Smart light: lighting control capabilities
The term "smart light" refers to an environment controlled by lighting control systems. These systems take into account such factors as the presence of people in the room, the illumination and the time of day to turn the lamps on and off, thereby saving the user’s electricity and money.
The popularity of smart lighting products is constantly growing. In fact, the smart light market is the fastest growing in the industry engaged in the production of lighting equipment. It is expected that by 2020 its value will be $ 8.14 billion with an average annual growth rate of 22.07% from 2015 to 2020. This is largely contributed to the laws of the government on the economy of electricity.
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Smart light is a system that includes lighting devices and electronic systems that control them. Lighting components come in all sorts of different types: fluorescent lamps, diode lamps, xenon lamps, and others. Control systems include sensors, microcontrollers, receivers, and other elements responsible for the behavior of light.
In principle, it is possible to manage with ordinary light bulbs, but, unfortunately, they cannot provide the whole range of solutions that we have in the era of the Internet of things. Classic lamps are binary devices, that is, they have only two states: on or off. There are often no intermediate options - this is how light bulbs work from the time when they first appeared in our homes.
Smart lamps work differently and provide great control. Due to the fact that they use wireless technology, you can control the light from anywhere on Earth using mobile devices or a laptop.
Smart lighting devices allow you to create a personalized and intelligent environment. Smart light has a large number of useful features, for example, the system will be able to simulate your presence in the house when you are away, automatically dim the light when you turn on the TV, perform alarm functions or signal you with incoming calls and messages. Moreover, the lamps can be turned on automatically when the user comes home, and controlled by voice commands.
By installing motion sensors, you can adjust the work of lamps in the corridors, outbuildings, and so on, that is, where people usually do not stay long. Automatic light control saves a person from having to look for a switch in the dark: the house will take care of everything, for example, by turning on the light on the landing before entering the apartment.
However, do not forget about service companies and electricity suppliers. They also benefit from customers using smart technologies. They have the opportunity to view the statistics of energy consumed and, based on the data, automatically dim the light by 10% during peak hours - the user will not notice this difference, but will notice and say “thank you” to his wallet.
By combining wireless technology with energy-efficient lamps in one compact solution, we were able to change the usual order of things. Light scenarios are a real treasure for an interior designer. By highlighting some elements of the interior with light and hiding others in the dim light, it is possible to form several design options at once in the same room.
The term “smart lighting” can be given a different meaning, depending on whether you want to have a flexible and fully functional independent solution or integrate lighting devices into a larger home automation system. As for the first case, there is a large selection of products from different manufacturers in the field of independently functioning devices. These are mostly smart light bulbs, visually very similar to their brothers with filaments.
Here are a couple of examples of such devices.
Photo: philips.ru
The Philips Hue lamp allows you to remotely control lighting, create and adjust the desired indoor atmosphere using the app on your smartphone or tablet. The device has a couple of interesting modes, such as: "Invigorating light" when the lamps are turned on at full brightness, and "For reading" - in this case, all the selected lamps will change the light to white with an optimal level of brightness.
Photo: lifxrus.ru
Functionally, LIFX bulbs are similar to Philips Hue, but, unlike the latter, they do not need a special transmitter (hue bridge). The devices connect to the home Wi-Fi router directly, without intermediaries. If there are several lighting elements from LIFX in the room at once, they transmit a signal along the chain in order not to overload the router.
Photo: engadget.com
Vocca is not a light bulb - it is a smart cartridge for them. The device acts as an intermediary between a conventional lamp and a conventional cartridge. The smart gadget has a speech recognition function, giving the user control over the lighting with the help of passphrases.
As for the situation, when you would like to integrate devices into the global smart home system, in this case, the bulbs most often do not have “smart” components, but are controlled by controllers.
Cordless lamps may not be the best solution, since their price is quite high: the cheapest LED lamp costs at least $ 15, and the cost of color-changing lamps can reach $ 70 (and more). Moreover, if you replace all the ordinary bulbs in your apartment with smart ones, the smartphone will become the only way to control - this is not the most sensible solution, although in some situations it is ideal.
A more intelligent solution would be to use wireless switches and dimmers. They work in the same way as conventional devices of this type - you can approach them and manually adjust the brightness of the lighting - but in addition you can control at a distance using mobile devices.
Examples of such switches are:
Photo: electronichouse.com
Linear Z-Wave Dimmer, which works with various Z-Wave hubs and supports halogen, xenon, LED-lamps and incandescent lamps.
Photo: electronichouse.com
Belkin WeMo Light Switch, which does not require a special hub for work: it only needs a Wi-Fi network and an iOS device.
In conclusion, I would like to note that, as a rule, building an intelligent home begins with the function of controlling lighting, since this function alone can significantly transform your experience of being in your home.
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/395155/
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