The rooms of your home have various purposes at different times of the day or year. With smart lights, you can create the optimal ambiance for any activity.
Add colour easily and effectively
Globe Smart 4-light Track Bar, $159.99. *Local purchase
Multicolour lighting isn’t new and the smart version has been available for over a decade. You can use your smartphone to adjust the colour and intensity of smart light bulbs and create a comforting mood in your home. You can even combine several bulbs in a single room to set the scene for celebrations like Halloween, Christmas, Hannukah or Easter.
Smart multicolour lighting became more popular thanks to Philips and its line of Hue products, which continue to be a reliable option for the home. However, there is a wider range of interesting options available now, including Globe Electric, a Montreal company founded in 1932.
It has a number of smart products, including a line of colour-changing bulbs and light fixtures. You can use these to add life to your living room, kitchen or even your outdoor patio. There are also interesting high-tech tools for your BBQ.
Budget-wise, a colour-changing light bulb costs about $20, while a table lamp or light fixture can be a couple of hundred dollars, depending on size and features.
Add novel shapes to your environment
Nanoleaf Elements wood look hexagons, from $299.99. *Local purchase
If you want to take your smart lighting to the next level, take a look at LED panels in various shapes, such as lines, triangles, squares or hexagons. There are tons to choose from to create a shape on a wall or even the ceiling. The panels can be linked, and each can have its own colour to make a digital work of art.
You can also create animation with the panels to make an even bigger statement. For instance, imagine a lighting installation that takes on the colours of your favourite sports team or that simulates an idyllic sunset.
There are several manufacturers now offering this type of product, but the real innovator in the area of LED panels is Nanoleaf, a Canadian company headquartered in Toronto. Over the years, this company has diversified its models, allowing for increasingly spectacular setups.
The different product lines tend to offer a starter set, including the control module and a few panels, for between $100 and $250. From there, you can add extra panels with their expansion packs.
Turn your living room into a dance floor
Nanoleaf backlit colour changing smart light bars, from $279.99. *Local purchase
Music and dance lovers will be thrilled to add a module to synchronize their coloured lights to the beat. With a variety of options for the animation and movement, you can truly customize your pop-up dance club.
Each manufacturer has its own way to sync with the music, so you can choose based on the light bulbs or panels installed in your home. Nanoleaf and Govee products stand out from the rest because they use a mic, which lets them adapt to a variety of music sources, including an old-school turntable.
Several brands of panels have music synchronization included, so generally, you don’t need to make an additional investment.
Give movie-watching a whole new dimension
Govee DreamView RGBIC LED TV backlight, $109.99
Colour amps up the experience of watching a movie the same way it does listening to music! With visual synchronisation, you can hook up your home theatre system to your smart lighting and synchronize the colours of the room to what you’re seeing on-screen. This will take your viewing to a whole new level, putting you right in the action.
The industry’s big players have sped up the development of this product in recent years, including Govee, which offers noticeable simplicity and affordability. The system uses a camera you install on top of your TV screen to capture the image’s main colours.
The technology then projects those colours onto your wall using an LED light bar installed on your device or narrow floor lamps. The results will take your breath away. You’ll also be amazed by the price of this gadget. You can equip your home theatre for about $100.
For the best experience, here are 5 ways to improve your home theatre.
Whether you want to add a little colour to your decor or give new life to your listening or viewing activities, smart ambient lighting is the way to go. It will give you a whole new experience.
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