Walmart’s Great Value smart light is true to its name

If you’re looking to outfit your house with smart lights, one of the best options comes surprisingly from Walmart.

I recently moved, and while looking for a few more smart lights, I stumbled on a smart light from Walmart. And much to my surprise, this $16 Great Value LED A19 Smart Light is pretty good.

After doing a little more research, this light seems like a simple rebrand of a Wiz light, which has likely been done since Wiz has an exclusivity deal, so it only seems to sell its lights at Home Depot in Canada.

I tested the colour changing version, but there are a few other options for basic white/blue lights and larger bulb sizes on Walmart’s website.

Setting up the light

To set up the light, you need to use the Wiz app, which is really straightforward and worked for me without issue. The app looks nice and offers some features like a quick toggle for a dim night light, a Circadian Rhythm feature and more.

I like this light better than my Hue lights that cost much more.

Honestly, everything you need for lights is here if you want it. If you set up the light via Google Home or Alexa, you can also control it that way. Unfortunately, if you’re an Apple user who likes to use the Apple Home app, you’re out of luck. You can control these lights with Siri Shortcuts, but not with the Home app. That said, you can use the Google Home and Alexa apps on iPhones to help mitigate this problem.

Should you buy this light?

If you have an Android phone and you want to save a few bucks, it doesn’t get much better than this. In most aspects, this light represents comparable colour to the Nanoleaf and the Hue light, but once you ask it to go teal or green, it becomes a little more convoluted.

I tested the RGB capabilities of all the lights using the Google Home app, but that said, the teals and green through this method were weak. You can get a slightly better green shade from the Wiz app, but it’s still a little bluer than I’d like.

My favourite light is still the $25 Nanoleaf A19 Essential bulb simply because its peak 1,100 lumens of brightness is a bit brighter than the Great Value bulb’s 800 lumens. For reference, the Hue also has 800 lumens of brightness.  I also found the Nanoleaf light offered a better range of colours, but neither was really lacking, and it’s only really noticeable when the lights are side by side.

That said, I would make sure that if you’re filling a chandelier or lamp with smart lights that they’re all the same brand for consistent colours.

The last thing I want to mention is that Signify, the same company that owns Philips Hue, also owns Wiz, so this $16 bulb comes from the same company that makes $60 Philips Hue lights and regular $20 Wiz lights, and to my eyes, they all work the same.

You can order Walmart’s Great Value Wiz lights online at Walmart.ca