As technology is on a steadfast climb, many products have hit the market that can assist with turning your residence into a centrally controlled smart home.
Smart bulbs are great starter items on the residential, artificial intelligence journey, but how you prefer to control your device will influence which you should use in your home.
By creating an internet connection on the WiFi network, a smart bulb will operate with a minimum of a 4G LTE hotspot. When the hotspot is powered off, the light itself will continue to illuminate. However, the bulb will no longer be able to be controlled from your app or smart devices.
If you prefer that your smart devices work together as a group and on a schedule, the mobile hotspot connection may or may not work against your cause.
You’ll want further details regarding your smart bulb connectivity to yield the best usage.
I’ll gladly walk you through what you need to know.
Ca smart bulb work with mobile hotspot: Pick A Platform
When choosing a bulb, it’s best to consider how exactly you’d like to control the light.
Using standard technical communication like a WiFi hotspot or Bluetooth connection will most certainly work, but what exactly is a WiFi hotspot? A mobile hotspot is an external and sometimes an internal device used to originate a signal for smart devices to connect to the internet on the go.
Just like the internet at home, having more items connected to it may cause a delay in your network signal.
Adding more devices to and clogging up your internet connection will always possibly pose a problem. But there’s a simple solution with this alternative.
Although generally discussed together, WiFi and Bluetooth do not tend to work well together; this is where a Zigbee or Z-wave device comes into play.
Instead of connecting each of your devices to the WiFi hotspot, the Zigbee program is like the pied piper of devices, bringing all connections to it instead. Choosing Zigbee as a recourse to WiFi or Bluetooth will utilize a lesser amount of bandwidth and will operate better with your low-powered devices.
The New Echo Plus (4th Gen) acts as a Zigbee hub yet still performs the upgraded functions as a wireless speaker.
Amazon’s new device comes with neural edge processing, prompting a stronger responsive behavior from the device that will assist with learning who you are as the owner over time.
Regarding your progression towards home automation, the new Echo Plus would serve a useful purpose for top-tier personalization.
If you’d like to use your bulbs in collaboration with other devices, the best option would be smart bulbs that are controlled by a smart home platform like:
- Google Assistant
- Apple Siri
- Amazon Alexa
The bulbs you’re looking for will require, and sometimes be included with a smart hub.
If you’re a person with a multitude of devices already linked to your internet connection or need to keep your connection as clear as possible due to remote work, the hub works directly with your router to avoid further overextending the connectivity.
This Sengled Light Bulb Starter Kit is an affordable, efficient package that includes two smart bulbs and the hub unit, which has the capability to connect sixty-four smart devices to it. So if you’re in the process of creating your smart home, the minor investment may be worthwhile.
The Pros of A Smart Bulb
Just like an ordinary bulb, smart bulbs are plugged into a socket but are controlled with apps or smart devices. The days of leaving your warm, cozy bed to adjust the lights can be a thing of the past!
With a touch of a finger, you can :
- Change the color of your lighting
- Turn the bulb on and off
- Dim the lights
- Control the lights on a schedule or with motion
Uses and necessities will differ from person to person, however, there’s a benefit for most.
There are several pros to the use of smart bulbs, let’s look into it.
| Regular Bulb | Smart Bulb | ||
| Energy Efficient |  | Energy Efficient | |
| Reasonably Priced | | Reasonably Priced | |
| Long Life Span |  | Long Life Span | |
| Dimming Feature | | Dimming Feature | |
| Control From Anywhere | | Control From Anywhere | |
| Ability To Play Music | | Ability To Play Music | |
Upon reviewing the chart, you’ll see the benefits of a smart bulb win by a landslide; however, this may do absolutely nothing to sway a consumer who is not tech-savvy.
Home automation is indeed all about preferences- If you are in fact, in the market for a smart bulb, you can also see why it would be a sensible decision.
The Cons Of A Smart Bulb
Although the awesome benefits outweigh the lousy ones, it is still beneficial to understand the full scope of the product prior to purchase.
The technology could be wonderful or dreadful for your home without the proper network security, as with all internet-connected device
It has been found that smart bulbs can be hacked, potentially compromising any information stored within your network cloud. Select bulbs have a technology flaw that allows hackers an easy entry point into your entire grid.
The footsteps leading to a cyber attack on your smart bulb network may look very similar to this:
- A virtual intruder seizes an individual bulb using the Z-Wave or Zigbee activity and sends malware to it.
- The intruder will change the settings of the bulb to reflect a glitching issue.
- Regarding troubleshooting, the most widely known way to fix a glitched smart bulb is to remove it from the mobile hotspot network, and then add it back in.
- At this point, the bulb’s uninvited guest sparks a massive informational exodus to the control bridge. The communication allows settling of other malicious software that can aid in complete command of the network.
- The infiltrator at this stage has the free reign of your meshwork.
An additional route of informational hacking via smart bulbs includes using API keys with a lack of encryption to conquer a victim’s network.
API, (which stands for application programming interface key) is an exclusive identifier used to authenticate a user or developer.
For the strongest level of protection, it is imperative to choose a strong and complex WiFi hotspot passkey, as too easy of one will open the flood gates for hackers.
Playing It Safe
Smart bulbs are like cars in a way; with proper maintenance, you’ll see and feel a sound return on your investment.
Manufacturers of smart devices provide continual fixes to bugs and other technical issues. You, as the consumer, must exercise your due diligence by consistently monitoring your app for ready-to-install updates.
Have you ever prolonged installing an update to your phone and noticed how sluggish and delayed it was in process? The same idea applies – so many smart bulb owners are discovering issues with their devices very often, and these companies do their best to keep up on the curve of ever-evolving issues.
WiFi Hotspots Work But Is It The Best Option?
Think past the technical jargon and mechanical specs of a smart bulb; it’s a language the average person respectfully will not understand or need.
Cogitate all of your wants and needs within the realm of its capabilities, consider how you’d like to control those wants and needs, and select a suitable product to use in your household.
Home automation allows you to create a cohesive network of handheld luxuries based directly on your chosen personal preferences.
Connecting a smart bulb to a WiFi mobile hotspot is possible, but it should fit nicely within the schematics of your pre-existing network when you’re selecting a smart bulb for your home.