Shopping and installing smart lighting can be confusing, so we have some tips for you here. We also have a separate guide on How to use smart lighting to transform your child’s bedroom.
Find the ideal location for your smart lighting that will maximize its impact. Consider potential reflections, especially if you’re installing them in a living room or office, as you don’t want your smart lights to reflect off your TV or monitor. You always need to run a cable to a power outlet, so consider cable management to hide it as best as possible. Plug the lights in and connect via the app before you install. With panels, create your design first and make sure you’re happy with it before trying to put it on the wall.
Most smart lighting panels and strips have adhesive on the back. You must prepare them properly before you start gluing. It’s important to clean the wall before installation and to follow the instructions in the letter to make sure it sticks and stays in place (if it says “press for 30 seconds,” do that). Make sure to confine your curious cat or dog in another room while you install it!
Get rid of panels and strips that can damage your walls. I had cracked paint and plaster separators when removing some of the smart lights. Going slow and applying heat with a hair dryer can help reduce the risk of damage, but the difficulty of the process is sure reason to be careful with the installation.
The brightness of light is measured in lumens. For example, a standard 60 watt light bulb has an output of about 800 lumens. Since most decorative smart lights are not designed to take the main light source, they are often quite limited in brightness, so you need to keep this in mind.
RGB (red, green, blue) is the standard and mixes those three to make other colors. RGBW includes an appropriate white along with red, green, and blue, providing greater versatility and is important if you want high-quality white light. Color temperature is measured in Kelvins (K) and is listed as a range (e.g. 1200K – 6500K). This range determines how warm or cool your light can get. Probably the opposite, red and orange are at the lower end of the scale and blue at the higher end. The last thing to keep in mind is the Color Rendering Index (CRI), a score of 100 that indicates how effectively a light can mimic daylight. It affects how the colors of illuminated objects appear. For example, with a low CRI score, red can appear brown. A score of 80 or higher will be appropriate for most situations.
Most smart lights connect via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and are controlled by an app on your phone. You need a good Wi-Fi signal or within Bluetooth range. While it may seem desirable for the lighting to be connected directly to Wi-Fi or using Bluetooth, there are advantages to systems with dedicated hubs. With Philips Hue, for example, lights connect and respond to commands with the Hue Hub much faster than through Bluetooth in the app. Most smart lighting can be controlled by smart voice assistants, like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, but make sure you check compatibility before you buy. You will probably want a smart speaker or smart screen in the same room as your light.
Consider physical controls. Smart lights must be plugged into a power source and always on to be responsive. If it is only controlled by an app, it may be difficult for children in the home or visitors to turn the lights on or off. Many light strips and panels also come with a control unit with physical buttons and sometimes a button to cycle through colors or effects — this is worth looking for if you have young children in the house.
Check how many zones your smart light supports. Smart light strips at the low end of the market may have only a single zone, which means the entire strip can only display one color at a time. If you want more colors or animations, you want more areas (the more, the better).
For the light strip, verify the length and measure it in your space before purchasing. Inexpensive light strips may lack a protective coating for the LEDs, which will affect lifespan. If you want to cut the light strip to a specific length, make sure your preferred option allows this and follow the instructions carefully. Some light strips are also extendable, but always check before you buy.
There may be some privacy concerns with smart lighting. Ambient lights here provide a reactive mode that changes the lights to the beat of the sounds in your space with a microphone for this to work. That’s something to keep in mind, although the companies claim they don’t record or send audio anywhere and everything stays on the device. \
