Light is immensely important to humans. Depending on the situation, it ensures more comfort and atmosphere. Intelligent lighting can enrich the home or apartment.
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On the one hand, it increases security: motion detectors and a presence simulation during the holiday period make burglars life difficult. It is also easier to avoid accidents if the light is automatically switched on as soon as someone enters a dark room.
Light in the heart
In the era of rising electricity prices, efficiency is becoming increasingly important. It is not without reason that since 2009 energy saving lamps have been prescribed by law. The triumph of LED s is also due to the fact that they are almost 90 percent more economical than traditional tungsten filament bulbs. In the Smart Home, the light can be even more efficient. Motion detectors, for example, in the stairway floor, ensure that only light is lit when someone is actually at home.
Control by view
Auto-off or dimming at certain times of day prevents energy from being wasted unnecessarily when enough free daylight is available. With the help of sensors, lamps can generate only as much light as is necessary to supplement the natural solar radiation. This allows you to save energy even on a cloudy day.
Smart power for intelligent light
Basically, three types of lighting are distinguished: underground lighting is the general lighting of a room. Place lighting concentrates on a certain area, such as the lamp above the dining table. With mood lighting you can finally set with spots and highlights. All these elements can be controlled in a networked home in such a way that they provide the perfect lighting for any occasion.
Intelligent lamps can also play an important role in health. Light has been shown to have a great effect on man's biorhythm. Scientists then speak of the circadian system. We know it as the inner clock: it determines when we get tired in the evening and when we wake up in the morning. For the most part, this watch is also a sundial. Because without natural light, the hormones melatonin and cortisol do not work properly.
Melatonin makes us get tired and sleep at night. Cortisol causes the opposite and makes us awake and concentrated. For people who do not get enough daylight during work, both substances are in the wrong concentration in the body at the wrong time. The consequences are headaches, sleep disorders and even depression.
Daylight has a light color of approximately 5,500 to 10,000 Kelvin. During the day, lamps with 6,000 to 8,000 Kelvin are therefore recommended for interiors, which correspond approximately to the natural light. This increases concentration and activity.
In contrast to the evening and nighttime, warm-light sources are recommended with less than 3,300 Kelvin. The home lighting can be adapted to your own biorhythm by means of the corresponding programming and with strategically placed luminaires with different light temperatures.
The colors of light are also significant: yellow has a soothing effect, green stimulates creativity and violet can have a stimulating effect. In the bedroom you should avoid blue and create comfort with red.
With almost every smart home provider, lighting control is also an important aspect. In principle, the signals from sensors, such as the switch to the actuators, ie the lamps in this case, have to pass.
In particular for apartments are fun solutions like the system HomeMatic from eQ-3. For this, no cables have to be laid, but the radioactors for 40 euros are simply installed in a standardized flush-mounted socket. In addition there are adapters for switches from different manufacturers like Jung or Busch-Jaeger.
Together with the HomeMatic control center (200 Euro) various programming options can be set, such as time circuits or the integration of motion detectors. For example, you can be awakened by an artificial sunrise. If you want to use everything only via the switches, you can do without the central unit and set up the devices via USB stick for 30 euros. Direct operation via a remote control for about 130 euros is also possible. The whole thing also works over an app on the smartphone. Especially nice: HomeMatic also offers radio wall buttons with display.
The spirit from the lamp
The SmartHome from RWE is also based on HomeMatic technology. Here, for example, you can enter the comfort package light into the lighting control. The RWE SmartHome central unit, a flush-mounted light switch and two flush-mounted dimmers as well as a motion sensor and a radio inter-connector are available for € 460. In addition you can then add a wall transmitter. This switch is battery powered and can be easily installed anywhere on the wall, about the bed.
In the evening you could easily delete the light in the apartment or in the house by pushing the button. The control center can be set up via the PC and operated via the app on the smartphone. HomeMatic is also one of the partners of the QIVICON telecoms solution, which is to be available at the end of this year.
Light in the new building
Similar to RWE SmartHome, the TechniHome TechniHome, which is due to be launched early next year, also works. Instead of using the closed radio standard BidCoS from eQ-3 it works with the open standard Z-Wave.
At the same time, the American engineering company wants to enter the LED lamp market with TechniLux. The Joonior Smart Building of Telefunken is based on the radio standard EnOcean. The base station for 500 euros works over WLAN.
If you do not have your own internet, you can buy a base station for 100 euros, which builds your own network via GPRS. The connected devices can then be controlled via an app - also via remote access from the road. For the light control, telephoning offers dimmed dimming, programmable buttons or the setting of motion sensors. A dimming actuator costs about 110 euros.
More than just color
In the system of digitalSTROM, the control is not carried out via radio, but via the power supply itself, to which the devices are connected. For this purpose, chandelier clamps are installed which contain the control electronics. The digitalSTROM meter is used as a central element for 220 euros, which is installed directly in the fuse box.
In addition, the digitalSTROM filter eliminates disturbances from the electrical network for 58 euros. However, the digitalSTROM server (404 euros), which can be used to control the system via WLAN or on the move with the help of apps, is really smart.
The practical feature of this solution is that the chandelier clamps can be installed easily and practically invisibly behind switches or in the case of light sources directly into the lamp. In addition, the meter measures the current consumption, so it can also be programmed to save energy. A clip costs upwards from 80 euros.
The solution of ESYLUX is also based on the Powerline principle. As with digitalSTROM, chandelier clamps (approx. 90 to 120 Euro) are installed directly into the switches. The setup can be done via a PC, then you need a USB gateway for 604 euros. Alternatively, the system can be operated via the iPhone, as well as the free X-Remote app, a USB adapter is required (77 euros). A motion detector from ESYLUX can also be included.
At Philips, the lamps themselves are intelligent. Your Hue LEDs can also shine in all colors. But even here networking is not without a central office. In the case of Hue, this is the "bridge", which is connected to WLAN and power and communicates with the lights via the radio standard Zig-Bee. With an app on the smartphone or tablet you can then control up to 50 Hue lamps. It is available for both Android and Apple smartphones, while on a Windows Phone you need to use the Oni: Light Control app.
The system can also be controlled from the road. Of all lighting control solutions, this is one of the simplest. Especially great: Philips allows third-party developers to use their software for the development of their own apps. For example, the (paid) App Hue Disco came out: this transforms the home into a party location where the lights pulsate in the beat of the music.
Another fantastic app comes from Philips itself: With Ambilight + Hue, the Hue lamps are integrated into the light atmosphere of recent Philips TV sets (since 2010), so that the whole living room the mood of the respective television scenes. After Hue's only LED lights with an E27 socket, Philips has recently also launched GU10 reflector lamps for its system, which are also equipped with RGB LEDs.
A starter set with three reflector lamps and bridge costs just as much as the package with E27 lights: 200 euros. For each additional lamp, whether reflector or not, you pay 60 euros. Even more favorable is the lighting set RGB of Pearl s radio solution CASAControl. The starter set with base station and three color LED lights with E27 socket cost 120 euros, each additional lamp 35 euros. The app (for iOS or Android) is free.
If you build a house anyway, you can also use a fieldbus solution for networking, which includes a light control. The term BUS (Binary Unit System) refers to a system for data transmission between several subscribers. In this sense, radio is also a bus system. However, in the case of a fieldbus, communication takes place via a separate cable, which must be installed in the house or in the apartment.
The most common standard is KNX / EIB. Several suppliers such as Gira, Loxone, Jung, Merten and Busch-Jaeger offer KNX home automation systems. The advantage of KNX is that different solutions can also be partly combined with one another. And radio adapters can be used to integrate even the most common solutions without cables.
In addition, many KNX systems are compatible with DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface), a manufacturer-wide standard for lighting control over five-core Nym cables.
Gira offers a KNX home automation system. Here, the control unit, the HomeServer 4, costs about 2,200 euros. Other KNX systems dispense with a central gateway. The control can be done via an app, but Gira also offers its own PC-based control center with a touch screen, which is similar to a tablet. Various switch systems can also be installed.
Jung offers as an alternative to KNX an EnOcean solution (which can also be combined with KNX). Merten, on the other hand, relies on the Z-Wave radio standard, Busch-Jaeger on Powerline.
For lighting control, Gira and Jung and Merten also developed a standard for LED dimmers called Ledotron. Dimming is performed digitally via the power line. Gira's Ledotron kit contains a control unit for the flush-mounted switch and an Osram lamp for the standard E27 socket. Until now, the lamps are only dimmable, but Osram plans to soon offer RGB LEDs with Ledotron. These can then be used to program similar tones as with Philips Hue.
This is already possible with the RGBW LEDs from Brumberg. These can change not only the color, but even the light temperature in a range of 2,000 to 10,000 Kelvin. According to the same principle as Philips Hue, these lamps can be controlled with an app via WLAN.
However, the WLAN center with 961 euros is not exactly cheap, and the cheapest LED light costs 187 euros. After all, the lamps can also be controlled with KNX via Jung's facility pilot. At the Loxone Miniserver the house automation is also controlled by a server (415 Euro), which is integrated in the house distribution.
There are several extensions. With the dimmer extension for 375 Euro light sources can be dimmed. The DMX extension for 225 euros allows the control of light sources equipped with the Funkstandard DMX. This is especially true for LEDs.
For 366 euros, Loxone offers a starter package for LED color control: with DMX extension, a 5 m RGB color LED strip and a PWM dimmer especially for LED strips. The EnOcean Extension (224 Euros) is recommended for retrofitting. So that this works over existing switches, you need EnOcean switch actuators for 70 euros each.
No matter which of the many solutions you choose, whether KNX, radio or powerline: Intelligent lighting control ensures comfort and safety, improves health and saves electricity. For this reason, you should include smart lighting when networking the home.
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