Anyone looking for a stylish, yet affordable, vintage smart lamp that doesn’t require an expensive hub should consider WiZ Connected’s dimmable ST19 white incandescent lamp. This Wi-Fi enabled light bulb is screwed into a standard E26 socket. It’s too dark to illuminate an entire room (this is a 40-watt equivalent), but it works great as accent lighting in a dining or living room.

Setting it up is a breeze, and you can put the dimmable light on a schedule, set it to different lighting modes, group it with other WiZ Connected lights, and control it with voice commands from Alexa and Google Assistant.

Design specifications

WiZ Connected (owned by Signify, the company behind popular lighting brand Philips Hue) offers two versions of its dimmable ST19 incandescent lamp: one with amber glass (the one we tested) and one with clear glassRemove non-product link. In addition to the elongated ST19 lamps, WiZ also sells standard A19 lampsRemove non-product link and spherical G25 bulbsRemove non-product link.

This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best smart lighting products. where to find Reviews of competing products, as well as a guide for shoppers on the features to consider when shopping.

The ST19 lamp has a lifespan of up to 15,000 hours and is equipped with an E26 base that can be screwed into a standard light bulb socket. The amber version of the light bulb is designed for a very warm white 2,000 Kelvin, while the clear light bulb is designed for a slightly cooler (but still warm) 2,700 Kelvin. Four linear LED filaments are located in the light bulb.

Both the clear and amber versions of the WiZ incandescent lamp ST19 emit 350 lumens at full brightness, which is too weak to illuminate an entire room or work area. Instead, think of decorative or accent lighting.

Ben Patterson / IDG

The ST19 incandescent lamp from WiZ Connected is too dark to illuminate an entire room, but it does provide a nice accent light (especially with this ugly ceiling light in my office).

configuration

Commissioning the ST19 incandescent lamp from WiZ only takes a few minutes. Once you’ve downloaded the WiZ app (assuming you haven’t already), you can add the Wi-Fi enabled lamp to your WiZ home in two ways: either through smart pairing or manually. The Smart Pairing setting allows you to quickly connect a number of WiZ lamps at the same time. However, this will only work if your phone is connected to your router using the 2.4 GHz radio band. Therefore, you may need to disable your router’s 5GHz wireless network first (you can turn it back on once the pairing process is complete). With manual pairing, however, a connection to each new lamp is established via a temporary Wi-Fi signal. This is a tedious process, but when you do so you don’t have to mess with your router’s dual band settings.

In any case, I managed to add the ST19 lightbulb to the app in a matter of minutes (both the “smart” and manual pairing method worked just fine) and I added it to one of the rooms in my house as defined in the app definition (in this case “Office”), in which I also installed a few other WiZ lamps.

Features, app support and smart home integrations

Once you’ve used the WiZ Mobile App to group the ST19 bulb with your other WiZ Smart Lights, you can control it, set a schedule, and even set a daily “rhythm” with the WiZ Mobile App.

Since the lightbulb is only dimmable and non-tunable (meaning you can’t change the color temperature), there are only a few lighting modes available, including the standard “white” mode, a night light mode, and the “progressive” wake-up and bedtime modes that the light bulb Gradually brighten and dim over a period of 30 minutes.

Ben Patterson / IDG

With the WiZ app, you can activate various lighting modes for the ST19 light bulb, including the dynamic “steampunk” mode. You can also adjust the brightness of the lightbulb, as well as the speed of dynamic lighting effects.

More interesting are a quartet of “dynamic” modes, including a pulse mode in which the brightness of the light bulb is gradually increased and decreased, a candlelight mode in which the filaments flicker gently, and a moody “steampunk” mode which randomly dims the light bulb and brightens, almost as if the lightbulb was connected to a transient electrical current. For each of the four modes, you can adjust both the brightness and the speed of the effect.

In addition to the app for controlling the lamp modes, you can also use the optional Wi-Fi WiZmote, with which you can access four “favorite modes” at the touch of a button. Another fascinating control method is the WiZclick feature, which essentially gives smarts to an otherwise “dumb” light switch by letting you switch between the first two of four preferred modes. Switching on the switch normally activates the first favorite mode, while the second favorite is activated by briefly flipping the switch twice.

The app also lets you set the lightbulb (or a room or the entire house) daily or weekly, activate a random vacation mode to fool potential intruders when you are not at home, or build the lightbulb into a lightbulb light scene. Finally, in a circadian rhythm mode, you can set the wake-up and bedtime times and then automatically change the brightness of the light bulb depending on the time of day.

WiZ’s ST19 lightbulb also lends itself to a wide variety of integrations including Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT, Samsung SmartThings, Conrad Connect, Enki, ImperiHome, and Alice. For example, Alexa allows you to turn the light bulb on and off with voice commands, change the mode or room scene of the light bulb, or set up a routine triggered by language, time of day, motion sensor or a host of other conditions. While the ST19 light bulb does not support Apple HomeKit, you can assign WiZ room scenes to a Siri shortcut.

Bottom line

The ST19 incandescent lamp from WiZ Connected checks many of our boxes when it comes to intelligent lighting: It is easy to set up, works without a hub, is equipped with different lighting modes and can be controlled via voice commands. We also love the attractive vintage design, which is perfect for adding a touch of class to a living space. Best of all, it’s inexpensive.

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