It’s almost Christmas, and you know what that means! It’s time to get that tree up, loading it up with your old decorations and those musty old blinking white fairy lights. Well, maybe it doesn’t have to be so musty this year. WiZ has some colourful smart fairy lights to bring a bit more fun to your Christmas tree, so I put them to the test!
What even are the WiZ Smart Fairy Lights?
It kinda says it in the name: fairy lights that are smart. They have the classic fairy light design that most Kiwis will be used to seeing every Christmas. The 20M strip has 160 LEDs on it, which is a whole lot of light. That distance is great as you can wrap it around your tree thoroughly to make that baby glow! But the tree isn’t the only place you’ll use it.
The distance is perfect for lighting up a stretch around your house, down a fence, or wherever. The lights and controller are IP44 rated, but the plug isn’t. This isn’t overly surprising, and if you are doing an outdoors setup, you should be aware that the plug needs to be protected. IP44 is surprisingly low for a product that says indoor and outdoor on the box. They are fine outdoors, but they may not survive a classic Kiwi summer storm. The product page on the website does say it’s designed for indoors, which is odd. But still, it’ll be fine if you don’t abuse them.
How easy are they to set up?
like the lightbulbs, stupidly easily. If you have already got a WiZ kit in your house, then it takes minutes to get there. When I plugged it in and opened the app, it told me it found a new device, then a few clicks later I was connected to them.
You can then quickly have them flashing red and green for the X-Mas vibes or a nice warm colour scheme for that wake-up feeling. Whatever you want.
There is also a big switch a few centimetres down the cable with a button that turns the lights on and off. This is important because maybe your kids want to turn the lights on and haven’t nailed voice commands or don’t have a phone. However you want to turn these on and off, there is an option.
Scenes are where the vibes are at
One of the big features, which applies to bulbs but is enhanced here, are scenes. In the WiZ app you can set up a scene where you decide what WiZ devices do what. So, for example, I set my Christmas scene to have the fairy lights alternating between green and red, then have the lightbulbs in the same room match but in different shades.
This is especially handy once you use a voice assistant because you can stick the lights in a room. Then if you tell your smart assistant to say, Make the dining room lights blue, all the lights in the room go blue. Then you have to ask your assistant to use the Christmas scene, and boom, you are back to those Xmas vibes. Scenes can be any colour combo or dynamic changing combo you want, and setting them up is super easy.
You can even get these syncing up to music like the other lights. Want your lights to flash, change colour, and add vibes to your Xmas music? It’s easy as. Hate Christmas music and want it to jam out to Metallica? You can do that too.
It also includes the space sense feature so the lights can turn on as you walk up to them. This is going to be especially handy on Christmas morning so you can walk into your lounge to be greeted with the green and red glory. That, or if you set them up to be glowing around your back door, you don’t necessarily want them running all day, so having them pick up when you walk up like a security light is awesome.
Should you get the WiZ Smart Fairy Lights?
Initially I wasn’t sure it would be the greatest thing, but these lights are amazing. They even have a velcro strip attached, so if you use them for Christmas, you can have them wrapped up so they aren’t a nightmare to remove from the box next year.
For around $180, the WiZ Smart Fairy Lights are an easy recommendation if you want to step up your Christmas experience!
Confusing water ratings aside, the WiZ Smart Fairy Lights are AWESOME!
Long enough to make your balcony glamourous, or to make your Christmas tree flash in awesomeness!
