5 reasons to use smart outdoor lighting

3 january, 2019

Thoughtfully placing outdoor lights is an easy way to boost the aesthetics of your home's backyard, patio, porch, balcony, or other outdoor areas. But you shouldn't restrict yourself to your local garden center's regular outdoor light collection — open your home to the convenience and versatility of outdoor smart LED lighting.

The sun is down, so you've got to go switch on the porch lights — but not if you have smart lighting. With smart outdoor lighting, you can set a routine that runs on your selected lights when you want them to go on. Use the Hue app to set your personal routine: use the sunset as your guide, triggering your lights to switch on. If sunset comes too early for you, offset the routine's timing or select a specific hour for your lights to come on.

You'll never forget to switch them off, either, as automating your lights to turn off is just as simple. The routine allows you to set a time that the lights turn off in the same routine, making your outdoor lights completely automated. You'll never have to flip a switch again!

Your back-garden lights are often placed for function over form, giving all the aesthetics to the front of your home. With LED outdoor lights, you create the perfect ambiance without a whole lot of effort. Smart color lights for the outdoors allow you to paint your garden with lights, adding splashes of color to your dining area, outdoor grill, play area, and more.

Color smart lights also add an extra oomph to events, no matter how casual. Your Friday night get-together becomes more special thanks to the simple addition of color, while swanky soirees get an added touch of elegance with a subtle warm glow.

With Philips Hue, gone are the days of fumbling for your keys in the dark. Set your lights to greet you as you near home with the Location aware setting in the Home and away routine. Simply open the Hue app and navigate to Routines > Home & Away to toggle Location aware on. This triggers the Coming home and Leaving home routines — automatically turning your lights on as you arrive home and turning them off as you leave.

Regular outdoor lights are generally separate from your indoor lights, but not when you have smart outdoor lights. You can access all your smart lights within a single app, making it easy to set routines that link both your indoors and outdoors. When your porch lights come on at sundown, for example, you can set your living room lights to go on as well.

Tip: Use an Outdoor sensor to use to trigger both indoor and outdoor lights. When someone approaches your front door, for example, not only will your porch light come on, so will your entryway lights. It provides not only additional light but an added layer of security: if someone approaches your home in the middle of the night or while you're away, the light make it seem as though someone is home.

Thanks to an ever-expanding collection of stylish outdoor LED smart lighting fixtures, the Philips Hue outdoor ranges are sure to have the perfect complement to your home's existing decor. From the sleek and stylish Lucca range to the many other options, the Hue outdoor selection has something for everyone. Use wall lights to illuminate the area around your front or back porch, path lighting to guide you through your yard, or spotlight to highlight your favorite oudoor area.