How to illuminate your garden with smart lighting

The garden is a place where children can play, and family and friends can spend time together. In addition to growing plants and flowers, many people use their gardens to cultivate fruit trees, berry bushes and vegetable patches. Some gardens are also home to expensive equipment, such as BBQs.

In this blog post we'll take a closer look at why it's a good idea to invest in smart lighting for the garden.

Light up what you like best in the garden

In some gardens, many hours have been spent on cultivating a nice lawn, beautiful plants, and flowers that bring colour and comfort. There may be an area in the garden for a table where you can enjoy a drink in the shade of a fruit tree.

You should also be able to enjoy all this when night falls. Today, there are many different smart luminaires available that can bring life to your garden after dark.

Place a couple of spotlights to make creative shadows. Light up the garden path. Let the facade lighting shine on your pot plants where the chrysanthemums are in full bloom. Or place an upward spotlight next to a tree trunk to light up the leaves from below.

If you use coloured lighting, it’s possible to create even more mood and atmosphere. This is ideal during different holidays, as you can tailor the colour to the event. For example, orange at Halloween or red at Christmas time.

Smart lighting in the garden can also act as a deterrent

Investing in outdoor lighting not only beautifies your garden at night – it also makes your home safer. An intruder would rather find a garden where all the lights are turned off, so cleverly placed lighting can have a deterrent effect on unwanted visitors.

This deterrence becomes even more effective by making the lighting intelligent. When a motion sensor or outdoor camera detects movement, the garden can suddenly be illuminated and help to scare away any intruders.

Did you know smart lighting can also be combined with other products that can be automatically activated?

With a smart controller such as the TaHoma switch from Somfy, if a sensor outside detects movement then a smart roller blind indoors can be set to automatically roll up. A light can turn on too. This gives the impression that someone heard something, woke up, and got up to investigate. Meanwhile, you’re sleeping peacefully and everything is recorded by the outdoor camera.

A tip is to start small and then add elements later. You can use a powerful flashlight to test where you need outdoor lighting at night. Aim the flashlight at different places in the garden, move it around a bit, and see what needs illuminating. Then create your shopping list.

Today, there are also several low-voltage solutions available that do not require fixed installation. This means they’re easy to do yourself. The Philips Hue range, for example, has many different solutions for your garden.