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Wyze extends its budget home automation line with color bulbs

The Wyze Bulb Color costs $35 for a pack of four, and can produce 16 million colors.

Wyze

If you're putting together a connected living space and need some mood lighting, but you don't want to spend a ton of money, then take a look at the new Wyze Bulb Color. While we've seen controllable color-changing bulbs from others like the Philips Hue line and C by GE/Cync, those can get expensive fast at $50 per bulb and $30-$35 for a pair, respectively. This customizable light bulb from Wyze is available for pre-order in a four pack that costs $35, plus $8 for UPS ground shipping once they're released in March.

As ZatzNotFunny points out, this 1,100 lumen smart bulb is brighter than Wyze's tunable 800 lumen white bulb. The FAQ explains that they are rated for damp locations, don't need a hub and can be controlled via WiFi or Bluetooth so they can work even if your internet connection drops. The company also plans on releasing a two-pack of bulbs in the future, in case four is overkill, and in a forum post indicated the Wyze control app will get improvements throughout 2021.

When these bulbs arrive, users can group them with other color bulbs, control them via Alexa or Google Assistant, pick from 16 million colors or use other Wyze devices to trigger various scripted routines. While the forum thread showed users have wanted this for a while, Reddit posters seem less impressed, as they sought better reliability and Apple Homekit compatibility.