We've posted our six favorite builds below. Some are just fantastic builds, some are incredibly thematic rigs, and some are just pure powerhouses for Cinebench and 3D Mark.

So, take a look at the incredible builds our stores put together, then pick your favorite in the poll below!

Special thanks to Intel for providing parts!

The Finalists:

Westmont, IL - 3DMark Score: 13343 (3rd Overall) | Cinebench CPU Score: 9720 (3rd Overall)

Sharonville, OH

Yonkers, NY - 3DMark Score: 12464 (16th Overall) | Cinebench CPU Score: 9037 (18th Overall)

Brooklyn, NY - 3DMark Score: 13490 (1st Overall) | Cinebench CPU Score: 9924 (2nd Overall)

Houston TX - 3DMark Score: 17681 (11th Overall) | Cinebench CPU Score: 8625 (8th Overall)

Denver, CO - Time Spy Graphics Score: 19289 (6th Overall) | Cinebench CPU Score: 9497 (1st Overall)

Wyze is known for their incredible smart devices at incredible prices. From automated vacuum cleaners to smart scales, Wyze can make almost every aspect of your home smarter and easier to use. I recently created my own smart home for under $150, and here’s how you can too.

What Do I Need to Create a Smart Home? 

• WiFi
• An internet-connect smart device (Alexa, Google Home, or any smartphone)

That’s it - if you’ve got these two things, you’re good to start making your home smarter! But before you do, you should plan out what your smart home will look like.

How to Plan Your Smart Home 

The big question to ask when planning your smart home is “what are you looking to automate or control?” If you just want to add an automatic vacuum, you won’t need any additional devices. But if you want to create a full smart home with color-changing lighting, you’ll need to do a bit more planning. For example: while most light sources have replaceable bulbs that are compatible with Wyze’s light bulbs, lamps with unconventional lighting styles, such as lighting strips, can’t make use of Wyze Bulbs. However, they can still be connected to your smart home via Wyze Smart Plugs.

It’s also important to know what you’re looking to do with your smart home. If you just want remote control of your home, any Wyze smart home device will work. But if you’re looking to add color to your bulbs, the standard Wyze Bulbs don’t allow for color customizations.

Quick Questions Before Making your Home Wyze:

• What device(s) am I looking to make smart?
• Can I make this device smart - IE does my lamp take standard light bulbs?
• How smart do I want to make it - RGB smart or just remote access smart?

The $150 Smart Set-Up

My home recently got the Wyze makeover, turning almost every light in my house smart (some with RGB!), adding home security cameras, and outdoor lighting control, all controllable from my watch.

Let’s break down my new smart home:

2x Wyze LED Smart Home Colored Light BulbWyze LED Smart Home Colored Light Bulb - Two-Pack

I wanted to spruce up my living room and bedroom, so I went big with four Wyze Colored Light Bulbs, creating two rooms with complete lighting control. Remote power, dimming, and color adjustments, as well as custom schedules and vacation mode, so your home looks busy even when no one is there.

1x Wyze Smart PlugWyze Smart Plug - Two-Pack

While planning for my smart home revolution, I realized I did have a lamp I wanted to be smart, but it had multiple bulbs connected to a single base. So rather than use multiple bulbs, I just attached it to a Smart Plug. It gives me all the remote control of a Wyze Bulb, including schedules and vacation mode, without the dimming or color control.

1x Wyze Plug Outdoor

As someone whose apartment’s outdoor lighting is less-than-sufficient, additional lighting is a must. The Wyze Plug Outdoor functions identically to the Wyze Smart Plug, giving me remote access to my outdoor lights as well as schedules and vacation mode.

1x Wyze Cam V3

The Wyze Cam v3 is an incredible home security camera, offering motion alerts, sound alerts, and playback recording. It also works with an SD card for local recording, if you don’t want your video uploaded to the cloud. We put out a full review and breakdown, which you can read here.

1x Wyze Watch 47mm

The Wyze Watch is a fantastic budget smartwatch on its own, but when you have Wyze Smart Devices, it becomes a utility powerhouse. Delivering all the functionality expected of a smart watch and the ability to control your smart home, the Wyze Watch is absolutely a must-include for a Wyze home.

Altogether, the set-up runs around $150 to deck pretty much my whole house out in smart home devices from Wyze. So let’s get ‘em set up!

Setting Up Your Wyze Smart Home

While each device connects slightly differently (but all equally easily), the first step is consistent across all Wyze devices: download the app.

From there, you’ll need to create a Wyze account. This will both unify your devices as well as enable you to reconnect them easily if you move, get a new phone, or just make some home changes. Next, select the device you want to add and follow the instructions presented on screen. Going into setting up each device would quickly become tedious to read, but I can safely say that every device I had to set up was quick and intuitive, usually consisting of a button press, entering your WiFi password, and then naming the device.

Once you have a device connected to your WiFi, you’ll get access to the suite of options each device offers, such as schedules and motion detection. You can even chain events across multiple devices, like setting up your lights to turn on when your Wyze Cam detects motion.

It took me around half an hour to set up all the Bulbs, Plugs, and Cams in my house, and around another half an hour to fine-tune them all to the settings I wanted. An hour to completely turn your home smart isn’t bad at all!

Connecting your Wyze Smart Devices to Alexa and Google Home

You can control your whole house from the Wyze app on your phone if you don’t have an in-home smart assistant, but if you want to walk into a room and tell Alexa to turn on the lights, you’ll need to link Wyze up with an assistant.

How to Connect Wyze to Google Home

1. Open the Google Home app and tap on the ‘+’ in the upper left corner
2. Select ‘Set Up Device’
3. Select ‘Works with Google’
4. Choose Wyze from the list and log into the Wyze account you created

How to Connect Wyze to Amazon Alexa

1. Open the Wyze app and tap on ‘Account’  in the bottom right corner
2. Tap ‘Smart Integrations’
3. Select ‘Alexa’
4. Select ‘Link’ and login to your Alexa-associated Amazon account

Or

1. Enable the Wyze skill in the Alexa app
2. Log in to your Wyze account 
3. Add your devices to Alexa

The Wyze Watch 

If you’re looking to control your home from your wrist, that’s where the Wyze Watch comes in. Offering the full functionality of smartwatches, including alert notifications, step tracking, heartbeat monitoring, and a host of others, the Wyze Watch also works with or independently of smart home assistants to control your home. Simply set up shortcuts in the Wyze app and they’ll automatically be uploaded to your watch.

Once you've created a few shortcuts, you have instant and immediate access to all of your devices. Want to turn a light on? Change the brightness? Enable your Wyze Cam? Even upload a video from your Cam to the cloud? It's all on your wrist, accessible with a single button press.

The battery on the Wyze Watch lasts for around a week as well, which isn’t super relevant to the smart home discussion, but impressive enough that I couldn’t not mention it.

The Smart Home Experience

Now that I had my Wyze smart home entirely set up, I could sit back and enjoy it. And it’s pretty nice! Being able to walk into a room and turn on all lights to the exact setting I want with a single command is fantastic. Schedules mean I don’t have to wake up to a dark home every day, and it has saved me from stepping on my dogs more than once. And the schedules work with Google Routines and Amazon Routines, so you won't have to set up multiple.

I’ve found multiple uses for the Wyze Cam, beyond security. It’s nice to be able to keep an eye on your home while you’re away at work, but it’s also really nice to be able to watch your dogs and scold them through the Wyze Cam’s microphone feature when they threaten to get in the trash. 

Of course, these were things I was expecting to love. What I hadn’t considered was how nice it was to have multiple ways to access your home devices. In a non-smart home, you’ll usually only have a single switch for a light. With a smart home, I have my phone, my Wyze Watch, and my Google Home Speaker, so no matter where I am or what I have nearby, I can make adjustments to my home on the fly.

Make Your Home Even Smarter

But this setup is just the start. Once you see how easy life can be with a smart home, you might start wondering if you couldn’t make your door lock, or thermostat, or even your vacuum smart and I have good news for you:

Wyze has all that and more.

Set up your home to automate everything! Turn on your lights when you unlock the door, run a vacuum during the day when everyone is away, know who’s at your door without getting up from the couch. Even automate your security lights and sprinkler systems!

Be sure to check out all Wyze has to offer at your local Micro Center!

Win my Smart Home Setup!

I’ve had my fun with Wyze, now it’s your turn - we’re giving away everything in my smart home setup (a fresh, unopened set of it, of course) to someone in our Community! All you have to do is comment below with your dream smart home appliance, be it something as simple as a lightbulb to an automatic washer and dryer. We’ll be randomly selecting one winner

Good luck!

See attached contest terms and conditions.

Contest submission window: 6/11/21 – 6/25/21

1st place winner will receive a Wyze Smart Home prize pack

Between July 19th and August 20th, check out our PC Builder, load it up with everything that would go into your back-to-school PC (or work, or gaming, or any other PC!) and share the link in the comments below. And be sure to tell us a little bit about your build-to-be!

After August 20th, we’ll be selecting one lucky winner to receive a $500 Micro Center gift card to get their build started before school begins!

Winners will be contacted the week after the contest ends.

How to enter (see terms and conditions for full contest rules):

·        Join the Micro Center community

·        Design your Back to School Build using the PC Builder on the Micro Center website – Be sure to include a case, PSU, CPU, and motherboard! (See instructions below)

·        Post the link from the “Share” widget in the comments with a short description of why you picked your parts.

How to create your build in the Custom PC Builder

Step 1. Head over to the Custom PC Builder

Step 2. Fill out the builder with your PC wish list!

Step 3. Copy the link from the share box on the right-hand side

Step 4. Paste the link in this thread and tells us about your build!

We can't wait to see your dream wish list builds!

Good luck!

See attached contest terms and conditions.

Contest submission window: 7/19/20 – 8/20/20

One 1st place winner will receive a $500 gift card

Source: Razer

The Blackwidow V3 Quartz is a vibrant pink keyboard featuring fully customizable per-key RGB and Razer's own clicky green switches, perfect for any gamer looking for that extra bit of Quartz in their setup!

All you need to do to enter is submit your own personal PC build to our Build Showcase with #RazerQuartz in the title before Sunday, June 13th at 11:59 EST - and be sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for all the latest updates.

See attached contest terms and conditions.

Contest submission window: 6/7/21 – 6/13/21

Five 1st place winners will receive a Razer Blackwidow V3 Quartz keyboard.

Good luck!

We’ve broken up our ten finalists into two categories: Custom and Classic. Custom builds go above and beyond the usual build, adding paint, custom cases, and unique theming. Classic builds take everything that makes a great PC build great, and amplifies it to 11 – perfect cable management, stellar color matching, part alignment, it’s all designed to highlight the build.

But we can’t decide which builds should move onto the finals, so we want your help! Pick your favorite builds in both the Classic and Custom categories, then keep an eye on our social media for the finals this Friday! We’ll be taking the two build with the most votes from both categories for one final processor-to-processor battle of the Beauties!

Special thanks to AMD, Power Color, and Microsoft for providing the base parts for the builds!

And be sure to go vote in the Classic poll as well!

The Customs:

Duluth, GA

Mayfield Heights, OH

St. Davids, PA

Brentwood, MO

Flushing, NY

We’ve broken up our ten finalists into two categories: Custom and Classic. Custom builds go above and beyond the usual build, adding paint, custom cases, and unique theming. Classic builds take everything that makes a great PC build great, and amplifies it to 11 – perfect cable management, stellar color matching, part alignment, it’s all designed to highlight the build.

But we can’t decide which builds should move onto the finals, so we want your help! Pick your favorite builds in both the Classic and Custom categories, then keep an eye on our social media for the finals! We’ll be taking the two builds with the most votes from both categories for one final processor-to-processor battle of the Beauties!

Special thanks to AMD, Power Color, and Microsoft for providing the base parts for the builds!

And be sure to go vote in the Custom poll as well!

The Classics:

Rockville, MD

Denver, CO

Westchester, NY

Tustin, CA

Sharonville, OH

We’ve broken up our ten finalists into two categories: Custom and Classic. Custom builds go above and beyond the usual build, adding paint, custom cases, and unique theming. Classic builds take everything that makes a great PC build great, and amplifies it to 11 – perfect cable management, stellar color matching, part alignment, it’s all designed to highlight the build.

But we can’t decide which builds should move onto the finals, so we want your help! Pick your favorite builds in both the Classic and Custom categories, then keep an eye on our social media for the finals this Friday! We’ll be taking the two build with the most votes from both categories for one final processor-to-processor battle of the Beauties!

Special thanks to AMD, Power Color, and Microsoft for providing the base parts for the builds!

Vote on the Custom Builds here and the Classic Builds here!