Everyone’s dream is to return home to a house with mesmerizing views of lights on the exterior. You will brighten every nook of your yard and garden pathway with just the right amount of light. Permanent outdoor lighting systems are changing the face of home improvement by offering customized lighting. We are going to explore how smart outdoor lighting systems work and how they will transform the curb appeal of your home.
How Smart Outdoor Lighting Systems Work
Source – environmentaldesigns
Smart outdoor lighting systems work with the help of Internet of Things and Wireless such as long range Bluetooth mesh technologies. It is an interconnected intelligent lights network. All the lights will be under remote access and control by the homeowner. It gives homeowners the ability to control their outdoor lights using smartphones or tablets, including voice control via virtual assistants.
Setup of a smart lighting system in an outdoor environment.
- Smart Bulbs and Fixtures: Color and brightness changing, energy-saving LED bulbs, strips, neons, roofline strips, and other decorative lights.
- Control Hubs or Gateways: Networking devices that connect the smart lights to your home’s or phone’s network.
- Smartphone Applications and Voice Assistants: The user interface helps use the lighting system by controlling it from remote locations and by giving commands in natural language.
Installation
The installation of the smart outdoor lighting system is quite simple.
- Determine where you want to illuminate a space and lighting effect, including year-round roofline lighting.
- You can either avail professional installations or Do-It-Yourself installations may be used to the extent of difficulty.
- The system is designed to be used for a long duration with minimum maintenance once the installation is over.
Benefits of Smart Outdoor Lighting Systems
Convenience and Control
Set the lights to any kind of level of brightness, any color, and timing, all from the convenience of a smartphone. Set the home to light automatically according to schedules that vary with the seasons or events. Designed for convenience in operation with no hands, integrate with your smart home assistants.
Customization and Flexibility
Never forget any occasion with a host of presets to create the most fitting ambiance. Dynamic lighting for holidays, parties, or living life to the fullest each and every day. Tailor the lighting to your taste and your home’s exterior. A warm light at 2700 or 3000K is an accepted norm for everyday general outdoor lighting illumination and good systems have such settings as default while the ability to change colors and effects based on the occasion.
Energy Efficiency and Savings
Energy consumption of LED systems is lower than traditional systems and has a longer lifespan. Furthermore, with the scheduling features, especially dawn-dusk and calendar wise scheduling features, user can expect additional up to 40% savings in energy and elongation in the system’s life. One can reduce the operational costs through reliable and automated lighting management, consequently saving energy bills.
Safety and Security
Perfectly lighting up the pathways and entrance prevents various misshapes and reduces the occurrence of accidents. In addition, the year-round roofline lighting with security feature not only creates a sense of safety but also enhances the architectural look of the property. The motion detection and integrations with third party security systems including cameras helps keeping intruders away.
Aesthetic Appeal and Property Value
Beautifully lit exteriors make a house warm and welcoming. Smart home features are the most sought-after by buyers. Personalization can allow you to change lighting to match landscaping or architectural features. The outdoor ambience plays significant role in the perceived value of the property, and nothing than the right lighting for every season and every reason can beat that.
How Homeowners Should Choose The System
A. Comprehensive Products Family for future upgrades:
One with Wide Range of Products in the product family: Smart outdoor lighting systems should have a variety of options to give the future scale per the budget (start small and grow the installation as you wish). Furthermore, the user makes changes to the exterior of the property – building a pool, pathways, gazebo, planting trees, etc. Keeping this in mind, a comprehensive system with options that will fulfil the future needs.
Landscape Lighting: Color and white tunable MR16, PAR36, G4 BiPins are the most widely used lighting bulbs for landscape lighting in hundreds of types of standard fixtures. These types of bulbs make it plug & play solution while keeping installation, programming and maintenance simple and fairly free. One should ensure the highest brightness for the given power and given type of bulbs.
Year-Round Roofline Lighting and patio/sstring lighting: Also known as permanent holiday / Christmas lighting, the Year-Round Rooffline Lighting is changing the way people are lighting up their properties for celebrating every season, every reason, while looking at one time installation as ROI and peace of mind from getting on the ladder every year.
Timers: The Astro-Timers, as name suggests are dawn-dusk, and calendarwise timers which are necessary for the preexisting lighting and other devices such as outdoor fans control. The idea being the user wants one simple app and voice commands to all his/her outdoor devices.
Decorative Lighting: When holidays are near, we know there are enthusiasts who like to decorate trees, paths, lawn edges, and even bring extra fun lighting to ligh up the space for true holiday spirit. Having a system that is comprehensive in providing ddecoative needs with 50+ types of products is also important, and users looking for such solutions should be careful of such products availabbilty as party of one App Family. These include tree bullets, pebbles, various neon and pebble lights, globes, wall, walls/ddoors edge lighting, mostly in color chasing feature.
B. Comprehensive Features and Integrations for Simple and Enhanced User Experience:
Ability to set whites – from cool whitte to that perfect warm white is the most general day to day use of such lights. The user should ensure they are getting high brightness and simple ways to set and even schedule their favoite whites on their lighting.
Ability to set colors, scenes, and effects is another important aspect that allows user celebrate each holiday, their avorite sports teams, occasions, and of-course get into the party mode.
Scheduling is the best way to enjoy above two aspects of the lighting. The app should be able to schedule for:
A. Dawn-Dusk
B. Calendar-wise, and Daily/Weekly
C. Group-wise or the entire property light – Remember, scheduling most of the lights to turn off at 11 PM while keeping specific lights ON at warm 3000K color temperature is the biggest use case. Ability to turn such schhedules ON/OFF based on other occasions should be user friendly.
Furthermore, ability to add, delete or change schedules easily should be given importance while choosing the system. Various systems now have Real-Time-Clock with battery inside the light or the controller that makes the system scheduling robust as it’s independent of user app and the wifi or wired network. Consider this feature while choosing the system.
Account management: You should be able to share limited or admin access to the installer, and family members is an important aspect as well.
Predefined Scenes: This is another important feature that homeowners should consider. It allows setting predefined scenes for the entire property for various holidays and occasions throughout the year, such as Christmas, New Years, Independence Day, Valentine’s day, and many more, as well as functional scenes such as Good Night Scene (security lighting and specific lights at warm color), Wam Welcome Scene (all lights at warm color or welcoming guests), and many more. Once predefined, one can bring the property to life for that specific occasion with just one click on the app. No need to program each light separately!
Security Lighting:
A. Integrations with third party camera and security systems where motion detection at odd times turn specific lights ON.
B. Architecturally good looking roofline turned ON at specific segments, and various specific landscape and other lights turned ON during non-holiday nights giving a sense of safety and security.
Integrations with third party devices and alerts such as weather alerts are additional benefits user can consider.
Homeowners should also look for below important aspects of the complete installation
Source – chrislewis
Bundled Packages: Everything you need in one purchase, from lighting fixtures to control hubs.
Professional Support and Customer Service: Assistance from purchase to installation and beyond.
Warranty: Ensure you understand the warranty details, and beaware of companies which offer a lifetime warranty.
Access to your Contractor: Vet your installer before you offer him the project. Hiring recommended contractors or certified contractors is always a good idea.
Conclusion
The advantages of smart outdoor lighting systems have many benefits including increase in the value of the property. Bring a feeling of renovation to your house and enjoy its outwardly beautiful, lighted exterior all year long, while making a conscious RoI decision in your favor. Consider looking into the options available and take the first step toward a smarter, more illuminated home, and scale as you go with the comprehensive system with multitude of products, features, and trustworthy contractor.
