Signify's WiZ Motion Detecting Smart Lights Can Now Monitor Your House
You'll typically find motion detection capabilities confined to cameras in most home security systems, but the Philips-backed Signify is keen on imbuing luminous products with the tech. The company has announced a new smart lighting system that embeds motion sensors directly within the lights.
WiZ blankets your home in areas you'd typically place lighting with inconspicuous monitoring designed to deter intruders or to light up a room you're entering without using your voice, reaching for light switches, or pecking at app icons. You can configure the lights to shine specific colors and patterns at varying brightness levels.
It uses Signify's SpaceSense technology. "It leverages the Wi-Fi waves that most people already have at home to detect motion based on the disturbances created by a person's presence," WiZ explains. The tech requires two compatible lights in the same room that are at least 6.5 feet apart.
For instance, you can simulate someone turning lights on and off with normal hues (tungsten, perhaps) to give the impression that someone is home, which would hopefully scare the intruder away. If you lean toward the louder, more extravagant side of the spectrum, you could perhaps have your lights flash red and blue to instantly trigger fears of police presence.
Using the WiZ app, you can configure profiles to enable monitoring for specific areas of your home during specific times. Of course, you can turn it off altogether.
The WiZ Camera brings it full circle
Signify is also launching an indoor security camera with all the works. It'll feature a healthy helping of the greatest hits for this sort of thing: motion detection, night vision, loud noise alerts, 120-degree field-of-view, plus local and manual recording capabilities with optional cloud storage (available for an additional monthly fee).
The system works in concert with the lights, too. If one of your lights detects a presence, you can immediately jump into the camera's feed from the notification delivered to your smartphone.
You'll be able to start by buying the WiZ Home Monitoring Starter kit, which includes three A19 bulbs and the indoor camera. It'll run 159.99 for our European friends, but we still await US pricing. You can also buy the exact SpaceSense lights you want separately and add the camera for $69.99 (£79.99 GBP / €89.99) later in May.