Philips Hue vs WiZ: which smart bulbs should you buy?

Philips Hue and WiZ both sell white and colour smart bulbs in the bayonet (B22) and screw (E27) fittings Australian homes use. They are built for different jobs. WiZ puts each bulb straight on your Wi-Fi and keeps the price low. Hue runs its bulbs on a separate Zigbee network through a bridge, and charges more for a system that keeps growing.

How each one connects

A WiZ bulb joins your home Wi-Fi on the 2.4 GHz band. There's no hub or bridge to buy: fit the bulb, add it in the WiZ app and it's running. Each bulb talks to your router the way a phone or laptop does.

A Hue bulb has two radios. Out of the box it runs on Bluetooth, which handles up to 10 lights in one room from your phone. Add a Hue Bridge and the bulbs move onto Zigbee, a low-power network that runs separately from your Wi-Fi. The Bridge is what gives you more than 10 lights, control while you're out, and Hue's switches and sensors.

What changes as you add more lights

Every WiZ bulb is one more device on your router. A typical home router is comfortable with somewhere between 20 and 50 devices, and a houseful of Wi-Fi bulbs eats into that alongside every phone, TV and camera. Our Wi-Fi vs Zigbee comparison covers that trade-off in more depth.

Hue on Bluetooth alone tops out at 10 lights, so a whole house on Hue means a Bridge. The Hue Bridge plugs into your router with a network cable and takes one connection, and the bulbs talk to it over Zigbee, so adding bulbs adds nothing to your Wi-Fi.

If you're lighting one or two rooms, none of this matters much. If you're planning a whole house, it's the biggest difference between them.

Light quality

Of the two white bulbs, WiZ reaches further into cool daylight, while the Hue White Ambiance goes warmer at the bottom end. Hue's colour bulb is a step up from both: it dims to 0.2%, covers 1000K to 20000K and uses Chromasync colour matching to keep several bulbs looking the same.

For exposed fittings, WiZ's filament bulb is worth a look: it tunes from 2000K to 5000K, reaches CRI 90 and costs $24.95.

What a room costs

Prices are Synced's, using the WiZ Tunable White A60 ($19.95), the Hue White Ambiance A60 ($59.95) and the Hue Bridge ($99.95). The gap narrows if you only want warm white: Hue's White A60 is fixed at 2700K, costs $34.95 and dims to 5%.

Beyond the bulb

Hue pulls further ahead once you want more than bulbs. The Bridge runs dimmer switches, the Tap Dial, motion sensors, smart plugs, outdoor lights and the sync boxes that match your lights to the TV. With a Bridge Pro and at least three compatible lights, Hue MotionAware turns the lights themselves into motion sensors.

WiZ covers more than bulbs too, including LED strips, light bars and spotlights, plus remotes like the Portable Button and Tap Dial. Its SpaceSense feature does a similar job to MotionAware with no extra hardware: two or more compatible WiZ lights in the same room, ideally 2 to 6 metres apart, can detect movement between them. WiZclick lets you flick a normal wall switch off and on to jump between two settings.

Hue's range is deeper, and every accessory runs through the same Bridge, so switches, sensors and scenes work together without a third-party platform.

Which should you buy?

Pick WiZ if

• You're lighting a room or two, or renting and want bulbs that leave with you, at the lowest price with no hub.
• You're happy to run your lights through Google Home, Alexa or Apple Home instead of one dedicated system.

Pick Hue if

• You're planning lights across the whole house.
• You want switches, motion sensors and TV sync in one system.
• You want colour, the widest white range and the deepest dimming.
• You'd rather keep dozens of bulbs off your Wi-Fi.

Starting small doesn't lock you in. Hue bulbs work on Bluetooth until you decide a Bridge is worth it, and a WiZ bulb costs little enough to move to a lamp later.

Weighing up Govee as well? Our Philips Hue vs Govee comparison covers price, TV backlighting and lightstrips.