Hi everyone! I recently upgraded my home lighting to a smart system on a budget and wanted to share the steps:
Choose affordable smart bulbs: Brands like Wyze or Sengled are great budget options. Set up a smart hub (optional): If you’re going for a cohesive ecosystem, consider hubs like Alexa or Google Home. Install and connect: Replace your old bulbs, connect them to your Wi-Fi, and use the corresponding app for setup. Automate: Use routines or schedules for energy-saving and convenience. Let me know if you’ve tried something similar or have any questions!
These are terrible advices.
All smart lightbulbs have a small router in them, so they all use some electricity while switched off. You can gain some net plus only if you live with people who constantly forget to switch off lights. But you need some presence detector as well. Smart lighting is about convenience not energy usage.
Wifi is the worst wireless standard from energy usage standpoint. Zigbee’s power usage is much less and devices are cheap. Thread and Z-wave power usage also lower than wifi, but devices are a bit more expensive.
Amazon and Google are a privacy nightmare. Home Assistant and Domoticz are two wellknown local first smart home systems.
1 to 3 Watt in stand-by mode for s lamp that draws somewhere between 7 and 15 Watt when on. That’s roughly like leaving the lamp on for at least on hour and half each day when nobody is home in the best case.
I have an old wifi yeelight, measured it now because I was interested. 1.4W off, 8.4W full power
For comparison, Ikea zigbee bulb 9.3W max power, less than 0.1 W while off, but switches on instantly. My watt meter can’t measure less than 0.1W so it shows 0.0W.
Zigbee was designed for this kind of usage. I have several zigbee sensors running on 3.3V coin cell batteries, they can report data for years without battery replacement.
That’s a pretty high estimate, this article claims to have measured it at 0.5W/bulb (0.15W for zigbee). That’s still 3x or so higher than Zigbee, but still decent.
I have about 50 bulbs in my house, so that’s:
At $0.15/kWh, that’s $1.89/month savings with zigbee. That’s not nothing, but it’s not something I’d switch out a bunch of bulbs over.
It may make sense for an airbnb rental property or something, but I don’t see a point for average homes, and I’d expect adding dozens of WiFi clients would cause problems with WiFi quality.
Other benefit of zigbee that devices can’t connect directly to the internet, so you don’t have to trust them, you don’t have to create vlans, they can’t be turned into a botnet. Also in zigbee every device can be a router, so they can more easily cover bigger houses.
I wouldn’t replace a wifi based system with zigbee, but recommend it to anyone starting now. This post wanted to be an advice to newcomers…
I honestly don’t see the point of smart lightbulbs, but I’d probably go zigbee if I wanted them for some reason. I’d much rather have smart light switches instead though.
My point is just that the energy difference is minimal, so it really isn’t something anyone should worry about. Turn them off when you leave a room and you’re good.