Make Your Own Color Schemes With Custom Modes November 21, 2016 00:00

Smart phone cases that come in millions of different colors, patterns and functionalities; electronic watches with hundreds different faces to choose from and countless different watchbands; video game avatars with customization options so diverse that there are less species on earth than there are possible accessory combinations.

Our world is becoming more and more customizable with every passing day, and technological advances have brought the ability to alter your environment however you see fit to new and unexpected places.

And now, light bulbs are no different. With Flux Smart Custom Mode, users can create, save, and share their own fully customizable lighting schedule by adjusting several different variables. It brings a whole new level of customization to lighting up your life.  

LEDs and smart lighting: the perfect combination for customization

Those of you that have heard about smart lighting before know that smart bulbs are basically feature packed light bulbs that let you change between millions of different colors, control them from anywhere in the world, set them to different schedules, and even play music directly from the bulb.

All of this is accomplished thanks to the versatility and compactness of design of the LED light bulb. These powerful little light sources provide a hefty amount of illumination, are quick to turn on (unlike most fluorescents), and provide a relatively easy way to change the color of its light output.

And while being able to remotely control a bulb is the cornerstone of smart lighting, more advanced bulbs like the Flux Smart Bluetooth and Flux Smart WiFi bulbs allow users to enhance their customizability by creating intricate lighting patterns, making it not only a fun feature but also a useful tool for a variety of situations.

You’re in control with Custom Mode

Using custom Mode allows you to set a schedule for their Flux Smart bulbs to switch between 16 different colors at a rate you determine. You can dig into the customizability by playing around with four different variables:

• Color: Flux Smart bulbs offer a range of over 16 million different colors to choose from, giving users an enormous palette to fit almost every situation.
  
  
• Brightness: Users can also pick out the exact brightness they are after for each color, making Custom Mode just as useful for a low energy get together as it is for a wall-shaking house party.
  
  
• Transition Style: There are three different transition styles to choose from – gradual, jump, and strobe. Gradual transitions smoothly from one color to the next, jump switches abruptly, and strobe, well, strobes between the two. Makes sense right?
  
  
• Transition Speed: This setting lets you fine tune just how fast you want to switch over to the next color with an adjustable speed scale. This gives you control over how quickly the transition from one color to the next should be for “gradual”, determines the length of time on one color for “jump”, and decides the number of flashes on one color before switching to the next for “strobe”.

The immense amount of adjustability of each of these variables makes Custom Mode one incredibly customizable way to use your smart bulbs just the way you want to. There are literally millions of possible combinations!

Share your creation with anyone in the world

While being able to fine tune your lighting to the exact way you want it is a pretty neat feature by itself, Custom Mode offers the added ability to not only save multiple arrangements to your smart device so you can switch between your favorite schedules. It also lets you share these schedules with anyone you want! That means your friends and family can set their Flux Smart bulbs to the same lighting schedule you’ve perfected.

All it takes is creating and saving your pattern and then simply hitting the “share” button. You’ll have the option of sending through SMS text message or through email, making showing off your awesome new lights even easier than before. You can even give your schedule its own special name.

Custom Mode: a few examples

While the different ways to use custom mode are only limited by your own creativity, we’ve provided a few examples of how you can put this incredibly versatile feature to use.

• Keep a nice mellow ambiance during a relaxed dinner party with a few close friends. Try using a slow-speed gradual transition with dim lights transitioning from dark shades of burgundy and navy blue.

• Celebrate the holidays by creating a decorative lighting schedule for your outdoor bulbs and one-up the neighbors! Switch between dimly lit orange and dark green using a quick jump transition for Halloween and a bright multicolored strobe for Christmas

• Crank up the atmosphere at your party by strobing between 16 varied colors to match the energy of your music. Keep the brightness low too. No one wants to see themselves dance!

These are just a few of the ways you can put Custom Mode to use. Use your imagination, the possibilities are practically endless!

Let us know what you think!

What creative ways have you found for your custom made schedule? Any tips for first-timers? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to get creative with these Flux Smart products!

14 Unique Ways To Use Smart Lighting October 31, 2016 00:00

The wide range of applications for smart lighting is one of the things that makes these light bulbs so impressive, and so useful. And when you add a bit of creativity to the equation you’ll be amazed at just what you can do.

We’ve compiled a small list of just a few of the things you can do with smart lighting, from creating an unforgettable party to presenting your most highly esteemed paintings in a whole new light.

Automate your home with smart lighting

Ever wanted to walk through your front door to be actually greeted by your home? While we’re not there yet, smart lighting lets you set up your bulbs so that they’ll turn on when you arrive home and turn off when you leave. The future is here!

Use smart bulbs to kick your party’s style up a notch

Looking to throw a killer house party but don’t have the decorations to match the mood? Use smart bulbs such as these to create a multi-colored dance floor that changes color to the beat!

...Or to pump up it’s tunes

And if you don’t have enough speakers to deliver the beats to every corner of your house, try out these speaker bulbs that can play your favorite tunes from any light socket in the house. They sound surprisingly awesome!

Add some flavor to your home with accent lighting

One surefire way of adding some flair to a room is by using accent lighting. A tactic much beloved by interior decorators across the world, accent lighting has a way of not only drawing the eye to the most interesting thing in the room but also changing any area from a mediocre collection of furniture to a room with a personality. The versatility of smart lighting makes these bulbs a perfect fit for this function.

Brighten up areas for complex tasks

As anyone who has had to deal with the eye-watering effects of cutting up onions knows, not being able to clearly see while chopping can be quite the dangerous ordeal. But an overly bright kitchen can be a bit of a nuisance when you don’t need all that light. That’s why smart lighting is ideal for kitchens: they provide the brightness needed for cooking and the dimness desired for general lighting. All in one bulb!

Present your favorite piece of art

In addition to the highlighting effects smart lighting can bring to your art, LEDs have also been shown to be the most effective light for preserving the structural integrity of paintings. They not only don’t produce the damaging UV rays like other bulbs, they also are much more efficient, making constant illumination even less costly than before.

...Or use smart lighting AS art

The incredible versatility of the smart bulb, what with it’s full range of brightness and dimness, it’s 16 million different colors to choose from, and the ability to remotely control and schedule its lighting cycles has all contributed to artists around the world using them for their own works of art. And though you may not create such stunning pieces as these, you can still tap into your creative spark more than ever with smart lighting.

Add smart bulbs to your children’s rooms

It’s a combination of the relaxing, color-changing features of smart bulbs as well as their teaching power when it comes to colors that makes these bulbs ideal for a child’s room. You can’t argue with the science behind it either!

Wake up/fall asleep to smart lighting

Some of the more advanced smart bulbs out there come with a sunrise/sunset feature. When activated, your smart bulb will gradually brighten or dim to create the effect of a rising or setting sun to aid you in waking up or preparing for bed a little easier. And while the effect is neat in and of itself, the fact that it’s effects on raising energy levels throughout the day are the real reason to invest in this feature.

Photo by Stephan Legachev via common.wikipedia.org

Backlight your TV or home theater

Backlit televisions and movie screens have become a pretty popular trend nowadays. They are said to intensify immersion into whatever you’re watching as well as adding an aesthetically pleasing aspect due to the changing colors. Now you can skip the added expense of one of these TVs entirely and simply set up a smart bulb in any fixture behind the television to create these same, immersive effects! Pretty cool, huh?

Use smart lighting to deter intruders 

While deadbolt locks and a home security system are obviously your first defense, smart lighting can actually aid you in keeping your home and the valuables inside safe from intruders. Use the scheduling feature as well as the ability to control each bulb remotely to create the impression that someone is inside your house while you’re away, ensuring a smart burglar will think twice before entering that home.

Use smart lighting to support good health

Though smart lighting has an incredible range of colors to add to your home’s decorative palette, did you know these different hues may help improve your mood and health? From bright blue to energize you as much as a cup of coffee to a deep red to calm anxiety, smart lighting can tap directly into your body’s natural responses to the color spectrum to give you control over how you want to feel. It’s like technicolor therapy!

Use brightness and color levels to set the perfect mood

Whether you are coming home from a long day at the office and want nothing more than a comfortable chair, some soft lighting, and good book, or if it’s your 10 year anniversary and you need that one special touch to add some romance to the meal you slaved over, smart lighting has the versatility to match any mood you’re trying to create.

Harness the versatility (and lack of heat) of smart bulbs to create amazing light covers

When compared to most bulbs, especially incandescents, LEDs have a much lower heat output, making them ideal for artistic light covers that, for any other bulb, might pose a hazard risk. Check out this cloud light for inspiration!

Let us know what you think!

We’re always looking for new ways to use smart lighting. What kinds of creative uses have you come up with? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to think outside the box with these Flux Smart products!

How To Use Smart Lighting To Keep Your Home Safe & Secure October 28, 2016 00:00

The FBI estimates that a burglary is committed every 18.2 seconds. That means in about the time it takes you to read this post, nearly 15 burglaries will have occurred in the United states alone, making this one of our country’s most common crimes.

And 66% of these burglaries occur in residential neighborhoods, most during the day in fact.  In 2014 for instance, there were almost 1.73 million home burglaries reported, costing the victims $3.9 billion total. That averages out to a $2,251 loss for each of these victims, quite a financial blow.

So how can a homeowner prevent such a common and costly crime from happening to them? And how can you use smart lighting to improve upon these methods, making your home even safer than before?

Leave the lights on.

There are two core principles of how to protect your home from burglary using lighting: simulate occupancy and illuminate the surrounding area so perpetrators are more easily identifiable.

That age old piece of advice for friends leaving town (make sure to leave your lights on!) covers both of these necessary tactics, which is why it’s become pretty common knowledge.

For a burglar, the natural tendency is to target a home which is likely to offer the path of least resistance. It’s no wonder then that houses which offer less of a chance to be spotted might be a home robber’s goldmine. And a pitch black home is a pretty sure sign that no one is moving around inside as well.

It’s safe to say then that simply leaving your lights on is a surefire way deterring burglars. Or is it?

Leave the lights on?

The problem with this strategy comes from the fact that burglars aren’t stupid. If they see a home lit up like a pinball machine day and night from Monday to Wednesday, chances are they’ll know someone’s pretending not to be out. In that sense, leaving the lights on might be just as much of an indication that the occupants are travelling as keeping them off.

And while plug-in timers cast the basic illusion that someone’s home, any thief worth their salt will probably be able to tell your lights are set to a precise schedule.

Cue smart lighting. Smart lighting helps you add a bit of randomness to the equation. Like timers, smart bulbs allow you to precisely schedule when each turns on and off. But more than that, you can add variety to these patterns that other timers simply can’t. Brightness, color, and even more finely-tuned schedules are all variables you can control completely for each bulb, making your home’s lighting look less scripted and more realistic.

Not only that, you can even control them directly from anywhere in the world. That means if you’re vacationing in Hawaii for a week, you can tweak and alter the lighting schedule for your entire home in Wisconsin right from your smart device. Even the cleverest burglar is sure to be fooled.

Safeguard your home by combining smart lighting with other devices

If you don’t own a home security system, one of the best techniques for deterring burglars is mimicking an occupied home. And while a lighting pattern might do wonders to help cross your house off a less discriminating thief’s list of potential marks, some burglars might use more straightforward tactics for finding out if anyone’s home.

One common strategy among burglars, for instance, is doing a quick bit of observation during the day and simply ringing the doorbell directly. If anyone answers, the thief will simply pretend to be selling a product or have a story ready about having the wrong house. A few seconds of embarrassment sure, but if no one comes to the door, that’s one surefire way of determining if anyone is waiting for them inside. Then it’s just a matter of slipping in through a door or window in the back.

Now, take this same situation but this time the house has a home security camera (like Nest Cam or Canary) or a video doorbell (such as Ring or Skybell). If the idea of being recorded isn’t enough to keep burglars from pulling tricks like these, you can use your ability to remotely control the lights in your house with these other devices to make your home seem even more occupied than before.

If, say, the you see someone suspicious ringing your doorbell, flick on the hall light. Just because no one answered the door doesn’t mean no one’s home. And adding a cue that responds to someone knocking on your door will make your house less likely to be worth the risk.

Motion lighting: effective, but only to a point

Motion lighting is an incredibly effective way to ward off unwanted visitors creeping around your property. Not only does it illuminate the area, making potential threats more likely to be spotted and identified by neighbors (and thieves know it), it also triggers a fight or flight response that just may send a home invader looking for a target that won’t draw as much attention.

But as useful as motion lights can be, they really only work on the illumination and scare tactic levels. What really keeps burglars from entering your house is the perception that the home is occupied. And while the activation of a motion light might get the heart pumping, it’s unlikely a thief will confuse an area-specific light being triggered with the someone actually being home.

So if you’re looking for the best way to protect your valuables from any unwanted intruders, use a combination of motion lights to illuminate the area surrounding your home and smart lighting to mimic occupancy.

Tell us what you think!

How do you use smart lighting to protect your home? Can you think of any creative ways we might’ve missed? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to head over to Flux Smart to begin burglar proofing your home today!

Smart Home, Smart Lighting, and the Internet of Things October 26, 2016 00:00

You may remember watching your first sci-fi film and being completely blown away by the technology the creators thought up.

The lasers, the spaceships, the little gizmos with flashing lights. All of it helped paint a picture of a world far more advanced than our own. And while there are certainly more impressive feats of science in these futuristic capers, there has always been one innovation that almost every futuristic society is bound to incorporate into their lives: the automatic door.

Silly as it seems compared to lasers and spaceships, the automatic door gets at the incredibly satisfying feeling of your environment responding to your movements, to your actions, all without you lifting a finger.

And while the future of those sci-fi films might still be far off, the thrill of an “intelligent” environment is more readily available than ever.

Home automation and the smart home

One of the fastest growing trends in modern home design is the incorporation of “home automation”. Also known as domotics or domotica, home automation is basically outfitting your domicile with features that turn on, off, or engage in another function automatically.

So say, for instance, you pull into your driveway after a long day at work. Instead of opening the garage door yourself, it senses your arrival and opens up all on its own. Kind of neat huh? That’s just the start.

As soon as you walk in the door, your home springs to life: the lights brighten up to greet you, the fireplace roars on, your favorite “mellow out” song starts playing in the background, and the oven has already preheated on its own. All you have to do is throw in dinner and relax.

Straight out of a sci-fi flick, right? Well home automation is very real, and very now. Companies dedicated to automating your home are springing up all across the globe, and are gaining national attention doing it.

And all of the amazing possibilities that a smart home can offer has its roots in one incredible idea…

The Internet of Things: the future is now

You may have heard this term being thrown around in the news, pop culture, even in art. And even if you think you don’t, you probably already know what the idea is all about.

The Internet of Things is a way to refer to the growing trend, the movement even, of enabling everyday objects to interact with each other, and with you, by connecting through the internet.

So whereas before you may not have been able to use your phone to control just how brown you want your toast to be, or get push notifications from your doorbell every time it’s rung, or set your thermostat from anywhere in the world, now the Internet of Things lets you connect with virtually anything.

And the implications and extensions of this idea are practically limitless, ranging from concrete that detects weak points in structural integrity to optimized traffic flow by incorporating smart street lights and smart sensors.

Technology is advancing so quickly that packing an incredible amount of sensing and processing power into an area no bigger than a pea has become entirely feasible, and it’s changing the world.

Smart lighting and home automation

Smart lighting is a direct result of the Internet of Things and up until then, lighting had been, well, a bit boring.

Consider the history of the lightbulb: the traditional incandescent bulb reigned supreme for over a hundred years, only recently being displaced by halogen lights and fluorescent bulbs, namely compact fluorescent lamps (or CFLs).

And while each alternative added an impressive boost in a light bulb’s lifetime, CFLs and halogen lights still only had one thing to offer, albeit more of it: light.

But the versatility of the LED combined with the advances in technology manufacturing brought a whole new world of possibilities to the light bulb. These smart bulbs are able to do things other bulbs simply can’t: allow access directly from a smart device, display over 16 million colors, play music from embedded speakers, and dim or brighten according to schedules you set.

And when you take control of these features by setting them to respond to certain criteria, like walking through the door for instance, you add a whole new level to your home automation capabilities.

Making your home smarter with smart lighting

Here are just a few ideas to show you just how versatile your smart lighting can be when it comes to home automation.

• Ditch the alarm clock and use your smart lighting to gradually wake you in the morning
• Schedule your lights to automatically dim in the evening to prepare you for a good night’s rest
• Set your home’s lighting to turn off when you leave for work, all without lifting a finger
• Link your lighting schedule with your to-do list to change colors when it’s time to switch tasks

Get creative with it! All it takes is just a little bit of ingenuity to turn your average, everyday home into a smart home of the future!

Let us know what you think!

Do you have any more ways to use smart lighting to turn your home into a smart home? Let us know in the comments below and have a look at the Flux Smart product line to start your home automation adventure.

LED Bulbs vs Fluorescent Bulbs: Which Is Right For You? October 19, 2016 00:00

Most people have a pretty stereotypical view of fluorescent bulbs: that eerie green light, that annoying constant buzzing, and the special methods of disposing them so as not to expose anyone to the dangerous mercury inside.

But the lighting world has changed and so have fluorescent bulbs with it. In fact, not long ago fluorescent bulbs were overtaking incandescents to become the most promising lighting source out there. That is, until LEDs came along. And while LEDs offer a new world of versatility unexplored by any light bulb of the past, they still face some pretty stiff competition from fluorescent bulbs.

Fluorescent bulbs: this isn’t your grandfather’s bulb

While the unsavory ideas behind fluorescent bulbs were of course grounded in reality at one time, the fluorescent bulbs you knew growing up are a far cry from the modernized ones on store shelves today.

To understand how far fluorescent bulbs have come though, we should take a look at what exactly is going on when you flip that switch. To start off, a fluorescent bulb is basically a chamber with two electrodes at each end, sealed shut to contain a few special gases and atoms.

Once these electrodes are heated up, they send an electrical current through the bulb which stimulates one of the gases, mercury, to produce UV light. That UV light then goes on to stimulate the phosphorus which coats the inside of the bulb. The result is the greenish light you’re used to seeing in offices, plants, and schools.

Modern fluorescent bulbs are a far cry from what you may have grown up with or come to expect from these highly efficient lights. First, they now come in a range of colors so you won’t be stuck with that monotonous green. Most have also gotten rid of that annoying buzzing by changing the ballasts (which regulate the electrical current and stop the bulbs from exploding) from magnetic to electric. And the mercury? Far less than the bulbs of yore, making them a much safer lighting choice.

Modernizing the fluorescent bulb with CFLs

You may have seen this recent improvement to the traditional fluorescent bulb on the market lately. CFLs, or compact fluorescent lamps, are for the most part a socket-based version of the tube lights you’re used to. They operate off of the same basic principles of fluorescent lighting with a key differences.

Besides the obvious convenience of being able to use them anywhere you could screw in an incandescent bulb, CFLs strictly use electronic ballasts. So while traditional fluorescent tubes are moving towards this feature, CFLs depend on it.

Another difference is CFLs can come in the CCFL variation, or cold cathode fluorescent lamp. These bulbs require even less energy to excite the vapor inside. Whereas CFLs require heating the cathodes to at least 900 degrees Fahrenheit, CCFLs only need to be heated to 200 degrees Fahrenheit due to the different heating elements. There are a host of other benefits to CCFLs over CFLs as well.

Fluorescent breakdown

So now that you know a bit more about fluorescent bulbs in general here is a breakdown of the pros and cons behind this time-tested bulb.

Pros

• Use 25%-35% of energy used by incandescent bulbs (75% for CFLs)
• Have a typical lifespan of 7,000-24,000 hours (even more for CCFLs)
• Come in a variety of colors

Cons

• Does contain trace amounts of mercury
• Dimming capabilities are limited for many
• Initial cost higher than incandescent bulbs
• Not safe for the environment when disposed of

LEDs: the future of lighting

While fluorescent bulbs do appear to be pretty impressive when compared to incandescents, they face some tougher competition going up against LEDs. In addition to the wide range of benefits incorporating smart technology has brought to the world of LEDs, this bulb type has come onto the scene as the future of modern lighting.

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are basically a grouping of semiconductors that give off light when they are hooked up to an electrical current. They were originally used in applications like traffic signals due to their high efficiency and visibility. As technology progressed, manufacturing costs of these little wonders dropped and thus LEDs have made their way into the residential sector.

One of the most exciting things about LEDs is the enormous amount of ways they can be used. High quality smart LEDs are fully dimmable and controllable from your smart device, can change between over 16 million different colors, can turn on and off according to schedules you set, and some can even play music!

Here’s a quick overview of the pros and cons LEDs have to offer.

Pros

• Use at least 75% less energy than incandescent bulbs
• Most have lifespans of over 25,000 hours
• Has an incredible amount of versatility
• Produce very little heat
• They use no mercury, which means they’re safely disposed of

Cons

• A higher initial cost than both incandescent and fluorescent bulbs (but that’s offset by the efficiency eventually)

Fluorescent vs. LEDs: when to use each

So the question is, which bulb is best? For most situations you’re better off going with LEDs. They offer a higher efficiency in general than fluorescent bulbs and blow incandescent bulbs out of the water. LEDs are also more promising based on the market trends to develop new LED technologies, making them more likely to be the standard bulb in the future. So for your home, your small office, your shop, LEDs are the way to go.

There are a few situations where fluorescent bulbs might be the better choice though. If you are lighting a large amount of space, such as an office or a factory, then fluorescent bulbs might be the way to go solely based on the initial cost of buying the bulbs. This however is likely to change (and soon) as prices for LEDs are rapidly falling.

Let us know what you think!

Can you think of any more pros or cons for fluorescent bulbs or LEDs? Which kind of lighting do you prefer? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check out the wide range of Flux Smart products!

Create The Spookiest Haunted House On The Block With Smart Lighting October 17, 2016 00:00

It’s getting to be that time of the year again, when fallen leaves of red, yellow, and orange cover the yards and the breeze takes on an unwelcome briskness, sooner than last year it feels like. For most of us, these are signals that the year is coming to a close, that holiday season is upon us, that in-laws will soon be visiting, and that you really, really need to start Christmas shopping earlier this year. New tax year, new worries, new obligations. A flood of anxieties and concerns, all brought on by a few dead leaves on the ground.

But if you’re a kid? All of this means one thing: HALLOWEEN! Goblins and superheroes and vampires and all-stars! Jack-O-Lanterns and cobwebs and spiders and graveyards! And candy, oh the candy…

The trick-or-treating anticipation found an outlet in you and your friends talking about the routes to take, the houses with the best loot, and most importantly of all, when you should visit THE house. You know the one. This was the house that all the neighborhood kids whispered about, the one that never skimped on decorations, and that always came up with a new set of frights each year.

And now that you’re grown with kids of your own, you want that to be your house. Well now is a great time for Halloween aficionados because smart lighting can help you pull off shrieks, jumps, and scares like never before to make sure your house becomes THE house this year.

Use the music sync mode to pull off those quick scares

A lot of higher end smart bulbs on the market like the Flux Smart Bluetooth 2nd Generation now feature a music sync feature which analyzes the levels of sounds being played through the smart device controlling it (like your tablet or smart phone). Typically used to add a club effect to parties, this feature can come in particularly handy in evoking some shock scares in your haunted house.

All it takes is setting the bulb to music mode through your smart device and then playing a creepy track that has a few loud noises meant to make you jump (an evil laugh, a loud scream, or even the classic “BOO”), and your house will go from pitch black to a burst of color to make that burst of sound even more shocking.

You could even use it to light up a previously unseen menacing figure like the one above. Most of the apps associated with these types of smart bulbs come with the option to adjust the sensitivity of the bulb as well, so you can make sure your scares go off without a hitch.

The remote and scheduling feature make fine-tuning your frights easier than ever

One of the most useful details in smart lighting is the fact that you have complete control over your bulbs no matter how far away you are from the light switch. This comes in particularly handy when a group of unsuspecting youngsters step up to your conveniently darkened porch and you need to reveal to them the terrifying werewolf you’ve set up at precisely the right moment.

Or you could utilize the scheduling features to take a more laidback approach to scaring your neighbor’s kids. Simply set each bulb to turn on and off at a certain time and you can sit back and listen to those satisfyingly startled screams without ever lifting a finger.

Speaker bulbs can add a whole new level of creepy to your haunted house

Imagine you walk into a dimly lit room filled with fog. You can’t make anything out but you feel as if you’re being watched. You see a quick flash of light (thanks to the remote feature!) and you catch a silhouette of some thing out of the corner of your eye. Then a muffled growl in the other direction. And another to your left! Then a shadow to the right! You’re surrounded! You feel the hairs stick up on the back of your neck as the growls become louder and louder from every direction, coming closer and closer.

This is just one of the many ways you can use speaker bulbs like the Flux Smart Melody to inspire fear and awe in your haunted house patrons. Sure, you could buy 4 or 5 separate speakers and a few remotely controlled lighting products but a setup like that could cost you a good chunk of change. With speaker bulbs like these, you have the speaker and the light all in one, not to mention the wealth of customizability options available to you, all a simple click away.

A few other Halloween ideas using smart bulbs

While the possibilities really are endless when it comes to how you use your smart bulbs this Halloween, we’ve come up with a few more benefits that’ll make your haunted house even better!

• Use Scene Mode to pick out colors directly from a photo to make your lighting scheme even spookier
• With 16 million colors at your disposal, smart lighting is the easiest way to add the perfect ambience to your haunted house
• High efficiency bulbs makes leaving your creepy lights on all night long have less of an impact on energy bills

Let us know what you think!

What fun Halloween ideas have you used your smart bulbs for? What were some of the scariest tricks you pulled? Let us know in the comments below and don’t forget to check out the full line of Flux Smart products!

A Light Education: Kelvin, Temperature, And Color Rendering Index (CRI) October 14, 2016 00:00

The light bulb aisle has never had more variety in choices for consumers than there are today.

Incandescent, fluorescent, halogen, and LEDs are all available, each with their own measurements in watts, lumens, life hours, and loads of other categories too.

Frankly, it can be a bit overwhelming at times and many people end up simply guessing on which product to get, only to be disappointed by the result when they screw it in at home.

That’s why in order to make the best decision on how to light your living space, you need to be informed about what each of these categories mean, especially when it comes to color temperature, Kelvins and Color Rendering Index.

Color temperature: from warm to cool

One term that you might have heard thrown around the lighting world a bit is “color temperature” and it’s a pretty important to understand. The phrase was originally used to describe the color of a heated filament and as a result the kind of light it produced.

To explain, if a filament found in your typical incandescent bulb was heated to a certain temperature, it might appear to turn yellow. As that temperature is increased, so too would the color temperature of that filament, turning whiter and eventually bluer in the process.

Fluorescent and LED lights on the other hand don’t really have a filament to heat up so they use the Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) scale, where light color output is matched to what color a material, such as a filament, would turn at a certain temperature.

For the most part, you’ll probably only see a combination of both of these scales, as shown below, to indicate a particular bulb’s color temperature. Incandescent bulbs for the most part stick to the lower range and fluorescents tend to be located more on the blue end of the spectrum.

Certain LEDs on the other hand, like most of the Flux Smart bulbs, enable you to choose between 16 million different colors, giving you the ability to switch between warm and cool lighting whenever you want.

That means it’s up to you to decide if your home should be lit with the soft, warm light that resembles traditional incandescent bulbs or bright, cool light to bring out your home’s little details.

Kelvins: the color temperature measurement

Now that you know a little more about color temperature, let’s dive a bit deeper into the spectrum introduced above.

As you can see, the scale changes from red and yellow light on the left to white in the middle and finally blue all the way on the right. This transition could be described as moving from warm light to white light to cool light.

As you can also see, there are some numbers below that correlate with the colors above, ranging here from 1800K all the way to 1600K. These measurements are a more detailed way to describe color temperature, with lower numbers being warm and higher cool, and are presented in K, units of measure that represent temperature based on the Kelvin scale.

Although Celsius and Fahrenheit are the king and queen of the temperature world, Kelvin is another way that temperature can be measured. The numbers above then are the actual temperature, in Kelvin, that a filament or other material would need to be heated to in order to produce the corresponding color light.

That means that in your typical incandescent bulb, the filament is probably around 4600 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 2810 K, when the light is on. And while LED and fluorescent bulbs produce very little heat, their light would be equivalent to a filament being heated to over three times higher than that!

So, as interesting as all this might be, how exactly does knowing about Kelvin help you pick out a better bulb for your home? The benefit of knowing exactly where on the color temperature scale a bulb fits means you’ll be able to pick out just the kind of light you’re looking for.

This comes in especially handy when bulbs are described as “warm” and “cool” since these terms are relative and there are no real designations for where warm lighting ends and cool lighting begins. Knowing precisely where it fits on the scale makes lighting your home the way you want even easier.

Color Rendering Index (CRI)

Knowing a bulb’s color temperature is an important part of ensuring your home has the right feel. If you are after a more modern décor, then a cooler temperature light might be for you. If you’d rather give your home a warmer, comfier feel to it, your best bet would be lights on the lower end of the color temperature scale.

And if you don’t have the color changing capabilities of such smart bulbs as the Flux Smart Bluetooth LED then you especially need to pay attention to each bulb’s Kelvin measurement.

But there’s another light bulb quality that can be equally critical to making sure your home gives the impression you’re after, and that’s Color Rendering Index (CRI). The CRI of a light bulb is basically a measurement of how well the light source shows an object’s color. It’s a scale from 1 to 100 with 100 showing colors at the same level as daylight (considered a perfect color preserver) and lower levels indicating some color vibrancy might be lost when shown in that light.

Consider, for example, the pictures above. This is a representation of what it might look like to shine a light with 100 CRI on a bowl of fruit versus what it might be like to shine a light with 50 CRI on the same bowl. You’ll notice that the colors in the picture on the right are far more muted than those on the left.

Now, obviously we all would like our colors as vibrant as possible and one benefit of the incandescent bulb is that it’s CRI is always a 100. Fluorescent bulbs on the other hand are markedly lower, with typical cool white bulbs having a CRI of around 60. LEDs will measure in a bit higher with CRIs ranging anywhere from 80 to 95.

One important note about CRI is that it is in no way related to the color temperature of a bulb but is rather dependent on the spectrum of the light it gives off. That means two bulbs with a color temperature of 10000K might look completely different in your living room, which is why you always want to be sure to check each bulb’s CRI to get a better idea of what to expect.

Let us know what you think

How do you decide what temperature light to use? Have you noticed the difference between a high and low CRI? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check out Flux Smart Wifi and Flux Smart Bluetooth LED Light Bulbs.

How To Use Flux Smart's Music Sync Feature October 12, 2016 00:00

It’s Friday night and everybody who's anybody will be showing up to your place in less than an hour expecting a killer party. You’ve assembled a mind-blowing track list to get people on the dance floor, but there’s still one problem: you don’t have any decorations.

How can you make sure the soundtrack you’ve worked so hard on is matched by your home’s visual style? That’s easy. With smart lighting.

The Flux Smart Wifi and Flux Smart Bluetooth LED Light Bulbs let you add some color to your favorite tunes with music sync technology only available in smart bulbs. With music sync, your smart bulbs change hues to the beat of your music, turning your living room into a vibrant, color-filled dance club. There are two different ways to utilize this amazing new feature: Music Mode and Mic Mode.

The dependability of Music Mode

Music Mode is the traditional method of combining the awesome color changing capabilities of your Flux Smart Wifi and Flux Smart Bluetooth LED Light Bulbs with the beat and rhythm of your personal music and with a streamlined user interface, navigating the app has never been easier.

Simply open up the app, pick which bulb (or group of bulbs) you would like to sync up with your music, and click the “Music” tab on the menu bar at the bottom of the screen. Then all you have to do is pick out which song stored on your smart device to play and presto! The chosen bulbs will change colors according to the bumps of the bass, crescendos of the symphony, or the twang of the banjo.

To make the experience even richer, users are given the option of categorizing the type of music that’ll be playing in several different ways:

• Rock
• Normal
• Jazz
• Classical

This helps the Flux Smart music syncing software pick out what musical quality to change colors to. That means users should try to pick out the category they think best describes their tunes in order to experience the full effect of this technicolor technology.

The versatility of Mic Mode

Another way to bring a bit of zest to your party is by using Mic Mode. This mode differs from Music Mode in that it, as you may have guessed, utilizes your smart device’s microphone to pick out the tunes instead of playing them directly through the app.

One particular perk of going the Mic Mode route is that you’ll be able to sync up your Flux Smart Wifi and Flux Smart Bluetooth LED Light Bulbs to music streaming services on your phone or tablet such as:

• Pandora
• Spotify
• Apple Music
• Youtube
• Any other music service!

Accessing Mic Mode is just as easy too. Simply open up the app, pick out the bulb or group of bulbs you’re after, and click on the “Mic” option on the bottom menu. From there you’ll be prompted to allow the app to access your mic. Then all it takes is minimizing the app and playing music from your favorite service and your bulbs will transition colors to the beat, all with 100% streaming music.

A few tips to get the most out of music sync

While the only real limit to how you use each music syncing feature is your own creativity, here are a few pointers to get you started.

• Use Music Mode to amp up your party with seamless color/music integration without having to worry about ambient noise throwing off the light show.
  
  
• Use Music Mode to play music directly from your device, avoiding any problems with streaming hiccups or internet connection, so you can keep the party going.

• Use Mic Mode to open up the world of music a little bit wider with access to any of your favorite streaming services.
  
  
• Use Mic Mode to sync your lighting with someone else’s music by playing the tunes from their device.

No matter which mode you choose, the music sync feature of the Flux Smart Wifi and Flux Smart Bluetooth LED Light Bulbs ensures your party will be more colorful than ever!

Share your ideas

Which music sync mode is your favorite and why? Do you have any other smart lighting party tips? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check out Flux Smart Wifi and Flux Smart Bluetooth LED Light Bulbs.

How To Bring Out The Best In Your Kitchen With Smart Lighting October 10, 2016 00:00

Courtesy of Holland and Green Architectural Design, via Flickr

Light Up Your Kitchen with Smart LED Bulbs

If you’re looking for a way to add a little pizzazz to your kitchen but don’t quite have the funds to hire an interior designer, then incorporating a bit of smart lighting into your cooking sanctuary might be exactly what you’re looking for.

In addition to a modest price tag when compared to other remodeling methods, smart lighting offers an incredible amount of versatility. From being able to set each bulb to the brightness you’re looking for to choosing from over 16 million different colors of light, smart bulbs are the next big thing in home decoration.

Check out these kitchen lighting ideas to see just a few of the amazing things you can do to spruce up your home with smart lighting.

Use smart lighting to brighten up your kitchen

Courtesy of Holland and Green Architectural Design, via Flickr

One of the most useful features of smart lighting is the ability to brighten any smart bulb as much as you want. This comes in particularly handy when you’re cooking up a feast in the kitchen as it’s important, both to the meal and to your safety, to chop and sauté in a kitchen full of bright, clear light like in the kitchen above which features bright overhead lighting.

Or you can selectively brighten just the areas where the most precise movements are performed like countertops in this kitchen design. Either way, your smart bulbs will ensure you have the customizability available to prepare a phenomenal meal.

Find the right mood with these kitchen lighting ideas

When it comes time to sit down to enjoy the meal you’ve just prepared, don’t bother turning individual lights on and off to make dinner conversation more enjoyable. All you have to do is switch your kitchen smart lighting over to your custom brightness and color setting and your kitchen is transformed into a romantic restaurant for you to savor your home cooked meal in. You can even add some soothing jazz to the experience straight from your light bulbs with these Flux Smart bulbs that double as speakers!

Or for a simpler yet functional lighting design for dinner, try using a single light source from above to illuminate your meal to cut out distractions from the food and the conversation.

Accentuate your kitchen’s best features

Just because kitchen lighting is primarily used to make it easier to cook up a fantastic meal doesn’t mean your lights can’t add a bit of flair to everyone’s favorite room. Accent lighting can be used in a multitude of ways to make your kitchen pop. In the design above for instance, the under cabinet lighting not only lets you prepare a meal with precision and accuracy, it also adds a whole new color scheme to the area.

In addition to bringing out even more colors in your kitchen, accent lighting can also be used to call attention to decorations that give the area a bit of character. The kitchen above, for instance, gives off an entirely different mood once the greens and purple of the plant filled tea cups are illuminated.

Tell us what you think!

What kind of kitchen lighting best practices have you used your smart lighting for and how have they worked out? Let us know in the comment below and be sure to check out the Flux Smart bulbs to bring your kitchen to life!