Smart Lighting: A Complete Guide
Last Updated: Feb 23, 2025In the course of just a few short decades, household lighting options have exploded onto the scene. Gone are those simple, energy-hogging incandescent bulbs replaced by a seemingly endless array of energy-efficient smart lighting gadgets. LED lighting not only drastically reduced the energy consumption of households across the country but also opened up a whole new array of unique, customized lighting options for homeowners.
According to one recent market analysis, the smart lighting market had an estimated value of USD 16.2 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 74.30 billion by 2026. That amounts to an almost 30 percent compound annual growth rate over the next five years. The increasing popularity and acceptance of smart home technology are certainly helping to spur on that impressive growth. Smart home technology continues to find innovative ways to integrate with our home lighting systems. With this, new possibilities for unique, customized, functional, and energy-efficient home lighting schemes will continue to hit the market.
This short Rise article will offer an in-depth product guide on the dozens of different smart lighting options available to the homeowner today.
Table of Contents
- What Is Smart Lighting?
- What Types of Smart Lighting Are Available?
- What Are Smart Light Bulbs?
- What Are Hub-Controlled Smart Lights?
- What Are Smart Switches and Dimmers?
- How Much Energy Can You Save with Smart Lighting?
- Can Smart Lighting Improve Your Health?
- How Long Does Smart Lighting Last?
- How To Install Smart Lighting
- What Are The Best Brands of Smart Lighting?
- What Are the Best Smart Lights for Value and Ease of Use?
- What Is the Best Whole-House Smart Lighting System?
- What Are the Best Smart Lights for Unique Lighting Schemes and Setups?
- Which Smart Light Switches Are The Best?
- Are Smart Lighting Starter Kits Available?
- What Else Might You Need?
- What Are The Benefits and Drawbacks of Smart Lighting?
What Is Smart Lighting?
The word "SMART" in technology refers to "self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology." Smart technology does allow the lighting fixtures in your home to increase their scope and functionality. At the most basic level, smart lighting systems can be controlled remotely, most often via an app that you operate on your smartphone or computer. For this to work, smart lighting generally relies on different types of wireless transmissions to send and receive their signals. Smart lighting can connect to your smart home hub via built-in Wi-Fi radios to connect directly with your router or Bluetooth connectivity.
Other smart lighting options incorporate motion and lighting sensors that will automatically turn on and off, given the amount of detected light or the presence of people and movement in a given space. These simple features can reduce wasted energy that comes with accidentally leaving lights on when the home is unoccupied.
Some of the most advanced smart lighting systems also incorporate certain types of machine learning techniques. The lights automatically monitor and learn the everyday lighting patterns of people who live in the home. This "learning" allows the lights to automatically turn on and off at certain times of the day, given the occupants' everyday habits, thus giving the impression that people are at home when the house is left empty for extended periods.
What Types of Smart Lighting Are Available?
There are dozens of smart lighting options for homeowners to choose from, including smart switches and dimmers, smart light bulbs, and lamps to whole home smart lighting systems.
Below, we will briefly review a few of the most popular types of smart lighting options.
What Are Hub-Controlled Smart Lights?
Hub-controller smart lights are generally larger in scope and can act as a whole-house smart lighting system. You need to carefully source this type of smart lighting system to ensure it is compatible with the smart home hub that you use. For homes with several different smart gadgets, incorporating hub-controlled smart lights can allow for several IFTTT (if this, then that) applications. For example, you can program your smart lighting to change hues given interior temperatures or even outside weather events (purple rain, for all those Prince lovers, for example).
How Long Does Smart Lighting Last?
As we mentioned above, smart lighting products are almost universally designed to work with LED lighting technology. This fact means that the average smart light bulb will last for anywhere between 15 to 25 years or 15,000 to 25,000 hours. In some cases, smart LED lights might have nominally shorter lifespans than non-smart LED bulbs. However, they continue to be much more durable than older incandescent bulbs.
How To Install Smart Lighting
Installing smart lighting can be as simple as taking the smart bulb out of the box and screwing it into your existing socket. Most individual smart light bulbs are compatible with any existing light fixtures and switches, making installation a breeze. To get the added level of control, you will need to download the bulb's dedicated app. Almost every product will give detailed instructions on the box for how to download and operate the app.
For whole-house systems or hub-controlled smart lighting systems, installation can be slightly more complicated. You will first need to ensure that you choose the smart lighting system compatible with the smart home hub you use. If your hub allows IFTTT applications, you can experiment with different custom modes for your smart lighting fixtures.
What Are The Best Brands of Smart Lighting?
There are dozens of different companies and brands producing a wide diversity of smart lighting products. Below, we offer a few suggestions for some of the top brands and products on the market.
What Are the Best Smart Lights for Value and Ease of Use?
Perhaps the lowest cost smart lighting solution is the smart light bulb. If dozens of color settings and IFTTT applications are a bit too much for you, the Wyze Bulb offers a cheap and easy-to-use smart light bulb option. This no-frills bulb is controllable from an app, dimmable, voice-activated, and available for under $10.
What Is the Best Whole-House Smart Lighting System?
Phillips Hue is a leader in several different types of smart lighting products. Their smart sensors and switches can be coupled with smart bulbs or other types of smart lamps and fixtures for a smart lighting solution in every room in your home. Without a doubt, the Phillips Hue smart light bulb is one of the most well-known products on the market in this category. Phillips Hue bulbs work with many different smart home devices such as Amazon Echo, Apple HomeKit, and Google Home. The Phillips Hue white starter kits start at around $70 and allow you to turn on and off your lights from anywhere in the world, as long as you have a Wi-Fi signal. If you wanted to add some color and ambiance to your home, you could purchase the multi-color starter kit described below.
However, a few other companies are giving Phillips a run for their money with new, more cost-effective offerings. Other smart bulbs on the market include the LIFX Color, Yeelight LED Bulb 1S, Globe A19, and Wyze Bulb lines of smart bulbs. These bulbs connect over your home Wi-Fi network (without a separate hub being necessary) and give you many different light colors. With the downloadable apps, you can even program these lights to automatically turn on and off when you are not at home to confuse potential burglars. These are all compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, and Yeelight is also compatible with the Apple HomeKit.
What Are the Best Smart Lights for Unique Lighting Schemes and Setups?
Lumie Luxe offers a wide variety of smart lighting products that promise to "revolutionize your daily routine with light therapy." Their colored lighting is designed to help improve your mood, protect your sleep, and wake you up. Sleepace Nox Light offers a smart night light that can monitor, track and improve your sleep quality.
Motion Sensors are another accessory that you might want to invest in to complete your smart lighting system. Instead of having to turn on lights with a switch, these sensors will turn on the lights when you're in the room or when an unexpected guest makes their way into your home. The Phillips Hue Motion Sensor starts at just $40. Some smart switches also come with motion sensors now - like the GE Engrighten Z-Wave Plus, which retails for $50 and is compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.
