No matter which device you use, you'll be met with a range of disclaimers about light, mixing, texture and lots of other things that can affect how paint appears to your eye. With my boards painted and dry, it was time to measure. Next, I applied two coats of paint to each sample square, allowing each coat to dry for 24 hours before applying the next one. It was the recommendation of the paint counter associate at Lowe's, and because it's formulated for brand-new drywall and untinted, it was unlikely to affect the paint colors on top of it. To prepare my test walls, I primed the 2-foot square pieces of brand-new drywall with Valspar's untinted drywall primer. However, they reported the same color readings down the line from flat to high-gloss. To test how high-gloss, matte or other variations in paint sheen affect results, I also measured different sheens across the colors I choose, as well as a sheen swatch. The sheen of a paint can affect the way your eyes see color, but color sensors are designed to see through it to the pigment beneath. You might be wondering about the impact of sheen on the above results. There are definitely more than 50 shades out there, and the 'greige' trend just complicates matters more. Grays are incredibly popular in interior design right now, and can appear cool or warm and everywhere in between. Too deep and it appears almost purple, too light and it takes a turn toward orange, yet most people have an idea of what true red looks like. Red came to mind because it's such a classic color that's tricky to get just right on a wall. Pico reports the RGB values and matching branded paint colors.įor the second board, I wanted a bold and visual primary color. It then shares those results via Bluetooth in your phone's Pico app.

Costing $49 (AU$65, roughly £35 converted), this paint-matching device sequentially bursts red, green and blue light onto the surface you scan. Palette PicoĪustralian company Palette released Palette Pico in 2018. Before we get into results, here's a quick rundown of each of the units I tested. If there aren't any perfect match results, you can take the RGB values of the surface to paint stores like Sherwin-Williams, where they'll mix the color from a Sherwin-Williams base or tint a similar color to get it just right. Pico uses similar categories with 'Great Match' and 'Good Match.' Colors in the excellent, great and three-star match categories are so close (or even the same just a different brand) that you'd probably never notice a difference. Nix uses the categories 'Excellent Match,' 'Great Match' or 'Good Match.' Color Muse uses a three-star rating to indicate matches less than 1 Delta E, a two-star rating for 1-4 Delta E and one-star for anything outside that.

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