A bunch of affordable smart bulbs now work with Apple Home thanks to new Matter support

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WiZ bulbs give you smart home lighting features on a tight budget.

WiZ Luminaire Mobile Portable Light glowing thanks to its app settings
(Image credit: Gerald Lynch / Future)

If you’ve been looking for an affordable way of adding smart lights to your Apple Home smart home setup, you’ve got an excellent new option today. WiZ, the budget smart home manufacturer, has rolled out an update to its products that brings compatibility with the new universal connected devices standard, Matter, which effectively makes all WiZ lights now compatible with Apple Home, too.

In order to hook WiZ lights up with Apple Home previously, you’d need to create Siri Shortcuts as a workaround to get the devices talking to each other in an Apple-only environment. But Matter support means WiZ lights will now be seen just like any other Apple Home product, ready to communicate with any other scenes or devices on your network.

WiZ lights will also work with Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Home, and Samsung’s SmartThings platforms, but the Matter update will benefit all smart home styles, as they will now work over a local Wi-Fi connection, and are no longer dependent on internet connectivity.

Top notch value

WiZ lights and devices offer excellent value for money — they’re under the Signify banner, sharing a stable with the premium Philips Hue range. WiZ in fact now has one over its better-established Philips Hue cousin, with the Hue Matter rollout having faced delays.

The vast majority of WiZ products will get the Matter upgrade — provided your lights and smart plugs were made after Q2 2021, and that you’ve let the accompanying app upgrade to WiZ v2, you’ll be good to go. A Matter controller like a HomePod, HomePod 2, or Amazon Echo is needed to control the Matter functionality, and you’ll need to transfer Matter control to each device in the WiZ v2 app individually.

If you’re looking for WiZ devices that go beyond your usual bulbs, check out our reviews of the WiZ Luminaire Mobile Portable Lamp and Wiz Luminaire Pole Floor Light — both offer great accent lighting options for your living spaces. The list of products that work with Matter continues to grow!

Gerald Lynch
Gerald Lynch
Editor in Chief

Gerald Lynch is the Editor-in-Chief of iMore, keeping careful watch over the site's editorial output and commercial campaigns, ensuring iMore delivers the in-depth, accurate and timely Apple content its readership deservedly expects. You'll never see him without his iPad Pro, and he loves gaming sessions with his buddies via Apple Arcade on his iPhone 15 Pro, but don't expect him to play with you at home unless your Apple TV is hooked up to a 4K HDR screen and a 7.1 surround system. 

Living in London in the UK, Gerald was previously Editor of Gizmodo UK, and Executive Editor of TechRadar, and has covered international trade shows including Apple's WWDC, MWC, CES and IFA. If it has an acronym and an app, he's probably been there, on the front lines reporting on the latest tech innovations. Gerald is also a contributing tech pundit for BBC Radio and has written for various other publications, including T3 magazine, GamesRadar, Space.com, Real Homes, MacFormat, music bible DIY, Tech Digest, TopTenReviews, Mirror.co.uk, Brandish, Kotaku, Shiny Shiny and Lifehacker. Gerald is also the author of 'Get Technology: Upgrade Your Future', published by Aurum Press, and also holds a Guinness world record on Tetris. For real.