WiFi-Enabled Smart Lights – Should You Buy One This Diwali?

Smart bulbs that are internet-enabled are less expensive now. Does that put them on your Diwali shopping list?

Looking to put colours in your home this Diwali?

(Photo: The Quint)

With Diwali around the corner, this year we have decided to focus on a segment that is not only becoming pocket-friendly, but offers environment safety as well.

While you will be lighting ‘diyas’ over the next few days, we think that going for smart colour-changing lights might be of interest to many consumers in the country.

We’ve shortlisted a few brands catering to smart bulbs in the market and what they offer for the money. Also, should you really be investing in a slew of smart bulbs this Diwali? We’ve got you covered here.

What Are Smart Bulbs?

These are basically regular LED bulbs embedded with a chip inside them which supports connectivity via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi internet in your household. Gradually, we have seen these smart bulbs work via voice commands through assistants like Alexa, Siri and even Google’s Assistant.

These bulbs are power efficient, and will easily last you for over three years, if not more.

(Photo: Philips and Syska altered by The Quint)

The smart bulbs, some of them, offer support for multiple colours, and you can pair a couple of them to create a group, let’s say for dining room, and you can turn that off without using the physical switches in the room.

The bulb can be operated through specific mobile apps, available on Android and iOS, offering convenience that most of you might like.

Which Smart Bulbs Can You Buy?

(Photo: Canva)

As you can see here, brands like Syska, Xiaomi, Yeelight (not a Xiaomi-owned brand) and Philips among others are selling their smart bulbs in the country.

However, make sure the bulb you’re buying supports a B22 type base. This is the most common type of holder available at houses in India. But just in case, the bulb needs an additional holder, you can buy the B22 to E27 bulb converter separately.

You can get them for prices between Rs 799 and Rs 1,299. You can get them via online or offline stores.

Anything I Should Be Worried About?

By using Wi-Fi to connect to these devices, people are likely to have security concerns and like most things connected to the internet, smart bulbs can also be misused. Most experts have pointed out that lighting is a popular aspect of the IOT segment, which is frequently used, with internet being used to turn them on and off within the house premises or even remotely.

So, it’s important to check these bulbs for what kind of security parameters they follow, to make sure you don’t end up giving control of these bulbs to hackers.

The smart home segment is expected to grow at a fast pace till 2020, but the household penetration of smart home devices recorded till now stands at 0.8 percent as of 2018. This is expected to reach 7.2 percent by 2022, which means a lot of new buyers will be entering the segment.