Lighting

Smart Lighting: Where to Start?

Smart lighting is arguably one of the easiest ways to start turning your home into a smart home — it’s easy to install, set, and control. There are a few different ways of implementing smart lighting.

One of the easiest ways is changing your standard light bulbs to smart light bulbs. The whole installation process will probably take no longer than 5 minutes, since no wiring is required, and moments after installation you can control your lights remotely straight from your smartphone.

Another option is installing in-wall smart dimmers and switches, which can be a little difficult if you don’t feel comfortable dealing with your home’s wiring. And even though the installation process is difficult, the end result is the same — smart lighting control at your fingertips.

There’s one more option that offers the same features as smart in-wall dimmers and switches and is as easy to install as smart bulbs — smart plug-in outlets and dimmers. No wiring is required, just use the smart plug-in outlet or dimmer like a bridge between your standard outlet and the lights that you want to plug in. Pretty simple if you ask us.

LIFX 1100-Lumen, 11W Dimmable A19 LED Light Bulb...

ilumi Bluetooth Smart LED A19 Light Bulb, 2nd...

Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance A19 60W...

Xiaomi YLDP02YL Smart Bulb Yeelight LED Light...

Our Favorite Smart Lighting

Ideally, you’d have a combination of all three smart lighting types. As an example, for living room and bedroom lighting it’s better to get Philips Hue lights — a mix of Philips Hue light bulbs and lightstrips. With 16 million colors to choose from you can set scenes to match your mood and even sync lights with movies to bring Netflix binges to a whole new level.

For rooms where one light switch controls a few bulbs, it’s better to install a smart switch or dimmer. This way you can still get the benefits of smart lighting while cutting the cost — smart light switches are likely to be cheaper than smart light bulbs, especially since one light switch can control multiple light bulbs.

And finally, for outside lighting, our top pick is the GE Smart Outdoor Outlet — it’s easy to install, easy to control, and fun to use. It’s a plug-in outlet, so no wiring is required. Plus, you can use it to control not only outdoor lighting, but also other small appliances.

Please note that some smart lighting solutions require a hub or a bridge to function. You can learn more about hubs and bridges here.

For Inside:	For Outside:
Philips Hue White and Color Kit 3rd Gen Philips Hue Lightstrip Lutron Caseta Dimmer Kit	Sylvania Gardenspots GE Smart Outdoor Outlet

For Inside:

For Outside:

Philips Hue White and Color Kit 3rd Gen

Philips Hue Lightstrip

Lutron Caseta Dimmer Kit

Sylvania Gardenspots

GE Smart Outdoor Outlet

Philips Hue vs. LIFX

Lighting has taken a turn for an even brighter and more illuminating future. The Philips Hue White and Color Ambience A19 (3rd Generation) and LIFX A19 Color LED Smart Bulb are more than your typical light bulbs.

When paired with smart home technology, they become well-orchestrated light shows. There is no technical work involved on your part to achieve this, though. Pair the lights to your smartphone and smart home devices, then watch them come alive during video games, movies, parties, and more. You can control them from wherever you are with your smartphones and devices, as well. Sync the lights with your alarms to create a morning light show, or set them to a particular hue or color to create a relaxing ambiance and encourage general well-being. The possibilities to transform your home and the way you utilize light are endless with smart lighting.

How will you know which smart light bulb to choose for your home? This is all dependent upon your budget, hardware, and what other smart home accessories you have already invested in. The following in-depth comparison of the popular Philips Hue Gen 3 and LIFX A19 will help you to decide which smart light bulb works best for your needs.

Philips Hue Lightstrip vs. Plus

If you’re looking to light your home in a stylish, functional way, Philips Hue products are a great place to start. Offering tons of different features, Philips Hue lightstrips are wonderful examples of what smart home lighting can do for your home — and at a fair price. The only difficulty is trying to choose which lighting suits you best. This article is going to compare and contrast the differences between the Philips Hue Lightstrip vs. Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus.

But first, let’s mention the features that you can look forward to with both the Philips Hue Lightstrip and Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus. Both lightstrips offer smart control, away-from-home control, light schedules, comfort dimming, being able to choose from millions of colors, and syncing with music and movies. All of these give you way more functionality than traditional lightstrips. And with that said, what about the differences between the two?

ilumi vs. Hue

The Internet of Things offers a great variety of smart home lighting solutions. Whether it’s a smart bulb or a smart dimmer, the first time you get to enjoy the fascinating experience of controlling the lights at your home from your smartphone, you know you’ll never go back to a normal lighting setup. But with such a great variety of products and features, it might be a bit hard to choose the right lighting solution for you. So in this guide, we’ll compare ilumi vs. Hue to help you pick the better choice for your home.

Wink vs. Hue

If you’re like most homeowners, once you start upgrading your home to include smart home devices, it’s incredibly hard to stop. The idea of complete remote control over your home is fascinating. And smart home lighting is one of the easiest ways to start with smart home automation. Both Philips Hue and Wink offer great features when it comes to lighting, and most likely you’ll end up getting both of them. But for now, let us guide you into smart home automation by helping you choose between Wink vs. Hue.

Belkin WeMo vs. Philips Hue

One of the best ways to start with smart home automation is by setting up smart lighting. You can find a great range of smart lighting solutions on the market from Lutron, WeMo, Philips, GE Link, LIFX, etc. Some of them are more popular and thus are more expensive than others. In this comparison, we’ll take a look at the differences between WeMo vs. Hue by Philips to determine the better smart lighting solution of the two.

Osram Lightify vs. Philips Hue

When someone talks about smart home lighting, the first thing that usually comes to mind is Philips Hue. Yet, Philips Hue is far from being the only option on the market. The Internet of Things offers us a great variety of smart home lighting solutions, like: Lutron dimmers, GE Link, LIFX, Lightify bulbs, and way more we cannot list. And even though Philips Hue is reputable and very well-known, in some cases it’s better to choose other brands of light bulbs over them. So, today we’ll compare Osram Lightify vs. Hue by Philips to help you make the right choice.

Philips Hue vs. Lux

When looking at Philips Hue vs. Lux, there are only a few minor differences. But before we talk about the differences, we need to look at where each of these products came so you can get an idea of how they’re related.

Philips Hue came about 4 years ago, in October of 2012, when it was first introduced to the market. Since that time, a new line of lights has been added along with new hubs. All generations of the Philips Hue family are based on ZigBee LightLink, which is a low-power, safe, and reliable technology that is widely used to control smart home appliances.

Since its first release, Philips Hue has been adding new features and improvements to the system to help make the smart lights even more useful. Philips Hue is widely used for smart homes. And one of the reasons for this is that all Philips Hue products use ZigBee protocol — This means that you can easily integrate Philips Hue with other ZigBee-based appliances for a wider range of home automation.

Smart Home Lighting Automation with the Lutron Smart Bridge Pro

Today, we’ll talk about smart home lighting automation with the Lutron Smart Bridge Pro. As the digital home automation becomes more and more popular, the Lutron Smart Bridge Pro is actually sounds like a good idea. Not to mention, when we are talking about Lutron—we are talking about a leader in lighting control systems.

With the Smart Bridge Pro, you can turn your Lutron’s un-smart dimmer switches into digital home automation pros. And not only dimmers. The Lutron Smart Bridge Pro is also compatible with Serena battery-powered shades and Honeywell Wi-Fi thermostats. Sounds incredible? Because it is!

Philips Hue Lighting Review

Today, in this Philips Hue lighting review we’ll go over the good and the bad aspects you should know before buying it. At this point you’ve probably googled a lot about Philips Hue lighting, so let’s summarize.

Philips 433706 Hue Lux Starter Kit 2 Bulbs and 1 Hub 60W Equivalent A19 LED 1st Generation

Lutron Smart Bridge vs. Smart Bridge Pro

Lutron Caseta Wireless Dimmer Switch • A Smart Solution

As the world gets more digital and a wide array of smart home solutions enter our homes. Wouldn’t it be great to get total remote control of your home appliances with one simple device? From smart locks to smart lights, home automation systems offer more than just absolute control — it’s peace of mind, comfort, and convenience. And an incredible item in the world of smart home technology is a wireless dimmer. The Lutron Caseta wireless dimmer, to be more precise. It’s a switch that can totally bring remote lighting control to a whole new level.

Adjust the brightness of your light and create the perfect ambiance in just one click. With Lutron Caseta Wireless dimmer, you can control the light output and even reduce overall energy costs. And just imagine — you can do it all remotely.

How to Install a Dimmer Switch • Lutron Caseta Wireless Collection

Today, we’ll show you how to install a dimmer switch from the Lutron Caseta Wireless collection. In general, installing a dimmer switch can be a pain, but not when we talk about the Lutron Caseta Wireless dimmers. In this installation dimmer guide in particular, we’ll go over a step-by-step instruction of how to replace a single-pole switch with a Caseta Wireless in-wall dimmer.

A single-pole switch is a one wall switch that controls a light or group of lights. Lights that are controlled from two or more locations, such as stair lights, use 3-way switches. If your stair light has two or more switches please check how to replace 3-way switches with Lutron Caseta Wireless dimmer installation guide. You can also check the video on how to replace a single-pole switch or 3-way switch with the Lutron dimmers.
So, let’s start!

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