Today’s homeowners are always seeking to enhance nearly every aspect of their life as much as possible. And smart lighting offers you a chance to make your home more energy-efficient and as convenient as possible.
Just like any other smart technology, smart lighting allows homeowners to control and customize their home lighting via an app, usually on your Android or Apple mobile phone. This implies that you can effortlessly alter the brightness of your home bulbs, and if the smart bulbs feature coloured LEDs, you can easily change their colours according to your preference.
Generally, smart lighting utilizes mesh networking, where every single bulb is wirelessly connected to its closest neighbour. You can control the network via a hub that is plugged to your router and enables your networked tablet or mobile phone to remotely communicate with the smart bulbs. Of course, it is worth mentioning that smart lighting isn’t solely controllable through tablet or smartphone applications. Certain brands work with Amazon’s Echo, Apple’s HomeKit and Google Home, and this simply means homeowners can use these platform’s voice assistants to remotely relay their intended commands.
So what are some of the benefits of smart lighting?
There are numerous reasons why you would want to install smart lighting in your home. These reasons include:
- Increased savings: Generally, smart lighting is designed to offer increased energy efficiency. Smart lighting involves the use of highly efficient fixtures and automated controls tailored toward allowing you to easily make adjustments depending on factors such as daylight availability and occupancy. Smart lighting uses LED bulbs that are extremely energy efficient and durable as well. Thanks to smart dimmers, you can easily adjust your smart bulbs’ lighting intensity according to your preference, decrease electrical power to the bulbs and save energy. What’s more, smart LED bulbs tend to run fairly cooler when dimmed and this helps prolong bulb life.
- Enhanced convenience: Smart lighting installation will help you ditch your dependence on single lighting switches. Thanks to its highly customizable programming, you’ll be able to create desirable lighting settings according to your preferences from the comfort of your couch, and without having to go into every room to manually alter your bulbs’ settings.
- Enhanced home lighting aesthetics: It is common knowledge that lighting can have a positive impact on mood and perception. The hotel industry is very much aware of this and always reduces lighting intensity at night to set the mood for romantic dinners. Smart lights also boast high-end sensors that gauge the amount of light coming into your house to automatically adjust their intensity to a desirable cooling and relaxing tone.
These are just a few of the benefits you’ll likely enjoy through smart lighting installation. If you are seeking to install smart lighting, it would be a great idea to seek the services of a professional electrician. This is because smart lighting set up isn’t one of the easiest DIY electrical projects. Not only are smart bulbs difficult to install, but the simple reason that you will be working with electricity is enough to make you think twice. Simply put, the installation process involving smart lighting can be a tricky affair, especially if you have never installed them before.
A qualified and highly experienced electrician will help to determine whether your current electrical equipment is compatible with automated systems. From smart light fixtures to bulbs, smart lighting installation will likely involve configuring your home wiring, replacing old conventional light bulbs, having whole-home surge protection, deep junction boxes, in-wall transmitters, configuring your internet connection to create a hub and among other important requirements.
It is also important to note that smart lights aren’t cheap, especially if you intend to install them in your entire home. This implies that you will only need to install a few smart switches and plugs in the most strategic location within your home. And it is only through the help of a professional that you get this right.
