Smart lighting offers you automation and control over your home’s lighting anytime and from anywhere. While many people are accustomed to smart indoor lighting solutions, smart outdoor lighting can help you manage a beautiful exterior solution for your home’s landscape.
If you switch to a smart outdoor lighting system, such as Philips Hue outdoor lights, you can enjoy numerous advantages.
4 Benefits of Smart Outdoor Lighting
1. Control Your Lighting at the Tap of a Finger
Smart lighting empowers you to control your lighting system using one of your smart devices, such as your computer, phone, tablet, or home automation systems like Amazon Alexa or Google Home.
Many manufacturers offer apps for Android and iOS that allow you to control your lighting systems from anywhere. If you’re laying out on the hammock or in your dining room, open the app and turn on your exterior lighting.
2. Greater Control Over Your Lighting
Your “dumb lighting” doesn’t offer you the refined controls that smart lighting systems offer. However, with smart bulbs and lighting systems, you can make quick adjustments to your lighting system, including:
- Dimming or brightening the lights to fit your mood
- Setting complex timers for your lights beyond the simple on/off at the same time every day of a standard timer
- Turn the lights on or off from anywhere
This level of control makes it easy to set your front-yard lights on a timer and have your backyard lights only turn on when the space is being used.
You can also set timers that differ based on the day of the week: for example, if you frequently use your exterior spaces at night on the weekends but not often on the weekdays, you can adjust your timers according to your usage.
Smart controllers pull data from the internet to auto-adjust based on sunrise and sunset times so you’re not manually adjusting timers all year long as daylight hours get longer and shorter. That connection also means you can control your lighting from anywhere, so the next time you forget to shut your lights off while you’re on vacation (or turn them on for more security while you’re away!) you don’t have to think about it the whole time you’re out of town.
Whether you’re having a barbeque or are just enjoying the weather on your patio, smart lighting will make the experience even better.
3. Safety and Security
Smart outdoor lighting also makes your home safer and more secure. Thieves like to target homes with no security that aren’t a threat. For example, if your car is not in the driveway and all of the lights are off, you’re a prime target because visibility is low and you’re not home.
Your smart lighting controller allows you to:
- Turn lights on and off
- Schedule lights to go on at certain times
- Deter potential intruders
- Adjust lighting schedules when you’re away from home
Smart lighting systems offer peace of mind and functionality that you cannot get with the same non-smart system.
4. Change Lighting Color to Fit the Season
One of the smart outdoor lighting features that’s the most fun to play with is color! With a smart lighting controller your outdoor lights can change with the season and the event. You can turn them red white and blue for the 4th of July, orange during Halloween, red and green in December, or match the color scheme of a backyard wedding.
Where traditional lightbulbs would need to be switched out every time to offer this level of flexibility, smart lighting solutions and new LED fixtures come ready to be color tunable.
Smart lights offer the full RGB spectrum of lighting, so you can switch your lighting whenever you please. And for anyone in a neighborhood, this level of curb appeal is definitely worth the transition to smart lighting systems.
Consider your current setup when deciding what type of smart outdoor lighting you would like to use. There are a number of different options to choose from and a qualified outdoor lighting expert can help narrow down the field.