ADVANCEDPROJECTS
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SMARTLIGHTSCANadd incredible
flourishes and convenience to your life,
whether it’s splashing bold colours over
walls and features, or just having lighting
that automatically gives you the perfect
setting. Youcan even set your lights to
switch on automatically when you get home,
or randomly turn on and off when you’re
awaytofool would-be burglars. All of this
takes abit of thought, however.
Looking at what hardware and services
are available,we’re goingtorule out buying
smart plugs to operatefavouritestandard
lamps. These used to be acheap waytoget
started, but now smart bulbs are just as
cheap and offer many more options. Smart
plugs cost between £10 and £45, while a
Philips Hue WhiteAmbience bulb costs £25
and aLIFX Mini Day&Dusk costs £27.
There are other reasons to still consider
asmart plug. The £35 six-way Kasa Smart
Power Strip HS300 lets you schedule power
foreach device,voice-activateeach device,
and monitor power use,soitcould be ideal
foryourentertainment setup.
LIGHT IT UP
Smart bulbs come in two main types: Wi-Fi
and bridged. Wi-Fi bulbs, such as those
from LIFX and TP-Link, connect straight
to your router: screw them in, connect to
their network, follow the setup
wizard, and you’re done.
Conversely,bridged bulbs
use alow-power wireless
technology such as ZigBee to
connect to adedicated ‘bridge’
or ‘hub’device,which in turn
connects to your Wi-Fi router.
The bridge is required because
routers, smartphones and
tablets don’t support
these low-power wireless
technologies, so can’t interact
with the bulbs directly.
Examples include the Philips Hue
range and Ikea’s Tradfri lights.
Bridged bulbs have range limitations, as
low-power wireless signals can’t compete
with Wi-Fi forsignal strength. However,many
bridge bulbs overcome this by usingZigBee
Light Link. This allows bulbs to connect to
each other,forming mesh and daisy-chain
networks from the bridge to outlying bulbs
placed faraway. However,even if two bulbs
from different manufacturers use ZigBee
Light Link, there’s no guarantee that they’ll
be compatible.
Youmight think that bridged bulbs would
consume less power.However,aPhilips Hue
Whiteand Colour Ambience bulb consumes
0.5-9W,the same as the equally bright,Wi-Fi-toting LIFX Mini Colour.
Youmight alsothink that the
ZigBee-powered Hue would be
cheaper,but at £50 it’s actually
£5 more expensive than the
LIFX alternative,and £15 more
expensive than TP-Link’s
alternative (which is up to 200
lumens brighter).
While it’s not immediately
obvious which ranges and
bulbs to choose,there are
some bulbs to definitely rule
out. Forexample,some ranges
of bulbs have acheaper option with afixed
whitetone; these might also be non-
dimmable.Avoid these.See also our
absolutevetoonRFsmart lights (page 127).SWITCHED ON
When considering automated smart lighting,
there are two main considerations:
automating power,and automating colour.
It might sound niche to separatethose
considerations, but the luxury of smart
lights extends waybeyondautomatically
turning on and off.
Consider coming home from work in
the middle of the summer.It’s bright sunlight
outside,yourpupils are contracted, you step
inside and it’s like acave; you need strong,⬆Smart light bulbs have now become areasonably good-value option, and theycan do farmore than simply turn on and off
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