We have come a really long way in lighting technology. From Edison’s incandescent prototype, which burned only for 13.5 hours, LED (light emitting diode) bulbs of today can last up to 50,000 hours if installed properly and used correctly. For years people have been wondering what will replace LED, but so far, the technology that can dethrone it hasn’t been developed yet. There is, however, a new variant of the mighty LED bulb that has the same lighting efficiency but also comes with an array of cool new features. . . enter the smart bulb.
What is a smart bulb?
In simplest terms, a smart bulb is an internet-capable LED bulb, which a user can control through an app. But that’s not the only thing that differentiates the smart bulb from its predecessor. As mentioned above, it has a ton of features that makes them smart and here are 8 of the most useful things that they can do.
1. Control It Anywhere
With smart bulbs, you can control your lights anywhere! If you forgot to turn off your light, you just need to open an app and turn it off there. Another practical application of this feature is that you can simulate that someone is home even when you’re away for a couple of days. As long as your phone and smart bulb are connected to the internet, you can do this even when you’re thousands of kilometers away.
2. Change Brightness
If you wanted mood lighting a couple of years ago, your only option was to buy dimmable LED bulbs. This set-up was quite expensive because aside from buying the bulbs, you also have to purchase a dimmer switch and dimmable transformer. With smart bulbs, the only thing you need to have this dimming feature is an active internet connection. Once connected, you can change its brightness anytime through the accompanying app.
3. Change Light Temperature
Before you moved into your home, we’re pretty sure that you had a discussion with your significant other on which kind of light to use for different areas of your home. It was usually a choice between warm white or cool white. With smart bulbs, you never have to choose because you can change the temperature of your light bulb anytime!
For your information, smart bulbs which offer warm white and cool white usually have a temperature range of 2700K to 6500K (K = Kelvin). In lighting, Kelvin is a unit of measurement used to describe the warmness or coolness of a light source (see image below).
4. Change Its Color
If you wanted to bring mood lighting to the next level, then smart bulbs is really the product for you. Aside from having the ability to change its brightness, you can also change its color. With 16 million colors to choose from, finding that perfect lighting to suit your mood or occasion will be as easy as turning on your light.
5. Light Schedules
There’s always that one light bulb that you always turn on and off at specific times of the day. Well, good news for you. If you use a smart bulb, you can easily automate this task so you don’t have to manually turn it on and off. Just set the schedule once and you never have to touch that light switch ever again.
6. Group Control
To control the different LED bulbs in your home, you need to manually turn on their switches one by one. With smart bulbs, you can use the Group Control function so you can turn several bulbs on/off with just a single tap. You can even set their brightness as a group!
7. Voice Control
Be like Tony Stark in your home and control your lights through voice commands! All you need to do is to connect your smart bulbs to Google or Alexa and you can start controlling them via voice commands. If you want to turn them on, just say, “Hey Google/Alexa, turn on kitchen lights”. You can also change their brightness and color just by asking your smart assistant whether it be Google or Alexa 😎
8. Routines
In home automation, routines are a series of tasks that are executed by your smart assistant or home automation app after an event or trigger. A routine can be triggered by a simple voice command such as, “Hey Google/Alexa, activate sleep mode”. It can also be triggered by an event such as sunrise or sunset. Once the smart assistant or app receives the trigger, it will then proceed to execute all of the tasks that you added in that routine. For example, if you want to turn off your master bedroom lights and turn on your smart lamp and set its brightness at 20% after saying Activate Sleep Mode, your smart assistant will do just that. What would have taken you more than 10 seconds to say will now only take you around 2 seconds to accomplish. If you want to learn more about routines, we suggest that you read our articles on the topic – Google Routines and Alexa Routines.
Smart bulbs are more expensive than regular LED bulbs but as you can see, there’s a reason for that. As mentioned above, it has a ton of cool features that make it superior to a regular LED bulb. If you don’t own a smart bulb yet and want to learn more about them, please visit our store by clicking on this link 👉 SMARTLIVING.PH. To receive smart home guides, please subscribe to our newsletter by submitting your email address in the form below. You will also be notified when we have new products and promos.
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