If you’re wondering what smart recessed lighting can do, you’re not alone.
With this new technology quickly making its way into commercial and residential lighting spaces, it’s essential to get acquainted with what this type of product can do.
The following article will cover everything you need to know about smart recessed lighting systems so that you can start planning how you want to incorporate it into your own home or business!
Contents
What Is Smart Recessed Lighting?
Smart recessed lighting is a fixture built right into your ceiling, and it’s an alternative to traditional recessed lights.
Smart lighting systems like these are easy to install, come in a wide variety of finishes, and can be controlled using mobile apps and voice assistants. In many cases, you’ll have access to features like light scheduling and dimming even if you don’t connect them to other smart devices.
They’re perfect for busy homeowners who want their homes automated but don’t want overkill.
That is, they’ve installed so many smart products that they end up spending more time fiddling with apps than enjoying their home automation system.
After reading more about what a smart recessed light does and how it works, you may want to consider installing one yourself.
What’s the Difference Between Smart Led Lights and Regular LED Lights?
Smart LED lights are a type of LED light connected to a home network, which allows you to control it from your phone or computer.
Smart LEDs can also be dimmed since they’re regular ones but require additional hardware to connect them to your network.
Smart recessed lighting is a perfect example of smart LEDs used innovatively for added convenience.
What Are the Advantages of Smart Recessed Lighting?
One obvious advantage smart recessed lighting offers is convenience; you can control these lights from anywhere in your home.
Another advantage is reduced energy use: They turn on when they detect motion and adjust their brightness accordingly, so lights won’t come on until someone is around to appreciate them—and lights won’t stay on if no one’s around.
How Does Smart Lighting Work?
To control your smart lighting with your voice, you’ll need some smart hub. Hubs are wireless devices that connect to your WiFi network and bridge communications between apps and devices in your home.
Some hubs also have a built-in microphone that can listen for voice commands.
Most smart lights require a hub, like an Amazon Echo or Google Home, to activate and deactivate them remotely—though there are a few other options as well, like IFTTT or Apple’s upcoming HomeKit feature.
If you don’t already have a hub installed in your home, it might be worth investing in one, so you can take advantage of future smart lighting products that hit stores down the road.
Recessed Lighting Installation Considerations
You can hire a lighting specialist to handle your recessed lighting installation or tackle it yourself.
It will probably take two to three hours for a professional to handle, but if you want to save money and learn more about how your home works, DIY is a viable option.
You can purchase all of your recessed lighting parts from a hardware store, including brackets, light fixtures, and wire.
Home improvement stores also offer complete kits ready for self-installation; make sure you review instructions thoroughly, so you don’t mess anything up in the wiring process.
Benefits of Installing LED Lights in Ceilings
LED lights are superior to other lighting options because they are energy efficient and provide better illumination. It is important to note that not all LED light bulbs are created equal; some LED bulbs don’t have all of these advantages.
In addition, some LED bulbs are more expensive than others, making them less attractive for use in recessed lighting.
But despite these potential issues, there are many benefits of smart recessed lighting that make it an increasingly popular option for homeowners and businesses alike. Here is a list of those benefits: –
- They last longer than traditional incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. Many people believe that LEDs burn out much quicker than their incandescent counterparts, but that isn’t true at all.
- They can be turned on or off remotely. LEDs can be controlled with a remote control or through a phone app, making them particularly useful for lighting rooms that people frequently use (such as bedrooms). They can also be programmed to come on and go off at certain times of day, making it possible to create natural light in your home without waiting for sunrise and sunset.
- LED bulbs tend to have a sharper focus than incandescent or fluorescent bulbs, which means they provide brighter illumination over more focused areas.
- They’re available in a wide range of colors, including many shades of white and different hues of color. Most of the smart recessed lights are come with 16M of color. They are also known as color-changing recessed lighting.
With these advantages, it’s easy to see why so many people opt for smart recessed lighting in their homes and businesses, even if they cost more than incandescent bulbs at first glance.
- They require less frequent replacement than most other light bulbs because they have a longer lifespan than most other kinds of light bulbs (50,000 hours on average). So not only will you save money by using LED lights instead of traditional ones, but you’ll save time as well!
Common Questions About Smart LEDS
1. How Do You Make Current Recessed Lights Smart?
When it comes to your home’s lighting, everyone wants to be smart, especially when it comes to saving money. So how do you make current recessed lights smart?
If you live in a house that was built before LEDs were available, chances are you don’t have any smart lights. It’s not like you can go out and replace every single fixture in your house so that they match – right?
Well, actually … Yes! You can make every one of your home’s light fixtures smart simply by using LIFX Z light bulbs or LIFX bulbs.
We recommend using their 9W A19 bulb because it will give you full coverage on recessed lights while only using 8W of energy per bulb.
If you use two bulbs (16W total) to cover every recessed light in your house, you could save up to $50 per year on electricity costs. Now there’s something worth getting excited about.
LIFX lights use 80% less energy than incandescent and halogen bulbs, meaning you’ll get an almost immediate payback on your investment.
Plus, these smart bulbs work with Alexa or Google Assistant – including those hands-free devices like Google Home Mini and Amazon Echo Dot (2nd Generation).
This means turning off your bedroom light while crawling into bed at night is as easy as saying: Hey Google, turn off my bedroom lights. As we mentioned earlier, everything else in a smart home has moved forward; why shouldn’t recessed lighting join them?
2. Can I Put Smart Bulbs in Recessed Lighting?
Yes, you can. There are all sorts of smart recessed light solutions. But before we get into that, let’s quickly break down what recessed lighting is and why it’s so valuable for a home: Lights that are placed inside a hole in your ceiling are called recessed lights.
These can provide general lighting and task lighting (meaning they can focus on reading lamps or dining room tables).
At the same time, we don’t recommend putting them behind heavy drapes or furniture to hide them (like chandeliers) because they do give off quite a bit of light that can make things brighter than you might like them to be.
3. What Do I Need for Smart Lighting Setup?
First, you’ll need a smart hub—one of those devices that acts as a bridge between your devices and your WiFi network. Since we’re talking about recessed lighting, we recommend checking out smart bulbs like Philips Hue White Starter Kit.
It comes with three bulbs and a hub that supports up to 50 lights. The hub also allows you to sync your lights with music from Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, and iHeartRadio, and it gives you voice control via Amazon Alexa. You can use Amazon Echo or Google Home for voice commands.
4. How Do I Set Up Smart Lights in My House?
The first step is figuring out how many smart lights you need.
If you’re looking to replace an existing light, there are three options: Use a smart light bulb; pair a smart dimmer switch with a standard bulb or install a dedicated smart switch.
It depends on your budget and needs. In most cases, it’s easiest to buy kits from lighting companies like Philips Hue or Lutron Caseta that come with everything you need in one package.
Conclusion
Now that you know everything there is to know about smart recessed lighting, what’s your next step?
Well, you can sit back and relax because if you already have a great home and now want to bring in some low-cost recessed lighting to light up certain areas of your home, it’s as easy as putting a lampshade over a light bulb.
If, on the other hand, you want your recessed lights automated to turn on when there is motion and off when everyone has left for work or bed (for example), then you will need smart bulbs.
So that would be pretty cool! The good news is that since these are both relatively simple tasks, it won’t take much time at all to get started.
