What should you know about smart bulbs?

When Einstein discovered the photoelectric effect – the emission of electrons when light hits a material – he was lauded around the world as smart. And not just Einstein, we’ve known ingenious minds being called smart minds. Chances are, you also might have called a few as smart after realizing their genius — but bulbs!? What are smart bulbs? And how smart are these?

What is a smart bulb or light?

A smart bulb is a bulb that we can control wirelessly, or it is a bulb that can follow certain rules rather than just turning on and off. Imagine entering your bedroom after a tiring day; as soon as you enter your bedroom, the lights there welcome you with a soothing ambiance. Or take another scenario – suppose you leave your home for a month-long trip and, while on the plane, you realize that the master light was left turned on. What do you do? You pick up your phone, open your home automation app, and turn off the light – You save yourself some money and ease.

These bulbs use Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or ZigBee technology to connect through other IoT (Internet of Things) products. IoT products are appliances that can be connected and communicated with through the same wireless network. At present, there are thousands of useful products that you can connect to your IoT network. You may buy these from websites selling home and garden products. For example, you can connect your pool lights, gate lock, CCTVs, shower, AC, fan, etc., to a single home automation app and control all of these.

Smart bulbs can come in different types:

• Single-color bulbs – white, yellow, green, etc.

• RGB bulbs with millions of colors.

• LED light strip

• Nanoleaf shapes hexagon

• Spotlight and trail lights

• Café lights

• Usher lights

All these lights can be connected to a phone app and controlled for different colors, timings, brightness, frequencies, etc.

Now, what are the things that you must take care of while buying smart lights?

Things you must know about smart bulbs

When a new technology arrives, alongside arrive many vulnerabilities. The best defense is to load yourself with the required knowledge. Here is what you must know about smart bulbs beforehand:

• Hackers can easily hack your WiFi using a vulnerable smart bulb. And this case is not only with smart bulbs but any IoT product. A person packed with the knowledge of encryption algorithms, keys, mesh networking, etc., can easily inject the data packets through the smart bulbs and capture the WiFi details. While buying any smart product, always ensure that the product uses the latest security technology.

• Smart bulbs come in different watts and lumens. While ‘watt’ is the power consumption unit, ‘lumen’ measures the brightness of the bulb. The higher the lumen, the brighter the light. A natural daylight bulb has lumens hovering around 800 and watts of around 8 to 12.

• You can actually create different ambiances with RGB colors. For example, you can create a soothing sunrise and a sunset by setting a certain rule through the app. This will help you correct your circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythm is our body’s natural clock that helps us wake up and sleep according to sunrise and sunset.

• Smart bulbs are not costly. Although listening to the word smart might evoke in you a sense of a higher-end product, smart bulbs actually come cheaper. They usually cost around $10 and $20. You may find them cheaper at alternatives to eBay. If you are going for a fancy light like a spotlight or trail light, you might have to invest a bit more.

These are all the basics of smart