For many people (including our founder), the first reason why they get interested in smart lights is because it's something they can control with a voice assistant (like Alexa or Google Home). The experience of getting a new voice assistant is an exploration of all the different things they can do for you, and a very visible thing they can do is turn lights on and off. But while there is a benefit of not having to get off the couch to turn the lights on with your voice, there are actually a bunch of smarter ways of controlling your smart lights. Here are a few ideas:
- Turn the lights on at sunset. This was the subject of a previous article. If you get the timing of this right, it feels like your house can read your mind! The trick is to find the right time relative to sunset. It's also useful from a security perspective, but you also need to make sure that also also do the next one...
- Set a "Good night" command. The last person to bed at night can tell your voice assistant and say "Good night". This can include turning off lights, setting some dimmed night lights, turning off heaters and other appliances if they are also connected.
- Make sure all the lights are off at night, even if you're away. This idea saves you having to remember to disable the automatic sunset lights when you're away. Simply set up a routine at a particular time, say midnight, for all your lights to be switched off. This basically makes sure that if you've gone away on holiday, your lights aren't on all night.
- Putting kids to bed (or getting them up). If your kids are anything like ours, getting them to bed can be a challenge. But you can make bedtime fun by giving their lights a set routine for bedtime. For example, you can have all the lights in the house turn blue when it's time for the kids to go to bed, but leave the light normal in their rooms, so they can read for a while. Then you can have the light gradually get dimmer. This actually helps create a sleepy feeling and help them to drop off! Then, the lights can go out automatically at the desired time.
- Use "modes" to set the mood. You can create a few different lighting setups to create different moods. For example, we have a "movie mode" and a "dinner mode" for our lights. It's a great way of changing a bunch of lights with just one command. You can automate them too.
- Connect lights and sensors together. If you want to make things even smarter, you can add some wifi sensors to your home setup. That will enable you to automate turning lights on and off when you go into particular rooms. Great for walk-in-wardrobes and bathrooms, and also hallways or stairs at night.