It is fundamental, to effectively illuminate a garden or a space outside of a house, not only from an aesthetic point of view but mainly for domestic security.
Smart outdoor lighting: What is it?
Technology has made great strides in recent years and smart solutions for outdoor lighting have today become more affordable for many people.
What does smart lighting mean? Smart means cunning, clever, something that allows saving money and resources.
Smart lighting doesn’t mean to illuminate less to save more money. On the contrary, it means illuminating more while spending less and having greater savings and profits.
Those times when the outdoors where illuminated with small points of light, which were only used for practical reasons, seem so far away.
Lighting is seen as a fundamental aesthetic element, a practical and convenient option that solves many issues related to the lighting of the darkest areas of the garden.
Nowadays, when we refer to outdoor smart lighting systems, we think of LEDs and the use of solar energy as an additional support to conventional power sources.
Modern outdoor smart lighting systems are connected to home automation, i.e. the intelligent control of all electronic and automated systems of a house.
LED lighting
Why LED lighting can be considered as a smart solution?
There are many reasons why LED lighting can be seen as a good solution, and this is mainly due to the nature of the system.
LED lighting systems can be considered as one of the major achievements of our century.
LEDs represent the practical evolution of lighting solutions and allow to obtain considerable energy savings.
Unlike other conventional lighting systems, this system doesn’t require the use of gas or metal filaments, but only semiconductors, that through a minimum quantity of electric current, produce cold energy light without infrared and ultraviolet radiations.
Therefore, it seems obvious that this system represents an incredible advantage from an environmental and energetic point of view: the sustainability of a LED system is now a matter of fact.
Moreover, thanks to its adaptability, it is possible to create alternative solutions to nicely illuminate the outdoors.
Solar energy for smart lighting
When talking about outdoor smart lighting, one should not underestimate the potential of solar energy, whose exploitation has become increasingly intense and widespread in recent years.
Especially, if solar energy is combined with a LED system, this can become an excellent source of energy to save on the cost of electricity and therefore, convert the domestic electricity grid into a sustainable system.
Solar-LED systems are becoming more and more popular.
Solar energy is subject to several limits, especially as regards the amount of energy that can be stored and therefore, exploited for powering outdoor lighting.
Nevertheless, thanks to new technologies available on the market, it is today possible to collect enough solar energy to run LED lamps that, as it was explained earlier, require a minimum flow of energy.
Normally, smart outdoor solar lamps, are equipped with small solar panels.
Thanks to a light sensor, the lamp recognizes the natural lowering of light at nightfall and switches off the circuits to use the energy accumulated during the day.
Since LEDs are lamps with a very low energy consumption, the energy accumulated during daylight hours, even during less bright days, is enough to guarantee the lamp self-sufficiency during the darkest hours of the day.
Obviously, it is still impossible to entirely rely only on solar energy, since during the winter months, the hours of light may be rather small and do not allow to store enough energy to guarantee a correct illumination of the outdoors.
For this reason, outdoor lamps can be powered with a dual system, where, when the reserve of solar energy is exhausted, the lamp is powered by the domestic electricity grid.
Outdoor lighting and home automation
The best solution for outdoor lighting is a system that is entirely connected to a home automation system, a system capable of facilitating our everyday life.
In a home automation system, the owner has full control of the house systems that while working in a perfect harmony, allow a better comfort in the house.
There are several smart solutions that can be implemented about outdoor lighting.
The main purpose of outdoor lighting is being functional.
Therefore, it is possible to set different light intensities thanks to the automation systems.
More specifically, it is possible to set a very low light intensity, which can be intensified when for instance, someone opens the gate.
It is possible to pre-set the system in such a way that, when someone enters the light gets more intense and illuminates the most important areas of the house.
It is also possible, when the outdoor lighting system is integrated into a greater home automation system, to manage it remotely.
Sometimes, the outdoor lighting system is designed to be installed with proximity sensors.
Practically what happens is that, these sensors switch on when they detect the presence of a moving object.
This system is extremely convenient to significantly save on maintenance costs of the outdoor lighting system.
Very often, these sensors are installed along with modern alarm systems to indicate the presence of unknown people in the house or in the courtyard and gardens.
Outdoor smart systems can be of various types and can be suitable for even the most demanding customer.