I was home alone on New Year’s Eve when I heard the unmistakable sound of people in my garden. These weren’t revelers. They were burglars. The thump I heard next was their attempt to smash down my glass patio door and enter my home. In a moment of panic, I flicked the upstairs light switch on and opened a window, which caused them to flee.
Those were just ordinary lights, but I realized they could do much more than light up a room. That’s how one of the scariest things that’s ever happened to me was also the start of my decade-long fixation on smart lighting.
Besides sending the next Harry and Marv scrambling, smart lights can save money by dimming or turning off when you don’t need them, turning off lights from bed so you don’t have to get up, and preventing fumbling around in the dark for a switch. Smart lighting was a godsend when I recovered from a heart attack at the age of 33, and again when I recovered from a spinal fusion nine months later.
I’ve lived in five different places in the last decade, and smart lighting has always been the first thing I set up. As a tech journalist, it’s old hat for me, but when trying to introduce my 68-year-old mother to smart lighting, I faced a fresh challenge: Could I set it up in a way that’s easy enough for anyone to use, with no rewiring or damage to the home?
Absolutely. Here’s how I did it, and how you can do the same in a weekend.
Best smart lights at a glance
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A bulb for common fixtures:
Phillips Hue Starter Kit
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An add-on light for any home
Govee TV Backlight 3
No disassembly required
My mother owned her UK home, but she was hesitant to make any permanent changes, like replacing the light fixtures, because she was planning a much larger renovation. This isn’t an uncommon or insurmountable scenario.
I’ve installed elaborate smart lighting setups in multiple rentals where rewiring wasn’t an option. In my New York apartment, I had 44 smart lights, all color, with no wiring whatsoever. They were synced together and reacted to the music, providing a show through the 26-foot floor-to-ceiling windows for everyone below. In my San Francisco apartment, I installed smart lighting to address the common problem of oddly placed permanent light fixtures.
Ruling out rewiring means you can only replace bulbs – not the fixtures they screw into or the switches that control them. But you can also add different types of lighting, and modern smart lights come in some dazzling varieties. Want to spruce up a dull wall? Govee curtain lights can display full-color images from festive to psychedelic, and they’re easy to put up or take down. Want to upgrade your movie experience? TV backlights turn your whole room into an extension of your screen.
There are also light strips, outdoor lights, and even solar-powered options that don’t need to be plugged in at all. All of these can also be controlled by your favorite voice assistant, like Alexa or Google Gemini, or directly from your phone.
Why anyone can benefit from smart lighting
My family found three key benefits to adopting smart lighting: security, convenience, and cost savings.
We’ve already covered security, but you don’t need to be quick on your feet to scare off burglars, even at home. Smart lights make it easy to set up intricate schedules if you plan to be away for extended periods without the hassle of those old mechanical timers. It’s not foolproof, but it’s enough to make it seem like your house is occupied and less inviting to would-be intruders.
The convenience of voice activation helps me every day, but it’s even more of a blessing when my body isn’t at 100%. If you’ve undergone medical procedures like me, or are feeling the aches and pains of a lifetime of work like my mother, smart lighting is a shortcut around all sorts of unnecessary movement. Why struggle up from your comfy seat to dim the lights for a movie when you can just ask Alexa to do it?
Smart lighting also has financial benefits. First, every smart bulb uses efficient LEDs. Compared to older incandescent bulbs, the LEDs inside smart bulbs use up to 90% less energy. In the US, a switch to LED bulbs can save an average of $225 per year, while in the UK, LED bulbs are expected to save around £2,000 to £3,000 over their lifetime.
Finally, smart bulbs have the added benefit of easy dimming and automatic shutdown when not in use. Rather than keeping my entire kitchen illuminated at 100% all the time, we usually leave only four under-cabinet lights on at 40% – enough to dimly light the kitchen for most daily tasks, aside from cooking. Every evening, they turn off on a schedule, even if I forget. My hallway, living room, dining room, bedroom, home office, and home office are all set up the same way.
The majority of my mum’s setup involved replacing existing bulbs with smart bulbs and, rather than a range of colors, using predominantly white or off-white bulbs. This ended up also being the cheapest way to make certain lights smart. Even for my vision-impaired sister, who needed 100W traditional bulbs, smart bulbs are more than bright enough.
Getting started
Ready to adopt smart lighting? Start by just picking a smart bulb that fits your existing light fixtures. It’s really that easy.
You’ll find dozens of brands, but for ease of setup, it’s best to pick one and stick with it. I highly recommend products from Philips Hue and Govee, which are reliable, easy to install, and offer a huge variety of styles.
Philips Hue bulbs require you to install a wireless “bridge” to get started, which costs about $60, but this one-time hassle makes setting up subsequent bulbs easier. Govee bulbs will work with your existing Wi-Fi network, but setting up each bulb individually requires a little more work. They’re both fairly straightforward, and once you install one bulb, the process for additional bulbs from that brand is identical.
The Hue or Govee app will serve as your smart lighting remote, but you can also connect them to Google Gemini or Amazon Alexa just by opening those apps and connecting your Hue or Govee accounts. Here’s a great guide to getting started with Philips Hue, a broader guide to Govee, and a guide to pairing Govee with Google Assistant – pairing Philips Hue follows a similar process.
My favorite smart bulbs for common fixtures
If you have a few lights you want to change, this starter kit contains four high-quality full-color bulbs and a Hue Bridge to connect them. Want physical buttons to control them? This Hue Wireless Dimmer Switch sticks anywhere on your wall, no wiring required.
Sixteen million colors turn your household lamps into colorful, playful, and dimmable expressions of your personality.
If you’re dealing with recessed ceiling downlights, these are an extremely affordable way to convert them into smart lighting.
What if you want smart lighting but have non-standard light fixtures or don’t want to change those? Smart lamps and strip lights give you the same benefits with zero wiring, but at a slightly higher cost, since you’re adding new lights rather than replacing them.
My favorite add-on lights for any home
This beautifully designed technicolor lamp is as much a light feature as it is a light fixture.
Strung under cabinets, steps, or even desks, these multicolor lights provide both illumination and fun, especially when synced to your favorite music.
By mirroring the colors on your TV, these lights turn the wall behind your screen into an immersive home theater.
Situate this smart floor lamp in a corner to instantly brighten any room.
What to expect once you’re all set up
What changes once you set up your new system? There’s one big change you should be aware of: You need to leave your physical light switches on and turn the bulbs off via the app or your smart assistant. Since the bulbs need electricity to communicate, turning them off with a physical light switch will work, but it will disable all their smart functions.
You’ll also want to play around with different lighting percentages – all of these lights are dimmable by default. Lower lighting can set a more relaxing mood in the evening and save money.
As for my mom, it’s hard to overstate how much switching to smart lighting helps her. I never see her reach for the light switch anymore. She mostly uses her voice, or reaches for her phone in the rare moments she’s not within earshot of a Google Home device. She no longer has to walk around in the dark flicking lights off; and when she’s abroad, she has the peace of mind of knowing it looks like she’s home.
Other pieces you might enjoy from the Filter, the Guardian’s guide to buying fewer, better things:
The Guardian wp:paragraph
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