As you read through this post, watch the videos, see what all we’ve done – it’s only natural to ask “Jeez, how much did this cost?” Well, let me answer that now so we can focus on the content: you do not want to know. Links below seem to break on the regular, find the videos and more here: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B1A59UlCq1m3Dr
HEADS UP: If you use “Hey Siri” in your home, you may want to turn the volume down before playing the videos below, and on a personal note: James, fuck you and your phrases used in https://saladbowl.fun
Introducing: Comfort Color Lighting, Automated
As you know, or should by now, I put a lot of pride into being efficiently lazy: automating repetitive tasks, communication, and my life to an extent some might consider insane (I prefer eccentric, potato-potato). About a year ago, my partner/boyfriend/fiancé, let’s call him Alan, and I stayed a weekend at our good friend’s who recently started adding Philips Hue lighting to his house; this weekend with friends sparked something deep in Alan’s soul, turning to me “I need this in my life” – and thus began our journey to not just be more comfortable in our home, but to turn our home into our sanctuary, into an immersive experience of unto which we could not have imagined possible at the time.
I’ll be the first to admit, I never really thought much of color – sure I have a preference for dark themed user interfaces just like any sane software engineer, selecting the “Darcula” radio button is enough for me; automating my lights simply meant replacing the light switches with smart ones. When I introduced Alan to Pycharm as an alternative to Sublime, he was blown away by the Ansible/YAML plugins and extensions that he instantly dropped Sublime as his editor of choice – and spent the next day or two tweaking the color schemes, asking my opinion between two indiscernible grays looked best as the editor background.
Side note, his need for perfect color schemes in his life seemed like a waste of time to me at first, but I have truly grown to appreciate how the varying tones in color can really affect you – I still can’t bring myself to spend the time to tweak my editor colors so I simply use the themes he lovingly creates from scratch.
Understanding Alan’s affinity for color and its effects on mood and focus, we can now appreciate the super-human patience and effort that he has put in; turning our house into a home, our living room into an immersive theatre better than any AMC or Alamo, and practically removing the need for an alarm to wake up in the morning – all through the use of comfort color lighting.
Energy, Mood and Adaptive Lighting
For the uninitiated, adaptive lighting is an algorithm that brings the awe of the sun rising, the beauty of a wonderful setting sun, the tranquility of a clear night sky into your home through the color and temperature of lights in your home. As the day starts, gentle and beautiful sunrises throughout our home – slowly transitioning from a comfortable, yet dim, twilight to a beautiful sky blue and hints of orange – awakened every day to the artificially created beauty of nature, regardless of what the weather is outside these walls. As the day rolls on, and the sun starts to set, the sky blue darkens, the hints of orange now prominent, the tint of red as the sun’s rays pass over the atmospheric scattering effect so prominent during the day. Soon, below the horizon, twilight starts to set in – the sky a dark backdrop sprinkled with fuchsia from the few photon particles that pass tangentially over our planet as the sun sinks deeper and deeper. With gratitude for his lighting work, I rarely wake In the mornings grumbling anymore, instead, the comfort color lighting makes me feel inspired and energized – though that still doesn’t seem to curb my intake of caffeine, that’s a whole other thing.
Enter Your Favorite Movie, No VR Headset Required
We all seem to have that person in our life: the self-proclaimed audiophile who can’t stand for anything less than 7.2 Atmos surround, the purist nitpicking digital artifacts due to compressed video streams, those who scoff at televisions that don’t upscale to the point of being able to see every pore on an actor’s face. Well, we are those people, and then some. Before the world shut down in response to an invasion from microscopic organisms hell-bent on world domination, most people went to movie theaters to get a taste of immersive sound and visuals – and spend $10 on a bag of Skittles. Let me introduce you to the Philips Hue Sync Box, one of the most amazing devices to enter the home entertainment market, and one of the worst smart devices ever made. When it comes to being a smart device, it’s the equivalent of the most intelligent goldfish at Petsmart – the app is slow, has wireless connection issues and requires a dedicated Hue Hub for each Sync Box in your home. Thankfully, the REST API served on the device is responsive and intuitive – a great addition to your home automation system. If it’s one of the worst smart devices ever made, how can it be such an amazing home entertainment device? Good question. Simply wire your set-top boxes to any of the 4 HDMI inputs on the Sync Box and the output to your stereo or television – and now up to 10 Hue (or Hue Compatible) lights synchronize with the image displayed on your television, or create a visualizer for music. Not long ago, the light strips by Philips Hue could only be set to one color for the whole strip – but now you can get a Gradient Light Strip sized for your television…. words cannot compete with seeing it in action:
Video Mode with Mad Max
Video Mode with Rango
Video Mode with Music and Visualizer
Music Mode with Music
Setting the Mood
Check back later for mood lighting and scenes!
But Wait, There’s More!
Here’s the lighting we use around our house
- Living Room
- TV Backlight: Hue Gradient Light Strip
- Under TV: Hue Light Strip
- Couch Light: Hue Light Strip + Extension
- Behind Speakers: Hue Play Bars
- Ceiling Fan: Hue Ambiance Bulbs
- Game Room
- TV Backlight: Hue Gradient Light Strip
- Closet: Hue Light Strip + Extension
- Ceiling Light: Insteon On/Off Switch
- Entry Room
- Mantel: Hue Light Strip
- Floor Lamp: Hue Color Bulbs
- Kitchen
- Hall Light: Hue Play Bar
- Ceiling Light: Insteon On/Off Switch
- Dining Room
- Ceiling Fan: Hue Ambiance Bulbs
- Hallways:
- Ceiling Light: Hue Being Ambiance Fixture
- Bathrooms:
- Vanity: Hue Ambiance Bulbs
- Ceiling: Hue Ambiance Bulbs
- Bedroom
- TV Accents: Hue Play Bars
- Headboard Accents: Hue Play Bars
- Ceiling Fan: Hue Ambiance Bulbs
- Dance Studio
- Nanoleaf Panels
- Exterior
- Wall Sconces: Hue Appear Ambiance Fixtures
- Walkway: Hue Calla Ambiance Fixtures
Keep up to date as we add lighting, scenes, and effects to our home: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B1A59UlCq1m3Dr
