When smart homes encounter smart lighting, this is a topic worth exploring at present. With the improvement of living standards, more and more intelligent products are entering consumer homes. Smart homes are no longer luxury goods in the high-end consumer market, but are increasingly accepted by ordinary families. The rise of smart homes has promoted the great progress of intelligent lighting control and overall home solutions, and intelligence has added a sense of comfort to daily life.
The three major trends in the smart home lighting market are intelligent lighting, which is the foundation of the entire smart home and is particularly suitable for large-scale housing. It will make life convenient and comfortable. The lighting control system is divided into independent, room specific or large-scale networking systems. In the networking system, the dimming equipment is installed in the electrical cabinet and operated by an external equipment network, such as sensors and control panels. The advantage of networked systems is that they can control areas in different rooms from many points. In the home, a control panel can be installed on the wall near the main entrance as the main control point for multiple outdoor rooms.
Compared with traditional lighting, intelligent lighting can achieve the goals of safety, energy conservation, and comfort, so intelligent lighting has good development prospects in the field of smart homes.
Green application prospects are promising
When energy conservation and consumption reduction become a major issue related to international market competitiveness, resource protection, environmental protection, and other social and economic sustainable development, it is inevitable to vigorously promote the construction and renovation of green homes. In the process of building green homes, the use of intelligent lighting control systems has brought significant results. The application of green lighting includes the reasonable use of light sources, electrical accessories, lamps, wiring equipment, as well as dimming and control devices. For example, fully utilizing natural light, adopting energy-saving electrical accessories (such as replacing traditional high-energy consumption inductive ballasts with energy-saving inductive ballasts and electronic ballasts), adopting various energy-saving control equipment or devices, and adopting intelligent lighting control systems.
Realize intelligent lighting
By adopting an intelligent lighting control system, the lighting system can operate in a fully automatic state. The system operates according to several pre-set basic states, which will automatically switch to each other according to the set time. For example, at the end of a workday, the system will automatically enter the working state at night, automatically and gently dim the lights in each area; At the same time, the system's movement detection function will also automatically take effect, turning off the lights in unmanned areas and adjusting the lighting in occupied areas to the appropriate level of illumination; In addition, the illuminance of each area can be changed freely through programming to meet the requirements of various occasions and scenes. Intelligent lighting can automatically adjust the illuminance to a suitable level for work. For example, in places with good natural lighting such as windows, the system will make good use of natural lighting for illumination; When the weather changes, the system can still automatically adjust the illumination to the appropriate level. In short, regardless of any location or weather changes, the system can ensure that indoor lighting is maintained at a pre-set level.
Significant energy-saving effect
In practical applications, the energy-saving of smart lighting systems in smart homes is mainly reflected in the following aspects.
Leading the way, centralized management, and reducing human waste. The phenomenon of energy waste caused by human activities in lighting is very serious, whether the room is occupied or unoccupied, often with long running lights. The intelligent lighting system can achieve both decentralized control and centralized management. Management personnel can turn off the lights in unmanned rooms by operating the keyboard.
Secondly, automatic dimming can fully utilize natural light. The light sensing switch in the intelligent lighting system controls the lighting switch by measuring the illuminance of the working face and comparing it with the set value. This can maximize the use of natural light, achieve energy conservation goals, and provide a relatively stable visual environment that is not affected by seasons and external climate environment. Generally speaking, the closer to the window, the higher the natural light intensity, and the lower the illuminance provided by artificial lighting. However, the composite illuminance should be maintained at the design illuminance value.
Thirdly, it is easy to install and saves cables. The intelligent lighting system adopts two core wire control, which connects various input units, output units, and system components in the system through a bus. Large cross-section load cables are directly connected to lighting fixtures or other electrical loads from the output end of the output unit, without the need for intelligent switches. During installation, there is no need to consider any control relationships. After the entire system is installed, the address codes of each unit are set through software to establish corresponding control relationships. Due to the system only using load cables between the output unit and the load, compared with traditional control methods, it saves a lot of cables that were originally connected to ordinary switches, shortens installation and construction time, and saves labor costs.
Fourth, extend the lifespan of the light source. The fatal cause of light source damage is overvoltage in the power grid, and controlling overvoltage can effectively extend the lifespan of the light source. The intelligent lighting control system adopts a soft start method, which can control the grid impulse voltage and surge voltage, so that the filament is free from thermal shock and the lifespan of the light source is extended. Intelligent lighting systems can usually extend the lifespan of light sources by 2-4 times, not only saving a large amount of light sources, but also greatly reducing the workload of replacing light sources, effectively reducing the operating costs of lighting systems, and avoiding environmental pollution caused by the disposal of waste light sources.
LED creates a new future of intelligent lighting
In 2017, the market capacity of lighting products was still hot and sought after by LED. The traditional light source market has shrunk, and compared to LED lighting, the market capacity of intelligent lighting is still small. However, nowadays, more and more LED lighting manufacturers are combining LED and intelligence through technology integration and research and development. Undoubtedly, this is an obvious trend in the application of smart home lighting.
LED light sources are increasingly being applied in various fields due to their advantages such as long lifespan, high light efficiency, and controllability. The rise of the smart home market has driven LED lighting control, and domestic and foreign manufacturers have sniffed out business opportunities and made efforts in the field of lighting control. Philips released the Hue smart light bulb in 2012. Apart from Philips, many LED lighting manufacturers have seen this opportunity and started developing household LED products that support diversified intelligent lighting. Now, LED smart lighting is becoming an exciting smart home technology. Indeed, one of the reasons why many users have not actually purchased smart bulbs is that they are expensive. For example, the well-known Philips Hue, although providing extensive connectivity, interactivity with WIFI speakers and other smart home products, is still daunting at a price of several hundred yuan per unit. It should be noted that lighting systems are one of the foundations of home decoration, and not everyone can afford installation costs of thousands or tens of thousands of yuan.
A good phenomenon is that with the intensification of competition, more and more smart light bulbs are selling at low prices. For example, Tabu LuMini LED and other products have a single cost of tens of yuan. Although Bluetooth connection is used, it can also achieve wireless switching and color adjustment operations within a certain range, making it a very good entry-level product. The significance of low-priced smart light bulbs lies in market promotion, allowing more users to try them at a lower cost. I believe that in the future, true smart light bulbs based on WIFI connections will gradually reduce costs and help users create more intelligent home lighting systems.
How to Control Intelligent Lighting in Smart Home
With the continuous development of the Internet, the Internet of Things and big data, smart homes are driving these technologies. Therefore, the smart home industry needs to understand some of the problems that exist in smart lighting.
1. Usage habits. Due to insufficient understanding of intelligent lighting, it is easy to develop a resistance mentality.
2. Maintenance issues. Intelligence requires the use of computers and programming, with weak electricity controlling strong electricity. To a certain extent, maintenance costs and difficulty levels need to be considered. 3. Market acceptance process. This is related to complexity, and most people understand the advantages of intelligent lighting. Even if they can more effectively control electricity bills, they still have doubts about the high one-time investment.
Some people believe that if smart home companies have not yet mastered the concept of ordinary lighting, let alone discuss the use of smart lighting. A better solution is actually to establish an effective platform that connects the demand side, design side, and supply side to achieve a good effect. Indeed, the control and management of smart homes require joint guidance from more professionals and groups. There are mainly the following aspects:
1. Planning needs to be based on the design drawings;
2. Need to understand and plan customer usage habits;
3. Provide control system related drawings that can be combined with lighting requirements, and also guide the owner's work;
4. Need to analyze the differences between traditional lighting and intelligent lighting;
5. Conduct cost analysis through lifestyle, understand how to achieve better quality of life through intelligent lighting;
6. On site operating system. Starting from these aspects, continuously expanding the market share of intelligent applications. To achieve a good intelligent lighting space, it is necessary for both designers and manufacturers to cooperate in the design process of engineering cases. Manufacturers are skilled in technical implementation, and in this process, it is necessary to fully understand the theme and creativity of the design scheme, provide reasonable lighting techniques according to different spaces and lighting design atmospheres, and cooperate with designers to complete the design work better.
At the same time, how smart homes control intelligent lighting is also reflected in the effective intelligent control of lighting fixtures in smart homes. For the control of lighting fixtures, since Edison invented the light bulb, people have been using mechanical manual control methods for the control of electric lights. From pull switches to button switches, and now to the commonly used wall switches, the driving of their switches is using manual mechanical modes. Therefore, if we want to achieve future intelligent lighting control, we must first start by studying switches. The smart home industry, which has quietly emerged, has seen good sales of Wi Fi remote-controlled smart lighting fixtures. This indicates that people's concept of smart lighting fixtures is becoming increasingly clear, and consumers have begun to move from the wait-and-see stage to the actual consumption stage. However, it is still difficult to determine whether Wi Fi remote-controlled lighting fixtures will become the mainstream control mode of smart lighting in the future. Therefore, should smart home enterprises consider borrowing the control mode of home appliances? If the control technology of lighting fixtures can be improved to a level equivalent to that of home appliance control technology, in the future, when achieving overall smart home control, lighting fixtures and home appliances can be intelligently controlled on the same platform. By utilizing control technology for household appliances, a new research and development approach and feasible solution are provided for the development direction of lighting control technology for smart home enterprises. A noteworthy phenomenon is that although LED has controllability, a single product can no longer meet the current market demand. In order to meet the overall needs of customers, more and more smart home lighting manufacturers are developing the concept of overall solutions, professional lighting solutions, and one-stop solutions. The launch of the overall solution not only emphasizes customized services and provides design concepts, but is also a strategy. Facing the current situation, many customers are not particularly clear about how to leverage the advantages of LED, which requires enterprises to provide them with overall solution services, eliminating the advantage of customers being left behind. Providing comprehensive solutions is not only a reflection of a company's service awareness, but also a means for the company to improve its competitiveness.
It can be said that the combination of intelligent control and LED lighting will change the way people use lighting, and it will greatly increase the added value of lighting products. The commercial value that intelligent control can bring is increasingly valued by more and more enterprises. In order to seize the opportunity in the era of LED lighting intelligence, many enterprise products are no longer just at the level of dimming and color adjustment, but actively explore the intelligent control of the entire lighting system.