Smart light bulbs just don’t do it for me anymore. Yeah, it’s cool that they can change colors, save me on my electricity bill, and can be controlled with voice commands, but they’re so boring now. That’s why some of the best smart lights nowadays come in different varieties besides light bulbs, and the one I just installed works perfectly with my TV.
What makes the Wiz HDMI Sync Box with TV Backlight different from other smart lights I’ve used is that they make the movie watching experience at home much more immersive. They’re considered bias lighting due to how they add ambient light around my TV, matching up the colors and actions sequences I’m watching on screen.
Not only were they a breeze to install, but I really love how they can be programmed to complement the ambiance of the room. Here’s why it’s the ultimate smart light upgrade.
Simple installation
I’ve installed other TV backlights, but the Wiz HDMI Sync Box with TV Backlight differs from them because the LED light strips are all connected to one another — so there’s no connectors to install myself to join two sets together. Plus, it’s also super helpful that these strip lights already have an adhesive surface on them.
After I strung the strip lights around the edge of my TV, I connected the entire set to the HDMI Sync Box — which I then connected my cable box to the input HDMI port, while another cable went to my TV. I downloaded the Wiz app, which guided me to connecting the TV backlights to my home’s Wi-Fi network. All in all, the setup took me less than 10 minutes from start to finish.
Customize lighting to match my preference
Again, what makes this a better set of TV backlights than others I’ve tested is that it uses the HDMI sync box to detect the feed and produce the accompanying color effects — whereas camera based TV backlights can often be inaccurate. Through the Wiz app, I can control the lights to better suit my preference.
For example, I can set the brightness, saturation, and even the intensity of the light strips so they’re just right on the eyes. Oftentimes, they can be too reactive and change colors too frequently — so having this option to tone it down makes it much more suitable.
If that’s not enough, I also like how I can manually set the colors of the TV backlights to match the ambiance of the room. Since I installed them on my bedroom TV, I like setting it to a warmer color temperature at night to match the lamps I have by my bedside.
Automation that works with my home
Even though there’s an automation feature within the Wiz app, I actually connected it to my Google Home to work better with the rest of my smart home. Not only can I control it through the Google Home app as well, but I really like how I can use voice commands to interact with the lights.
So, instead of going through the steps of opening the Wiz app to select a color, I can just tell my Google Nest smart display (and speakers) to do it for me with simple voice commands — and yes, it does this with my phone too. On top of that, I’ve set an automation through the Google Home app to turn it on and off at specific times each day, while also selecting its color to match all the rest of the lights in the room.
Once you start watching TV with them, you can’t go back to anything else because of the immersive experience. The colors that radiate from the sides of my TV paint the surrounding walls, which amplifies the experience. I know I can’t go back to anything else except this setup.
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