For decades lights have been regulated by a switch. Switch on, switch-off — that is all most lamps can do. But that is no longer the case. And only choosing between white and bright no longer has to be the case either. Smart lighting solutions bring a large number of functions into play.
The power of colour
You know the feeling: On a nice summer’s day you could take on anything, but you would prefer to stay in bed when it is grey and rainy outside.
Scientists are confident that light and colour have a significant impact on human well-being. The right light increases concentration and at the same time health and well-being.
The University Medical Center Hamburg, for example, experimented together with Philips on dynamic lighting in schools.
The result: When the researchers chose bright, bluish light, the performance of students increased immensely.
Light with a high yellow content, on the other hand, showed a soothing effect.
Easy operation via app or voice command
With smart lighting solutions you can adjust not only the brightness, but also the hue.
On request, LEDs can shine in almost any colour. This enables completely new possibilities for lighting design.
Via app or voice command, the mood in a room can be changed in seconds — for example from a cold white working environment to a cosy warm white. If you want to set coloured accents, you can choose, for example, a red romantic or modern blue light depending on your mood.
As you can group several lamps together, it is possible to design the light across the entire room. But that’s not all: Modern solutions that turn on and off automatically.
A great solution for early risers: Set your alarm clock with the colour morning red with a gradual increase in brightness — the light simulates a gradual sunrise.
Philips Hue: The pioneer
Philips is leading the way with its Hue system.
An entry ticket to Philips smart light world costs 185 euro. This starter set contains three coloured LED lights as well as a control unit (bridge).
The installation is very easy and is done in a few minutes: Screw in the bulbs in the lamps (in this case with E27 screw-version), connect the bridge via network cable to the router, download the app (for iOS and Android) and pair with the bridge — it is as easy as that.
The Hue app lets you do a lot of fascinating things. You can define your own scenarios with selected colours and brightness levels. Or you can specify that certain lights turn on automatically when you come home and turn off when you leave the house. Even better: Since Hue supports the internet service IFTT, there are completely new possibilities: For example, you can set that a light flashes when an important e-mail comes in.
Or that the lights turn on automatically as soon as the sun goes down.
Also the design possibilities are endless: In addition to LED bulbs, Philips also has LED strips, a sideboard lamp called Bloom and other products in the range.
Image source: Fotolia / 120975162 / Artur Marciniec
