Automated lighting for hall/stairs/landing

BoardsMember

Wondering if anyone here has seen or done anything clever/innovative in relation to automating subtle/mood lighting in hall/stairs/landing?

We're refurbing and am looking for something affordable - we're an Android house with Hue, so happy to spring for a new motion detectors to fire up the solution, but not loads of lengths of hue light strips, for example, too expensive.

I'm thinking having maybe one long circuit of LED slights concealed at skirting board height. We might have panelling, so could look to design panelling to have a channel to house led strips.

So that would mean hue motion detectors hooked up to turn on a smart plug.

Does that sound like a reasonable approach? We'd have "normal" lights too, this is just for night time, mood lighting.

Alkers

BoardsMember wrote: »

Wondering if anyone here has seen or done anything clever/innovative in relation to automating subtle/mood lighting in hall/stairs/landing?

We're refurbing and am looking for something affordable - we're an Android house with Hue, so happy to spring for a new motion detectors to fire up the solution, but not loads of lengths of hue light strips, for example, too expensive.

I'm thinking having maybe one long circuit of LED slights concealed at skirting board height. We might have panelling, so could look to design panelling to have a channel to house led strips.

So that would mean hue motion detectors hooked up to turn on a smart plug.

Does that sound like a reasonable approach? We'd have "normal" lights too, this is just for night time, mood lighting.

You can get a ZigBee controller to control any 12v led strip for a fraction of the hue strips and it will even work in the hue apo

Clareman

Would lamps strategically placed in corners be an option? I have a Hue lamp upstairs and down connected to sensors which change colours depending on the time/season. Personally, I'm not a fan of a lights you can see directly, I prefer to see the light reflected off a wall.

The Black Oil

No idea, but I searched on Google 'reddit' + your thread title...might give you some things to consider.

allybhoy

BoardsMember wrote: »

Wondering if anyone here has seen or done anything clever/innovative in relation to automating subtle/mood lighting in hall/stairs/landing?

We're refurbing and am looking for something affordable - we're an Android house with Hue, so happy to spring for a new motion detectors to fire up the solution, but not loads of lengths of hue light strips, for example, too expensive.

I'm thinking having maybe one long circuit of LED slights concealed at skirting board height. We might have panelling, so could look to design panelling to have a channel to house led strips.

So that would mean hue motion detectors hooked up to turn on a smart plug.

Does that sound like a reasonable approach? We'd have "normal" lights too, this is just for night time, mood lighting.

I have this exact setting, only i have a 2m hue lightstrip with a 1m extension. If you are already in the Hue ecosystem then i think going with a hue light strip is a no-brainer. f you went with a non Hue led strip a smart plug how are yo going to change the brightness and colour. The HUE are more expensive then normal strips but the ability to set any scene or colour on them and set up schedules etc is so easy i think its well worth it.

allybhoy

accented letters copy paste

BoardsMember

Thanks all for the replies. Zigbee controllers look a good option, I will investigate.

allybhoy wrote: »

I have this exact setting, only i have a 2m hue lightstrip with a 1m extension. If you are already in the Hue ecosystem then i think going with a hue light strip is a no-brainer. f you went with a non Hue led strip a smart plug how are yo going to change the brightness and colour. The HUE are more expensive then normal strips but the ability to set any scene or colour on them and set up schedules etc is so easy i think its well worth it.

That looks good on the stairs, exactly what I was thinking.

The problem with Hue is the price. It would be 12 metres or more. I dont need much more than white/warm white, with dimmable function.

Definitely do not want the lighting directly visible, so will have it pointing downwards or hidden.

allybhoy

Ok, yeh well 12metres then would get fairly expensive fairly quickly alright...I also think you will probably need more than one set because i think the maximum LED strip length you can get is 5metres but i might be wrong on that.

I think you might also have issues though with setting the brightness etc if the strips themselves dont have a controller...they will probably just come on full brightness. An option to get around this might be to have a set of LEDs that power on with an RF Controller via smart plug..but can also have settings changed with RF Controller.. I have these for my office...they are full RGB but im sure you can find a similar one with just white and warm. This particular set has 100s of preset modes and brightness and the good thing about these is that they save the last used set preset... I use these in a rainbow effect transitioning through the colurs at a preset rate and colours... i power them on via RF Remote..howeer when i power them on they come on with the same setting as previously used...they are extremely bright.


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5M-5050-Magic-Dream-Color-6803-IC-Chip-RGB-LED-Strip-133-Effects-RF-Controller-/353285110880?hash=item52416efc60

The Black Oil

Hey. I was watching a video last night and thought of your thread. Not automation, but anyway. I've followed these two for a few years and like most travel vloggers now they've bought a van and are doing it up. I hadn't see anything like this before - a roll of lights. See 12:00 in the video and Google 'led strip lighting roll'. https://www.screwfix.ie/c/electrical-lighting/led-tape-lights/cat8580002

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_oSNbRtrB8

wexfordman2

BoardsMember wrote: »

Thanks all for the replies. Zigbee controllers look a good option, I will investigate.



That looks good on the stairs, exactly what I was thinking.

The problem with Hue is the price. It would be 12 metres or more. I dont need much more than white/warm white, with dimmable function.

Definitely do not want the lighting directly visible, so will have it pointing downwards or hidden.

Have a look at addressable LED strip lights, think they might be what you are looking for, although not a plug and play solutiin