have my mobile phone on me, and I want to take advantage of the
Smart Platform integrations that you get with the Wyze bulb. In those instances, I can just
say, "Turn off my Wyze Baron Bulb."
Drastically changed my lighting situation without moving a muscle. Then I can just say,
"Turn on my Wyze Baron Bulb." That's just one example of the Smart Platform integrations
you can get with the Wyze bulb.
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Gabe: We've now put the Wyze bulb to the test, but you want to know, "Gabe, does it get a
passing grade?" I'll say this. For $29.99, you get the four pack of the Wyze bulb. That
four pack costs about the same as just one light bulb from one of its competitors. Not
even a color bulb, which it comes in far under.
The Wyze bulb is bringing a lot to the table in terms of the ability to set up scenes and
schedules. It has a mobile application that integrates all the Smart Home elements in
terms of the Smart Home Security System cam and bulb.
Finally, it does integrate with the two major Smart platforms out there, Google and Amazon.
If you're looking for the most comprehensive bulb out there in terms of your ability to
project colors, you're going to want to look somewhere else.
It's not going to give you that blue, green, yellow, purple. It will give you yellow, but
it also is not going to give you geo-fencing. Overall, for $29.99, we're mighty impressed
with the feature set and capacity of the Wyze bulb.
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Gabe: That concludes our review of the Wyze bulb. If you appreciated today's video, give
us a like and hit that subscribe button. As always, this is Gabe at Security Baron. Be
secure.