Smart Bulb or Smart Switch? Pros, Cons & Practical Guide

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Gained early experience with automation technology in the private and industrial sector, can turn his living room into a movie theater with one voice command and is the owner of this website. He is happy to share his accumulated experience with every new article.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Smart Lights

PRO:

Usable without complex installation
arbitrarily controllable for dimming, colour and time
simple approach
favourable with a limited number of terminals.

CON:

very expensive for a fully equipped apartment
for higher demands only usable with bridge
comparatively slow
Light switches must always be on.
“Smart home” solution only manufacturable on a limited scale.

Check Price:

AMAZON*

Advantages and Disadvantages of Smart Light Switches

PRO:

A wide range of possibilities
no delay or interference due to radio
every end device smart controllable
high profile depth
low-cost end devices, especially lamps

CON:

Often higher costs for initial installation

Check Price:

AMAZON*

The smart light bulb – the beginning of modern light management

With LED technology, an enormous advance in lighting technology has already been achieved. Before, electric light was either a gigantic waste of energy or a health hazard. The classic light bulbs, which are banned today for good reason, had an efficiency of just 5 percent!

This means that 95% of the supplied energy was converted into heat and only the tiny remainder into light. The briefly available “energy-saving lamps” were based on luminous gas technology. Their light, however, not only had an unhealthy spectrum. When a bulb broke, toxic mercury leaked out. The service life of both light sources was also severely limited.

LED lamps have done away with these disadvantages: a 10-fold better efficiency is complemented by a more than 10-fold longer service life. It is therefore not wrong to say that LED lamps are 100 times better than classic light bulbs. But the real potential of LED lights came with RGB LEDs and smarthome control. RGB means red-green-blue. The bulbs can change color at the touch of a button to match the mood of the room with pinpoint accuracy. With the smart home control, this is also possible with the mobile phone or via voice assistant also by word command.

What are the benefits of smart home lighting?

Light is switched on and off by a switch next to the door. This is how it has been done for almost 120 years, when electric light replaced the candle and the oil lamp. At some point the dimmer was added, but that was it for most people on the subject of light in the house. Now, however, home lighting can do so much more. With a smart control of your illuminants, you have the following options to choose from:

accurate timing
any number of light profiles and atmospheres
Daylight to wake up, sunset to go in the evening
remote control lighting
Warning and signal lighting.

Once you’ve set up timed lighting, you won’t want to miss it. Getting out of bed and walking into the kitchen and bathroom bathed in simulated daylight will wake you up much faster. When you leave the house, you no longer have to worry about whether all the lights in the house are really switched off.

At the end of the day, your home welcomes you in a picturesque sunset atmosphere. This is incredibly calming and lets the evening come to an end in a relaxed manner. If you want to monitor your home with a camera, you can specifically switch the light on or off. This makes you independent of the night vision function of your surveillance camera. Finally, you can also use your whole house lighting as an alarm system.

If all lamps flash synchronously in an SOS rhythm, the attention of passers-by and neighbours is guaranteed. Such a light profile can even save your life under certain circumstances.

Favourable entry

The good news is that if you just want to try out smart home control, you can do so for very little money. As long as it’s a standalone solution, you don’t even need a bridge in between.

This means that the products optimized for Amazon Alexa or Google Home are practically ready to go. If you haven’t had any experience with smart home yet, this could be your opportunity. Just equip your bedside lamp with such a smart bulb. You will see that this brings many advantages and significantly increases your living comfort.

Too expensive for whole apartments

The thing with the conversion of your lighting to Smart looks already different, if you have come to the taste. Light bulbs can be expensive in a normal living room. The typical lamps in an average living-dining room are as follows:

5-branch chandelier above the dining table
3-piece hanging lamp in the sofa area
Floor lamp with 3 lights
Showcase lighting
Backlight for the TV.

That makes a total of 13 lamps. Calculated for the whole house, this adds up to a higher three-digit amount. In this case, the bridge-less installation no longer makes sense. The WLAN-controlled lamps can also be switched in groups within narrow limits.

For a real smart home solution, however, this technical approach is too slow and too inflexible. Especially the latency of the wireless technology spoils the smart home pleasure for many.

How smart radio-based LED lights work

LED light bulbs with integrated smart home function can work in the following ways:

WLAN without Bridge
Zigbee with Bridge
Thread
optionally with Bluetooth

WLAN lamps are the named light sources for the entry. They are controlled via the smartphone. Voice control can also work via the normal app. A separate voice assistant device is not required. This solution is quite usable for individual lamps or small groups for starters. What quickly gets in the way, however, is that purely WLAN-controlled lamps react quite slowly.

Zigbee is the radio standard for smart home controls, especially for the light bulbs. A bridge, for example the Philips Hue, is required for this. Zigbee is comparable to Bluetooth, but offers significant advantages in comfort and speed. Bluetooth LED lamps are therefore admittedly available.

However, this wireless standard is only offered as a backup option for most products. This is useful in case the bridge fails. Then you can at least still switch the light on and off. A comfortable smart control of your living room lighting is only on Bluetooth but only poorly implementable.

Thread is being touted as the successor to Zigbee and the wireless standard for smarthome controls of the future. The biggest advantage of Thread is that it is a uniform standard. You are independent of the manufacturers of your devices with Thread control. Bridges and end devices are arbitrarily compatible with each other under Thread. This is only partially the case with the previous standards.

All radio standards can be combined with normal voice assistants.

Light switch trap

Smart light bulbs are installed in conventional installations. On the technology side, the old light bulb is simply replaced with a smart bulb – done. But now it is important that the light ALWAYS remains switched on. As soon as you flip the light switch and disconnect the bulb from the circuit, it stays off.

Depending on the manufacturer, you will then have to go through a complex installation and set-up process after switching on the light. The old habit of switching off the light when leaving the room is therefore very disadvantageous here. But don’t worry: the power consumption for standby is negligible. Your smart LED lights are therefore anything but creeping power guzzlers.

What does “Smart Installation” mean?

Imagine the following scenario: You treat yourself to a soothing relaxing bath after a long, hard week at work. After a while, you notice that the light in the bathroom is a bit too bright. You would also like some music. After the bath, you’re looking forward to a freshly made coffee and want to end the evening in your living room with atmospheric lighting.

Without smart home control, this heavenly scenario remains nothing more than wishful thinking. Every action you have to take disrupts your relaxation effect in the long term. With a smart home control, all you have to do is tell your voice assistant what you want. This is exactly what a smart electrical installation can offer.

Professional solution with an open end: The smart light switch

The illuminants described are a good introduction to smart home control. However, they are only the first steps into a world with practically unlimited possibilities. If you really want to go in depth, then these LED lamps quickly come to the end of their technical potential. With the remotely controllable light switch (and plugs), the real “smart home” really begins.

The biggest advantage is already obvious here. If the power supply is smart, the end device no longer needs to be. It is therefore irrelevant whether a lamp or a toaster is connected to the end of the circuit. With a home installation optimised for Smarthome, every connected end device can be used dynamically.

However, with that also comes the disadvantages. A smart electrical installation is not for do-it-yourselfers. Legally, you are only allowed to change the light bulbs in your home. Anything beyond that must be done by a professional. Even if you think you can just install a plug or a switch, don’t bother. The hassles of DIY at this point aren’t worth the savings.

The dangers range from dangerous electric shocks to cable fires. Even insidious mistakes can have expensive consequences – even if it only drives up your electricity bill. If your house burns down because of a faulty electrical wiring, you have an additional problem. Your insurance company will deny you compensation in this case. A smart home installation far exceeds the complexity of traditional electrical wiring. This additionally excludes this work from any do-it-yourself approach.

Include smart home in new construction

The ideal time to install a professional smart home installation is during new construction or core renovation. The wiring is quite complex and costly. A room-by-room conversion is also possible, but it will be very expensive. Plus, it will either get you a permanent construction site in your house or you’ll have to live with an incomplete solution until the end of the project.

However, if you plan a consistent smart home control system when building a new house, the installation costs are only slightly higher compared to the classic electrical installation. After all, the slots that have to be chiseled are identical. But in return, you get significant cost savings on the end devices.

Furthermore, the conversion to smart home is no longer limited to the illuminants. Smart wiring makes every end device remotely controllable, as long as its technology allows it. However, as the trend is clearly moving in the direction of the smart home, manufacturers of household appliances will continue to adapt their products to this.

The “smart toaster” will thus become reality much faster than one would like to assume today. Smart refrigerators, for example, have already established themselves. These automatically scan their stock and inform their owners about products that need to be purchased. Today, in addition to lighting, the following end devices are typically connected to a smart home control system:

Heating
Air conditioning
electric shutters
Alarm system
Garage door
Coffee machines
Lawn Sprinkler
Pool heater
Surveillance cameras
Washing machines and dryers
Hifi equipment.

Converting a normal home wiring to smart home makes virtually any terminal device remotely controllable. As long as you’re out of the house, you can organize your devices with your smartphone. Your options go far beyond just turning them on and off. Time controls are also possible. When you’re at home, you can also control your devices with your voice assistant.

Perfect with profiles

Whether you switch your end devices on or off by pressing a button, tapping on your smartphone or using a voice command: A true “smart home” is still not really. The full potential of this fascinating technology can only be tapped if you use it in an appropriately smart way.

This includes setting up profiles. Lighting control is particularly accessible here. Many profiles have already been programmed into the smarthome control via voice assistants. You can use these as a basis for customization. Ask Siri for “warm lighting” and you’ll get slightly dimmed lights in shades of yellow and red. Now, with simple commands like “10% dimmer, 20% more red,” etc., you can get closer and closer to your desired lighting atmosphere.

Once you have reached your ideal state, you can also give the profile a name by voice command and save it. The number of profiles is unlimited. However, limit yourself to a maximum of 10 profiles at the beginning so that you don’t lose track of them. You can do the same with your audio system and your heating. Finally, combine the light, device and climate profiles into combination profiles. You can then activate the profile on the way home and have the perfectly prepared apartment when you arrive at home.

The Smart Plug – the Perfect Solution?

Between the smart light bulb and the smart, hardwired light switch, there is still an intermediate solution: the smart plug!

This device works similar to the light bulb. The plug is simply plugged into the existing power outlet. The process of installation is similar to the incandescent bulbs. This gives you a power source that is ready for all smart home applications. With this solution, you are no longer limited to light bulbs for smart control.

In fact, you can also use the smart plug to control your coffee machine, your garage door or your electric shutters. However, this solution also has disadvantages. The devices are sometimes quite bulky and protrude far into the room. Depending on the position of the wall connection, this can lead to space problems.

The advantage is that these additional plug are now very versatile and convenient. An integrated power consumption measurement or a USB port is already standard with most devices.

Individual solutions and decision-making processes

Unfortunately, you can’t just convert a house into a hard-wired smart home. But the smart RGB light bulbs offer a good introduction and a foretaste of what this technology is capable of.

With lighting that is perfectly controllable and programmable in terms of light intensity and colour, you have already achieved a lot for a pleasant feel-good atmosphere. If you are afraid of the high costs of a new installation, then we advise you to wait a little longer. Technology is advancing all the time. Today, there are already smart plugs with which you can also remotely control non-lighting devices.

With wireless technology, you always have to reckon with latency times. In addition, these alternatives to classic wiring also have their price. However, these disadvantages are compensated by the fast availability. With the increasing popularity of smart home technology, there will soon be very interesting solutions for everyone.