Get Smart About Home Lighting

By: Abby Berry

Gone are the days when a sim­ple flip of the switch was the only choice for illu­mi­nat­ing our homes. While we still have this tried-and-true option, we’ve entered a new era of inno­v­a­tive and intel­li­gent tech­nolo­gies, which includes smart light­ing.

Smart light­ing con­nects to Wi-Fi and offers an array of cut­ting-edge func­tion­al­i­ty and con­ve­nience. Let’s look at the main ben­e­fits of smart light­ing options.

Smart light­ing is ener­gy effi­cient. Most smart bulbs uti­lize LED tech­nol­o­gy, which is much more effi­cient than tra­di­tion­al incan­des­cent light­ing. Addi­tion­al­ly, smart light­ing gives you more con­trol over how and when you light your home, ulti­mate­ly result­ing in less ener­gy used for light­ing.

Smart light­ing pro­vides con­ve­nience and con­trol. Most smart bulbs can be con­trolled from an app on your smart­phone or can be paired with your voice assis­tant, like Ama­zon Alexa. You can con­ve­nient­ly con­trol light­ing set­tings from any­where in your home or when you’re away. Whether you want to set a sched­ule for light­ing or adjust bright­ness lev­els, these smart options offer effort­less con­trol from the com­fort of, well, any­where!

Smart options empow­er you to per­son­al­ize home light­ing. Bright, warm, pur­ple, green––whatever mood you want to cre­ate, smart light­ing can help. For a more tra­di­tion­al look, try dim­ma­ble white bulbs. If you want to cre­ate the per­fect ambiance for movie night, look for bulbs that can be adjust­ed for a vari­ety of vibrant col­ors. The pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less.

While smart light­ing offers con­ve­nience and con­trol, keep in mind your wall light switch will need to stay “on” for you to con­trol the smart bulb from your phone or via voice com­mand. To use a smart bulb, the wall switch it’s con­nect­ed to must be “on” so the bulb receives pow­er, which enables it to con­nect to a Wi-Fi net­work.

If you need addi­tion­al options to oper­ate the lights, con­sid­er a smart light switch. Today’s smart switch­es tend to play nice­ly with smart bulbs. If you want to con­trol your smart bulbs with a phys­i­cal switch (in addi­tion to using your phone and voice com­mands), look for smart switch­es that include a built-in fea­ture that allows both. Many smart light switch­es include motion detec­tors as well.

If you’re look­ing to take the plunge and inte­grate mul­ti­ple smart bulbs to your home light­ing sys­tem, your best bet may be a kit, like the Philips Hue Starter Kit. Most kits include sev­er­al bulbs and any addi­tion­al tools you’ll need to get start­ed.

If you’re new to smart home tech and look­ing to start small, try a smart bulb in a high-traf­fic area of your home. It’s also worth not­ing that smart plugs are a great starter option and allow con­ve­nient con­trol of lamps or oth­er light­ing fix­tures that are plugged in to a wall out­let. Smart plugs are inex­pen­sive and sim­ply plug in to your exist­ing out­let. Elec­tri­cal items that are con­nect­ed to the smart plug can be con­trolled from a smart phone app, just like smart bulbs.

Whether you’re look­ing for more con­ve­nience, col­or­ful options or bet­ter ways to man­age ener­gy use, smart light­ing can pro­vide mul­ti­ple ben­e­fits. Deter­mine which smart light­ing fea­tures are most impor­tant for your needs, then start shop­ping!