Porch performance: More homeowners upgrading to smart lights outdoors

By Erika Rawes March 29, 2017

renovation trends smart lights cool ways to decorate with led light strips pool 970x647 c — Cipriano Landscape Design

Houzz, a platform for home remodeling and design, recently released its 2017 Landscape Trends Study. The study, which provides insight into the latest outdoor home renovation trends and homeowner lawn and garden purchasing decisions, includes 977 homeowners who have undergone, or will be undergoing, outdoor renovations.

The Houzz study found that more than three quarters of outdoor renovators made updates to outdoor systems, and nearly half (45 percent) of outdoor-renovating homeowners updated or installed outdoor lighting. Outdoor lighting systems include things like pathway lights that go along each side of your driveway, floodlights that light up your yard at night, or pool lights.

Homeowners have available to them a wide range of lighting options, ranging from the cheap lighting and lightbulbs you can buy at a dollar store, all the way up to smart lightbulbs that costs upward of $100. What are homeowners buying?

Today’s homeowners are opting for the more expensive, higher-quality outdoor lighting, according to the study. Of those surveyed, 73 percent of homeowners upgraded to LED lighting, and 46 percent upgraded to a low-voltage option. Solar outdoor lighting still appears to be popular with homeowners, with 41 percent of participants saying they upgraded to solar lighting.

Perhaps the most remarkable finding, however, involves smart lighting. Nearly one in five participants said they upgraded to smart outdoor lighting systems they can control with a smartphone, tablet, or computer.

Around 40 percent of homeowners cited “helping the environment” as a reason for making certain outdoor renovations, such as removing or reducing their lawn. The environmental factor may also play a role in homeowners’ outdoor lighting decisions. LED lights use at least 75 percent less energy, and last a claimed 25 times longer, than incandescent lighting, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2027, if LEDs become the norm, this could save the amount of electricity produced by 44 large electric plants.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Smart Home Evergreen Coordinator

Erika became a professional writer in 2010, and her work is published all over the web on sites ranging from USA Today to…

Smart Home

Nanoleaf opens preorders for its first-ever Matter smart lights

The Nanoleaf Essential lineup installed in a home theater.

After a brief showing at CES 2023, Nanoleaf’s Matter-enabled smart lighting solutions are now available for preorder. The Essentials lineup consists of both smart light bulbs and smart lightstrips -- and with full support for Matter, they should be easy to integrate into most smart homes.

Three new products are arriving this year, with the Essentials A19 Light Bulb, BR30 Light Bulb, and Essentials Lightstrip all expected to arrive before the end of April. All three work with Matter over Thread, marking the first time Nanoleaf has used the interoperability standard in a product launch. Pricing for the devices starts at $20 for a single smart bulb and goes up to $50 for the Essentials Lightstrip, positioning the lineup as a reasonably affordable way to bring Matter into your smart home.

Smart Home

8 things you didn’t know smart lights could do

Smart lights are among the simplest products to add to your smart home. After removing your old bulbs and screwing in the new ones, you’ll instantly be able to adjust their brightness or tweak their color. And while those features alone are a good reason to bring them into your home, there’s a lot more to most smart lights than you’d imagine.

Of course, each smart light comes with its own set of caveats, and not all of them can perform the same task. Philips, Wyze, Sengled, Nanoleaf, and dozens of other manufacturers are churning out smart lights nowadays -- and you can even find unique products such as LED strips or smart lamps that bring their own twist to the category. This variety has led to an explosion of innovation, with smart lights now able to perform tasks well beyond simple illumination.

Smart Home

Nanoleaf reveals new Matter-enabled smart lights at CES 2023

The Nanoleaf 4D TV syncing lights to the colors on TV.

Nanoleaf, a manufacturer of smart lights, introduced several new products to its lineup during CES 2023. The most exciting addition is the Nanoleaf Skylight, which mounts onto your ceiling to provide an impressive array of light shows. It’s also completely modular and can be arranged into a variety of shapes to fit every space in your home.

The Skylight connects to your smart ecosystem through Wi-Fi and works with Matter -- meaning you shouldn’t run into any compatibility issues with your current setup. The modular ceiling fixture can produce more than 16 million colors, its brightness can be adjusted through the accompanying smartphone app, and you can even set schedules to automatically adjust its settings throughout the day. The only downside? It won’t be launching for quite a while, with an expected release date in the third quarter of 2023.