WHILE the biblical verse “let there be light . . . and there was light” might be a tad dramatic, there is no denying that light fittings greatly affect the overall ambience and vibe of any space.
Conventional lighting is usually of a single tone of colour and glow with a fixed intensity, unless a dimmer is attached. Now imagine being able to switch colours and brightness without installing multiple bulbs.
Signify Malaysia (formerly known as Philips Lighting) has made this a reality with its newly launched WiZ Smart Lighting, which allows home owners to customise lighting to their preferences. WiZ gives residents the flexibility to set the mood or change from bright to dim.
Thus, home owners can choose different shades of white, from comfortable cool white lights in the morning to yellow warm lights in the evening or pick a colour from 16 million colours available with a touch on WiZ App.
Home disco
WiZ lights can be customised to change the colour of an entire space completely.
WiZ Smart Lighting also has different settings for various situations or scenarios such as “focus” for work, “romance” for an intimate atmosphere, “relax” for a cosy ambience and “true colours” to transforming a living room into a mini disco by turning on an array of strobe-like coloured lights.
“For party scenes, we are enabling pre-set scenes which you can control and set to your rhythm,” said Signify Malaysia president Sukanto Aich.
There are over 40 pre-sets with each set displaying different colour combinations.
WiZ Music Sync feature allows lights to sync with the rhythm of music on the WiZ App. This means residents can play their favourite songs and watch the gradients of light colours “dance” to the tunes.
Designed for convenience
The Wi-Fi-based WiZ Smart lighting systems, which Sukanto describes as “seriously smart and simple”, have a range of LED lamps and fixtures apart from bulbs. These include light strips, bar linear lights, portable lights, luminaires and accessories for indoor and outdoor use.
These are easy to instal. Once the lamp or lighting fixtures is installed, download the WiZ App and connect. It can be activated through voice control, which means residents can control through a phone or smart speaker.
WiZ is designed to integrate with other devices through the Matter platform, which enables different devices to integrate in a smart home. WiZ supports the Matter standard, among other partners such as Alexa and Google Home.
“Our lighting is designed for convenience. Our light comes with Space Sense, so if a child walks into the kitchen at night, the light can switch on. It comes with a sensing mechanism,” said Sukanto.
There are functions to enable scheduled switch on/off times, dimming as well as monitor and control the lighting while away. Aside from looking modern and elegant, these bulbs are also environmentally friendly options due to their longer usage hours.
Reducing glare
“We are designing light to provide convenience and secondly, for health and well-being, conferred to our eye comfort technology. We are all working under artificial lights. The bright light is not the best option for our eyes and we do research with scientists.
“Bright lights can be glaring but how to reduce the glare depends on the amount of light and then, there are colour temperature lights. A good light is as close to the natural colour lights as possible, which has less strain on the eyes,” outlined Sukanto.
He said WiZ has a circadian rhythm mode, which follows the various shades of the sun from bright to dim. He also revealed that usually, LED lights save about 50-60% of their energy with the same amount of lighting output as conventional lights.
However, the WiZ Smart lighting saves energy by further 20-30%, on top of the 50-60% energy savings that one gets after switching from conventional to smart LED lights.
The WiZ app is also capable of monitoring how light and energy are used in a room, which allow for more efficient usage. The convenience this brings to end users is obvious.
