Smart homes are becoming ever more popular thanks to Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa technology becoming ever more mainstream. According to McKinsey, by the end of 2017, there will be 29 million smart homes in the United States alone.
Apart from thermostats, probably no other device comes close to encapsulating the whole Smart Home experience as the humble light bulb. The ability to control the lights in the room with a voice command like "Alexa, dim the bedroom lights 50%" is something out of a Jetsonian future. There are however, a number of other benefits worth considering the next time you're looking to change the lights in your house.
The Benefits of Smart Lighting
Save money
One of the biggest factors when it comes to moving towards smart lighting is the fact that it can save you money. Here are some ways that smart lighting can help you to do so:
Light sensors can help you harvest daylight so as to brighten and dim the lighting in the room, so that you only have just enough additional lighting and nothing more. This is known as daylight harvesting.
Another way is through motion detectors or sensors so that you only have lights when it detects some motion in the room. Very helpful if you're the sort that always forgets to turn off the lights.
Sleep better
Bright lights at night disrupt our body's production of a hormone called melatonin, which is responsible for regulating our sleep. Programmable lights can be set to start dimming 30 minutes before it's time to go to bed, so that we're primed for when the time comes.
Blue light has also been shown to be bad for sleep, so using a multi-color light can be beneficial if we switch to warmer, orange colors before it is time for bed.
Deter burglars
According to research, most burglars prefer to target homes in the mid morning and early afternoon, precisely when nobody's home. Smart lighting usually comes with a setting that is designed to go off randomly, giving the appearance that there's activity in the house. Prevention is really better than cure and you could even do this at night in the living room even when everyone's asleep.
Improve mood
Winter depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder are real problems and part of the reason is the cool color that are present during winter months. While there hasn't been any research done into the effect of artificial lighting improving the mood, we truly believe that switching to warmer colors and hues can do wonders for your mood and outlook.
This isn't meant to replace medical advice or prescriptions, but it doesn't hurt to test out if warm orange light in winter will improve your mood.
The downsides of smart lighting
So if smart lighting is so fantastic, why isn't everyone running out and buying these smart LED light bulbs? At this point, it is probably cost. The cheapest smart light bulb goes for around $16. On the other hand, you could pick up an ordinary LED light bulb for $4. $12 might not seem like much, but multiply that by the number of light sockets in your house and it definitely adds up!
Thank you for reading and i hope it gave you some insights into the benefits of smart lighting. Getting them now would make you an early adopter but it would also make sense to wait a few more years when the technology becomes more mainstream.