Top Benefits of Smart Lighting for Interior Design (2024)

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Lighting is a powerful tool in interior design. It can do anything from setting a mood to providing practical help in spaces without natural light. Today, we are going to learn the top benefits of including smart lighting for interior design to elevate your home!

This post is sponsored with thanks to Caséta by Lutron.

Smart Lighting for Interior Design

Interior design has become a much more understood skill as new resources and books come out, masterclasses are offered, and designers share advice on their own personal blogs. It is an industry that has become more approachable for the average homeowner as we take control of designing our own spaces.

However, one of the often overlooked aspects of interior design is lighting.

Proper lighting illuminates (pun intended) interior design choices, working in tandem with a designer’s overall vision.

Now that smart lighting has become much more accessible, I’m excited to share how smart lighting for interior design can elevate your home! But first, let’s quickly cover some basics.

The Purpose of Lighting in Interior Design

Lighting can make or break a home’s design. It impacts so many things that most don’t even realize.

• Depending on your bulb, lighting can change the color of wall paint from cold to warm.
• It creates cozy spaces that otherwise would be overlooked.
• It can provide the best functionality for task oriented spaces.
• Proper lighting provides security for your home.
• It can elevate your interior design with depth, ambiance and a welcoming atmosphere.

4 Types of Lighting in Interior Design

While lighting resources continue to grow each year with new innovative products, or the resurgence of classic lighting like neon, there are 4 main types of lighting to consider in interior design.

1. Task Lighting: Provides focus on specific spaces that need brighter lighting for functionality.
2. Ambient Lighting: Often the main source of light that brightens a whole room. (Should be dimmable!)
3. Accent Lighting: Highlights specific areas of a home, like sconces above or alongside artwork.
4. Decorative Lighting: Creates a mood atmosphere with lamps. Or, this can be a statement making chandelier.

What is Smart Home Lighting?

To get us started, let’s discuss what is the point of smart lighting?

Smart home lighting is the future of home lighting. It allows you to connect your home lighting system wirelessly. Not only does this add convenience, more control, and automation, but it is also an energy saving tool.

In our home, we’ve installed automated lighting with the Caséta Wireless by Lutron lighting system.

This is more than just a whole home lighting control system. It also automates and controls temperature and smart blinds through the Lutron Smart Bridge.

Benefits of Smart Lighting

There are many smart lighting benefits, even beyond the benefits of interior design elevation. The top benefits of smart lighting in our home are:

1. Alexa compatible lights make turning lights on and off as easy as speaking. (Our Caséta Wireless system is also compatible with Google home, Siri, Apple HomeKit and many more.)
2. A single smart switch from Caséta makes any bulb “smart”. So rather than replacing all ceiling light bulbs in a room, we simply updated our switches to Caséta smart switches to make all our bulbs smart lighting compatible. (This also works well with the Caséta Wireless 3 Way switches for our high traffic rooms with multiple entry and exit points.)
3. Automated lighting provides extra security with lighting schedules, whether you are home or away.
4. Minimize energy usage by easily automating unnecessary light and energy use.
5. Smart lighting control systems for homes help you set the mood in your home. Create scenes with the Caséta Wireless system for each room with the touch of a button. Ex: Bedrooms can have a soft lighting programmed scene while kitchens are programmed for full functionality with bright lighting scenes.
6. Create a schedule for your lighting so outdoor lights come on and turn off with the sunset and sunrise. Or, program your lighting to automatically turn on at wake up time to help you get started with your day.
7. Smart bedside lamps are helpful as you wind down for the day. Program your lamp (or your kids’ lamps) to run on a schedule to turn off at bedtime, create a soft lighting scene, or brighten during the evening!
8. Smart lighting for interior design means that I can control my lighting from multiple places: the Lutron app on my phone, wall switches, Pico Smart remotes, or any smart device like Amazon Alexa. This makes it extremely versatile as I use lighting to highlight specific areas of my home.
9. For added security while you are away, you can also set up Lutron’s Smart Away on the app to program your home to randomly turn lights on and off in the evening throughout your home. This simulates people in the home, even when you’re not!
10. Scheduled lighting allows you to highlight your design. An example of this would be to highlight pieces of artwork with always-on sconces while turning off a room’s ambient lighting.
11. Convenience is key with smart lighting. Turn on lights when you come home with hands full by speaking to your smart device. Ask Alexa to dim the lights when you’re cozy under a blanket and don’t want to get up. Or, turn off lights with your app in the driveway as you spot that one light you forgot to turn off before getting in the car!

Do Smart Lights Work Without WiFi?

When I started looking into smart lighting, it was very important to me that it work without wifi. We have “country” internet, which means it is usually unreliable. So, I needed a smart lighting system that worked even when the internet is down.

Since the Caséta Smart Bridge doesn’t use wifi, I know that my lighting will continue to work, even when wifi is down!

Caséta by Lutron Installation

While I tend to tackle all of the interior decorating and DIY projects in our home, I usually call in my husband to help with electrical projects. He’s great at electrical projects and so he installed all our new smart lighting switches from Caséta.

It was very simple to do, just like wiring any light switch. For our 3 way switches, he chatted with a customer service representative from Lutron to ensure we knew which products we needed to make our system work.

They were extremely helpful in setting us up with the right amount of Pico Smart remotes and 3 pole switches for our main living areas to work properly.

Once the switches were installed, I took over and set up our home with the Lutron app. This allows me to create scenes in each room, set a schedule for automated lights, and operate individual lights right from my phone.

Stay Connected

I hope you’ve learned more about smart lighting for interior design, as well as the top benefits of having a smart lighting system in your home! Switching to Caséta by Lutron has benefited us in many ways and I’m excited to explore some of the other options from Lutron that we haven’t yet invested in. (I’m looking at you, smart shades.)

I’d love to know, what smart lighting benefits are you looking forward to?

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Decorative Lighting Options

Learn more about the different affordable decorative lighting options I love in this post!