Light up your life
THESE SMART HOME LIGHTING SOLUTIONS GO WAY BEYOND BORING SWITCHES AND BULBS
THE nights are still dark and cold, and we’re only just over half-way through the most depressing month of the year.
So it might be a good time to start thinking about expanding your smart lighting set-up with something beyond the usual bulbs and switches.
Here are a few bright ideas to take things to the next level.
NANOLEAF SHAPES
■ They say: Nanoleaf Shapes Hexagons Starter Kit with an ultra-thin panel design come with everything you need to create your own statement or accent lighting.
■ We say: Nanoleaf makes a lot of great smart lights with more on the way that will be compatible with the new Matter standard, which means they should play nice with other smart home tech.
These panels allow you to mix and match shapes to create your own designs.
There are some great smart features available via the accompanying app including the fantastic Music Visualiser, which will match lighting with the mood and rhythm of your favourite sounds.
■ Cost: £119.99 for a Shapes Hexagons starter kit
GOVEE LED STRIP LIGHT
■ They say: Add extra brightness to any room in your home.
These LED strip lights use wifi and Bluetooth to easily control the colours and effects to personalise your lighting.
■ We say: The Govee strip lights offer a more discreet way than showy panels to bring smart lighting to any space – you don’t see them, you just see the subtle and versatile lighting effects.
There’s also a music mode for your own home disco, and more than 64 preset scenes.
It’s all controllable via a smartphone app. Best of all, it’s considerably cheaper than a lot of the other options.
■ Cost: £39.99 for a 5m roll
COLOLIGHT RGB HEXAGON LIGHT PRO KIT
■ They say: The Cololight Pro Player Kit has 15 RGB light panels that take your home decoration to the next level.
Cololight Pro Series turns any dreary space into something extraordinary with a wide variety of highly customisable lighting solutions and textured stone base
We say: One of the problems with many light strip and panel solutions is you have to stick them to the wall, which might cause issues if you ever want to move them – especially if you are renting.
The Cololight system allows you the same panel lighting options as the Nanoleaf system, albeit a little smaller, but in a movable standalone package.
The panels can produce more than 16 million colours, and their movability make them particularly good for gamers – they are fully compatible with Razer’s Chroma ecosystem for game-focused smart lighting.
Cost: $123.49 (around £100)
PHILIPS HUE SYNC TV APP
They say: Sync the lights in your home theatre to anything you watch on your Samsung TV – no matter how you play it.
The Hue Sync TV app works with native smart apps such as Netflix and Disney+, HDMI devices, and set-top boxes.
We say: The new Philips Hue Sync TV app sadly only works on the latest Samsung TVs – you can buy and download it directly to the TV itself from the Samsung store.
You also need a Philips Hue lighting system, so given the cost of the app itself, we are talking about a set-up that may well be prohibitively expensive for most. What it does is allow you to sync your Hue system with whatever is playing on your TV, so the ambient light in your room extends the colours and mood of what’s going on on the screen.
It works not just with video, but also with games.
Cost: £114.99