Smart
homes have finally improved enough that having a home that responds to
your every wish and command is almost within reach. The problem, is that
unless you are a Hollywood movie star or the offspring of an oil baron,
retooling your house to smarten it up is too expensive to do all once,
which means you’re going to need to tackle things piece by piece. And
out of all the intelligent improvements you could make, smart lighting
lighting is probably one of the best upgrades you can make.
For those living in apartments, this can be
achieved by replacing just a handful of bulbs. But if you live in
something bigger than one bedroom, with smart bulbs ranging from Ikea’s
$20 options to $50 a pop for some of Philip’s Hue expensive colored
bulbs (not even counting any hubs or extra routers you may need), that
proposition can get pricey fast.
That’s where Noon wants to come in. Instead of replacing your bulbs,
Noon Home hopes to improve your lighting by replacing the switches on
your walls with smarter wi-fi connected alternatives. For $400, the Noon
Smart Lighting Starter Kit includes a master Room Director Switch and
two extension switches. That might not seem like a deal, but when you
consider that all the bulbs in one room can be controlled by a single
switch, this could be a much cheaper option than getting new bulbs for
every fixture in your house.
The obvious caveat is that this process involves ripping out your
existing switches, face plates and electrical boxes and installing new
ones (goodbye deposit). That’s just a little bit more of a commitment
than screwing in a few lightbulbs. But at least if you go the DIY route,
you won’t have to pay someone else to do it. If you’re simply not the
handy type, Noon says it is partnering with InstallerNet,
a service that connects installers with customers for a fee, to connect
home-owners with professionals who should be able to get the job done.
The
real magic should happen once the smart switches are installed. Noon
claims its bulb discovery tech can automatically detect the types of
bulbs you are using so that you can use Noon’s mobile app to group
various fixtures together, create different lighting scenes and adjust
their brightness, all while minimizing the flickering and popping you
often get from old-school dumb bulbs. No more dimmers or trying to
remember if your new bulbs are the same wattage as your old ones, Noon
should do it for you.
Noon’s app can also learn from your
behavior, so that when you go on a trip, you can activate Vacation Mode
and have the system turn on lights to mimic how things would look if you
were actually at home. And like seemingly every other piece of smart
tech in 2017, Noon’s system supports voice controls via Amazon Alexa.
The primary Room Director switch, which functions as a master control
of sorts, also sports a built-in LCD screen that allows users to switch
lighting scenes just by swiping left or right on the display. It also
features a motion detector, which can be used to activate Night Light
mode whenever you walk by—handy for those late night trips to the
bathroom.
When
I tried the whole system out installed at an apartment in New York,
switching between various lighting setups and brightness took just a
couple swipes and a tap, and the smartphone app actually seemed a bit
more well-rounded compared to something like the Phillips Hue app.
However, I found myself wanting to have a more than just a single Room
Director, even in the small test apartment, so I could have the motion
detection cover a larger portion of the living space. The problem is
that the Room Director’s $200 price tag really forces you to decide how
many you actually need. Noon says one Director per floor should be more
than enough for most homes, but I’m not sure if it would be enough for
me.
If you’ve done the math and Noon seems cheaper than a smart bulb
solution than Noon’s switches will be available online and from major
retailers including Best Buy and Home Depot. Individual Room Directors
and extension switches will also be available separately for $200 and
$100, respectively.
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