Leaving your house alone while going out can sow seeds of doubt like if you turned off the coffee maker, the lights in your living room set the security alarm, or even if the kids are doing their homework or watching television?
A smart home can release you of these worries with a glance at your smartphone or tablet. Your internet-connected devices allow the management and remote monitoring of systems and appliances, including heating and yes, lighting.
Today, we will take a quick look at what truly and literally lights up our homes! Lights! And we being the smart home automation guys, will throw some ‘light’ on smart lighting!
So what exactly is smart lighting?
It is the IoT element coming into your homes, in the form of lights! The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the objects that are interconnected and identifiable through digital networks like Wi-Fi.
Smart lighting or smart lights are lights that you can control remotely and are connected to your smart device/phone via the internet. It includes sequencing routines, scheduling, changing light settings, remote lighting, enabling light sensors, and more. And they are wireless. When integrated and configured, they can be controlled from anywhere in the universe – as long as there is data connectivity!
Smart lights are an essential element in any smart home.
It provides for a more efficient way to manage, monitor, and control your home lighting.
Smart lighting can be installed with minimal disturbance to the existing structure. The smart bulbs are installed using existing sockets and connected with other bulbs in the vicinity. Smart lighting generally uses mesh networking. That network is controlled by a hub that plugs into your router, enabling your devices to communicate with your bulbs.
The hub essentially speaks to the software in the smart bulb, connecting it to an app or a smart home assistant or any other such smart device/accessory. This lets you remotely control the lights or have the entire control automated. Most smart bulbs and lights can be controlled or operated via your voice assistants, be it Alexa, Siri, or your Google Assistant. Or through your smartphone.
You can do away with your conventional wall switches, or with the help of smart home automation experts, have both in place – the smart switches and traditional ones for your family members who prefer the conventional route!
Let us look at some very tangible, immediate benefits that you can derive from switching over to smart lighting.
Remote Access, Control
This is but, of course, the immediate, primary benefit that strikes anyone on the captioned discussion. Smart Home Automation is all about remote access and control, and all that it enables.
Smart lighting allows the user, as mentioned above, to access and control the lighting in the home from anywhere in the world. So no worries about rushing out of the house and wondering if the lights are turned off – you can just do it with a tap on the screen. Have little kids, pets, or the elderly with you? No dark house – You can ensure that they always enter a well lit, inviting room. All it takes is an instruction from you on the phone. And it is not about just remotely turning on and switching off lights; it includes any kind of lighting adjustment to be done. The possibilities of this application are relatively vast.
Automation – the future of lighting
When you walk into your home after a long hard day’s work, you want the lights turned on, with a warm hue, welcoming you into your house. When it is bedtime, you want the lights to be turned off in your kids’ rooms. When you need to visit the restroom in the middle of the night, you don’t want to be scrapping at the wall for the switch. Nope – you want your bathroom to be lit, and not too bright at that!
Just a few examples of how automation can impact your mundane lighting scene at home! Smart lighting is all about personalised settings and scenarios. That is what truly makes it ‘smart’, don’t you agree?
Energy savings
Smart lights are essentially LED lights that are inherently energy-saving than your regular incandescent lights. It is an established fact that they help you run your home lighting in a very energy-efficient way in the long run. They last longer, and they draw lesser energy to function. Not to mention the energy savings you make by managing the overall usage through automation. When a room is unoccupied, you can have the light to be automatically shut down. All it takes is for the scenario to be set up connecting the smart lights and the smart motion sensors.
When they are installed right – both in terms of the right products for your needs, and efficiency in the installation and integration process – smart lighting can be crucial to maximising your energy efficiency. By tracking usage trends (which you can when you have an integrated smart home), you will be able to further optimise the energy consumption.
Cost efficiency
Flowing from above, energy efficiency naturally indicates cost savings. You will notice your utility bills running lower when you make the switch to smart lighting. These lights consume lesser electricity than your traditional bulbs and lighting fittings. Published resources say that they consume 75% lesser energy and last 25 times longer than regular lights.
Convenience, Luxury
Smart lights come in different colors, options, and when set up right, it lets the users play with the settings as the mood demands! Adjust the brightness, intensity, or hue – all from your device without moving an inch from your seat.
We saw some scenarios above, on how personalised settings can be configured. Control and adjustments can be entirely or partially automated. It is all about convenience, and lights that listen to your voice or nod to the tap on your smartphone screen – that is luxury right there!
The usage is comfortable and easy. You can control those smart lights while you stay right in bed or while cooking or away on vacation on some island. You can access and control every smart light in your home.
Yes, they need attention at the time of installation. You should get someone who has thorough know-how and can help you with pick the right products, install them, configure it all as needed. Once this is done and done right, you are all set.
The future is bright…
With the increase in ease of access and availability of smart devices, so many people are looking for convenience, security, comfort, and energy efficiency. The smart home technology estimates predict that more than 21 billion smart home devices could be in use by the end of 2020. Despite the impact of COVID, there was increased spending noted in the consumer smart home segment. This is perhaps because more people were staying at home thanks to the pandemic! And this led to more adoption of IoT technology.
While the pandemic has had its impact on the smart home market, in the long term, a larger user base for IoT will lead to the development and growth of this industry. The market has also seen growth as a reaction to increasing environmental concerns. With growing awareness and action towards energy efficiency and sustainability, there is a rise in the adoption of smart lighting technology.
The global trends in Australia and worldwide are proof enough. If we look specifically at the usage trends in the smart lighting segment, the market was valued at USD 14.23 billion in 2019 and is projected to touch USD 58.57 billion by 2025. The CAGR is projected at 29.3% for the forecasted period 2020 to 2025.
The future of smart technology is already here — and the pace of innovation is fast. The value of automation in terms of comfort, convenience, efficiency, security, and even fun outweigh the cons. In a few short years, technology will take over, and it will be hard to remember a time before our homes were smart, and our lives were connected.
With voice-activated speakers, you can now control lights with the sound of your voice. Controlling lights with your voice is nothing less than the magic of sorts, but these days we have smart lighting systems that can make any of us feel omnipotent.
That opens up a whole world of possibilities: you might have one formula for watching movies, another for meals, and yet another for reading. Switching from one light setting to another is as simple as tapping a smartphone or calling out to your favourite voice-activated personal assistant.
If you are a homeowner or a buyer or a builder, this is the kind of home you ought to be envisioning, to reside in, or develop. How to get moving towards this vision? Give us a call, and we are here to help you harness the power of smart home technology and future-ready. Here and now. For more on the topic, do follow our blogs! You can also connect with us on LinkedIn / Instagram/ Facebook for updates on smart home automation!