Keen gardeners and botanists are often seen in movies with a bunch of red lights perched over their precious plants, to help them grow. Since smart bulbs can emit red light, can you use them for your plants? A lot of ‘off the shelf’ smart bulbs are not ideal for plant growth, but some smart … Read more
Smart bulbs are one of the most popular – and fun – smart products available on the market. After all, you can change their color to anything you want, and sync the bulb to music or your TV (depending on the bulb manufacturer). But sometimes they don’t work too well with wall switches – whether … Read more
I’ll openly admit that when I first started looking into smart lighting, I got confused by all the different terms. Should I buy WiFi or ZigBee bulbs? Do I want RGB, RGBW, RGBWW… or RGB-CCT?! Should I care? And when I finally settled on Philips Hue, I was confused as to whether I should buy … Read more
I recently purchased a Philips Hue starter kit and four candle bulbs, but due to having limited space (and power outlets) by the router in my living room, I instead installed my Hue Hub (the Bridge v2) up in my attic. I was able to do this because I already have full networking (and power) … Read more
The Philips Hue Bridge (or the Starter Kits, which ship with a Bridge) are fairly clear about a seemingly unimportant limitation: “the Hue Bridge allows you to connect and control up to 50 lights and accessories” – Hue Bridge marketing information, 2020. When you’re just starting out on your smart phone journey, 50 lights seems … Read more
New Wi-Fi standards are rolling out and this is shaking up smart devices across the board. One of the types of devices that are facing their biggest change is the humble smart light bulb. The increasing popularity of 5 GHz Wi-Fi networks is causing some trouble for 2.4 GHz-only smart bulbs. There are currently very … Read more
Smart lights are awesome, as many people can agree. The ability to control more than one light with just the mere touch of a button or voice command is extremely convenient in a variety of situations. They’re convenient, they can be festive, and can really help set the mood at home. Smart lighting can affect … Read more
Smart light switches are still something of a wild west frontier when it comes to smart home technology. They’re just starting to become as popular as the smart lights they control and this means there’s still a lot of conflict when it comes to how they connect to smart hubs. This leaves us with some … Read more
When people think of smart lighting, they usually think of the obvious: full color (RGB) bulbs. Setting rooms to bright green, or dancing to strobe lighting effects. But I actually prefer a less discussed smart lighting feature: motion sensitive lighting. This is simple to set up, and it feels like something out of sci-fi. I … Read more
Smart homes are great, but sometimes it’s not always clear how to use smart devices to make your home more Christmasy. This video covers five simply ways that you can use common smart devices to smarten up your Christmas. The individual sections of the video are at the timestamps below: 0:00 – Intro 0:19 – … Read more