A Review of Smart Lighting in Homes

Smart lighting is an excellent way to begin converting your ordinary home to being smart. Smart lighting systems allow you to change the color temperatures and set the ambiance in any room within your home with just the touch of a button.

Installing a smart lighting technology system in your home enables you to control all lights using a dedicated smartphone application on either Google Play Store or Apple’s iOS. The app can allow you to change the color of the bulb and light intensity as well.

Having a smart lighting system also enables you to use speech commands to control lights. You can issue basic commands such as turn on, turn off and dim. The bulbs need to have dedicated AI platform such as Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant to accept voice commands.

There are various components in a smart lighting system, such as smart switches, bulbs, divider strips, among others. Let’s look at what you should consider when choosing a smart lighting system and the kinds of smart bulbs that you can get today.

What Should You Consider When Choosing Smart Lights?

The Type of Framework the Smart Lights Support

When picking smart lights for your home, you should consider the framework on which the smart lights operate. Ideally, there are two types of structures, namely: wired lighting structures and remote lighting structures.

The former is considered to be the better one in terms of solidity and dynamism. However, you will need to hire a smart lighting expert to install the entire structure because it’s very complex therefore hard to install.

The latter is less stable and dynamic. However, the benefit is that with the included instructions, you can install the entire system alone without needing an expert.

Types of Controls Embedded in The Smart Lights

When buying smart lights for your home, you should pick those that have controls you’d want in your home. The kinds of controls available in smart lights include dedicated smartphone apps, smart switches, voice controls, and even motion sensing.

In homes, people tend to use smartphone apps, and voice controls most of the time. Controls for smart lights are ideal because you can play around with so much, including the bulbs’ color temperature and light intensity.

Integration Features

There are several methods to synchronize various lighting controls and smart bulbs.  In order to achieve this flawlessly, ensure the lighting controls are compatible with the smart bulbs you have in your home.

Smart bulbs are often linked to motion or touch sensors to such an extent that when you approach a particular room in the house, the lights automatically turn on. For instance, this can be used in a parking lot such that when you approach your vehicle, the lights turn on.

The Type of Bulbs to Use as Your Smart Lights

There are various kinds of bulbs that you can use as smart lights in your home. However, the most preferred are LED bulbs because they are durable and have a high light intensity. LEDs can also be color corrected if need be.

The various rooms in your home need different types of lighting. You can opt to mix incandescent bulbs and LEDs and ensure that the control framework you have can support both of these options.

What Varieties of Smart Bulbs Can You Get Today?

There are three main varieties, and they include spotlights, candle bulbs, and standard bulbs. Candle bulbs are built with small screw fittings, spotlights, on the other hand, are built with GU10 fittings, and finally candle bulbs are built with bayonet fittings.

Most smart bulbs are built with LEDs (light-emitting diodes) because this technology draws less power compared to incandescent bulbs. A typical LED smart bulb draws about 9 watts of power, whereas incandescent bulbs draw about 50 watts of power.

LED smart bulbs mainly come in two varieties white LED smart bulbs and color-changing LED smart bulbs. The former basically has a white tone that resembles that of incandescent bulbs, while the latter can mix various hues; thus, it’s more costly to build and purchase.

Why Should You Install Smart Lights in Your Home?

As the Name Suggests, These Lights Are Smart

Smart lights are astute, meaning they can make decisions their own or follow preset guidelines by a user and implement them superbly. Smart lights can also execute complex inputs from a user, such as changing color tones based on the weather or time of day.

Smart Lights Can Communicate

Smart lights accept prompts from a user, but they can also communicate to the user via responses. For instance, if a user gives a wrong command, the smart light can make recommendations on which command to give.

Smart Lights Are Efficient

Lighting represents about 40% of the power bills of any home. Therefore, having smart lights installed in your home can change the narrative and enable you to have savings of up to 10% of the total power bill.

Are Smart Lights Prone to Redundancy After A Short While?

Nobody can with certainty confirm that having smart lights in your home comes with a chance of redundancy. What we know is that most times, when you invest in smart lights, you’ll realize energy savings, and the entire system can pay for itself after a while.

Also, manufacturers are adding some features to smart lights via updates, such as working with new control apparatus. This ensures that you don’t have to buy new bulbs each time a new control system is released.

Also, note that most smart lights have the Zigbee wireless communication tech. Most smart light makers use the Zigbee Light Link on their products, and this warrants that your smart lights can be compatible with most things released in the future

Final Thought

To sum it all up, buying a smart lighting system for your house is a smart move in itself. Many people who aren’t tech fans consider such a venture to be a bad idea. However, smart lighting systems let you make very significant energy savings year after year.