Smart lighting: bulbs, bridges and more
Let there be light! And 16 million colours! And remote control, so that we can save money too!
Most smart lighting systems use LED bulbs that are longer lasting and a lot more powerefficient than traditional light bulbs, so it’s worth switching to LED lighting simply in order to save money
on your energy bills. However, most smart bulbs cost around £30 each, compared to about £5 for a not-so-smart bulb, so they need to earn their keep in other ways, too.
The cheapest LED bulbs just create ordinary white light, but many smart bulbs can change colour, allowing you to select different colour and brightness settings with an app on your iPhone. That’s great for setting the mood for a dinner party or just dozing off at night. The simplest smart lights use Bluetooth to connect to your smartphone or tablet, and the most well known options here are the Veho Kasa and Elgato’s Avea range. The Kasa is a straightforward range of smart bulbs costing about £30 each, although the company has added a new Light Strip to its range. This is a three-metre length of strip lighting that you can use indoors for a bit of mood lighting, priced at £50. If you want to go out into the garden then Elgato’s Avea Flare is a better option. It’s a bit pricey, at around £90, but the lamp provides eight-hour battery life and is water-resistant (IP65). You can also buy Avea bulbs for use around the house for £25 each.
The apps used with these bulbs will allow you to set timers on your iPhone or iPad, or to adjust colour and brightness for each bulb. However, the Bluetooth connection only has limited range, so these lights are probably most useful in one specific location, such as a bedroom or garden. If you want more control over all the lights in your home then you need to choose a lighting system that can use Wi-Fi to connect to your home network.
Hue goes there
The big heavyweight in the smart lighting market is Philips, with its Hue lighting system. The Hue range includes dozens of different bulbs, lamps, strip lighting, and more. Philips also got off to a good start by being one of the first companies to support Apple’s HomeKit and Siri voice commands, making
Your Wi-Fi network allows you to link lights in different locations, so you can, for example, turn all your downstairs lights off at once
the products a great choice for owners of iPhones and iPads.
Connecting a smart bulb to your home network does add cost and complexity, but it provides real benefits too. Your Wi-Fi network can cover your entire home, allowing you to link lights together in different locations, perhaps turning all your downstairs lights off when you go to bed at night. In order to connect to your Wi-Fi network, most lights will require a control device – Philips calls it the ‘Bridge’, while Osram opts for ‘Gateway’ – that connects to your broadband router and acts as the brains, controlling scheduling, brightness, colour and other settings.
The cheapest option here is to buy a starter kit that includes two or three bulbs along with the central controller. Philips sells a Hue starter kit with two plain white bulbs and a Bridge for about £60; a more advanced kit with three coloured bulbs and a Bridge comes in at around £150. Once you’ve got the Bridge you can buy additional bulbs for as little as £25 each, or opt for lamps such as the portable Hue Go (£70) or fancy fittings such as its Cher overhead lights (£195).
Osram’s Lightify range doesn’t have quite so many different types of lights and bulbs, but you can get a starter kit that includes the Osram Gateway and one colour bulb for around £60, and then extend the kit with additional bulbs for £20-30 each. There are some interesting newcomers here too, most notably Nanoleaf, whose Aurora lighting system (£180) provides a series of multicoloured panels that you can clip together to create your own personal light show. If that seems a bit over the top then Nanoleaf also makes a number of more down-to-earth lights, including its Ivy Smarter Kit, which includes a control hub and two rather odd-looking bulbs, but is well priced at around £80. Nanoleaf’s products support HomeKit too, so they’re a real rival for Philips if your home is full of Apple kit. Even Ikea is getting in on the act, with its new Tradfri range of smart lights. These aren’t available in the UK just yet but, with prices starting at just £15 for a basic white light, Ikea could open up the market for smart lighting to a larger audience than ever before.