>Smart home living

Apart from the occasional freakout, is loving smart lighting

>>> “Did you just turn on the lights with your phone?” asked a guest, pointedly, just last week.

Yessir, yes I did. I live in uneasy coexistence with my husband’s beloved Philips Hue lightbulbs. To me, they may as well be magic — I could no more explain to you how they work than I could explain crop circles, or the Mary Celeste, or the continuing employment of Ryan Seacrest.

I know it’s great to sync the bulbs with our TV and trip out to Charlie and the

Chocolate Factory. It’s certainly useful to switch on the lights in the house before I arrive home alone on a dark night. And when the rain is lashing outside, I like that I can conjure up a tropical-style sunset or a cosy wood-cabin glow in seconds. But… there are downsides. My husband failed to mention that he’d set the lights to turn off when he left the neighborhood, plunging me into panicky, phoneless darkness the first time he went out for the evening. Worse, they’ve randomly malfunctioned on occasion; if you’re freaked out by the thought of being thrown into sudden darkness, try sitting in a room where all the lamps are spontaneously changing color and flashing on and off for minutes on end. My nerves are shot.

Yet I’ll forgive the Philips Hue system everything for one little mercy: it allows me to fool my little daughter into sleeping in the dark. She gets into bed with the bedside lamp glowing gently. As she gets sleepy, I turn it down a little. And a little more. A little more. There’s no scary “Lights out!” moment – she just doesn’t notice. (Sucker.) By the time I get to bed, the house is perfectly dark.

Totally worth it.