Let’s say you decide to go for a permanent lighting system: now what? Well, whether you’ve already taken the plunge or you’re still trying to figure out if it’s right for you, now’s the time to learn how to use a programmable lighting system and make the most out of it all year round.
Smart lighting is about more than just having a nice glow around your home every night (although that’s a nice feature anyway). You can do all kinds of interesting things with your lighting system, and because our Gemstone Lights are controlled by an app, it’s really easy to program and customize them.
How to Use Your Programmable Lighting System: Programming Basics
Programming your lights may seem a bit daunting, but it’s actually easy to get started. Once they’re installed, your Authorized Dealer will show you how to set up the app. To begin with, you can:
- Explore the app – this is the moment to have a look around and figure things out. The home screen of our Hub app has all the options you need – take a moment to notice where everything is
- Create patterns – you can create your first customized lighting pattern. We’d recommend starting with the everyday lights you want to use. Your Authorized Dealer can show you this, but you can also follow this tutorial to see how it works.
- Set timers – you can create a timer for your lights to switch on at a specific time. This means you don’t have to worry about manually turning them on and off again. You can find out how to do this using our tutorial.
- Look at our premade patterns – we have a range of premade patterns to choose from, and you can browse these in the folders on the app. This should give you some inspiration on what you can do with your new lights!
Programmable Lighting Customization Options
There’s a surprising amount you can do with our lights. For example, you can:
- Create fun lights for special occasions like Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, Halloween, or Easter
- Select specific lights to glow brighter than others to highlight certain areas of your property (like doorways or porches)
- Set up a routine so your lights switch on and off every day at the right time
- Set up security lighting to keep your family safe by having lights in darker areas so they can enter and leave the property safely
- Highlight specific areas of your home, like architectural details, so everyone can enjoy them
Our Favorite Ways to Use Programmable Lighting
Let’s check out some of the ways you can use programmable lighting.
Daily Routines Made Simple
One of the best things about having a programmable light system is that you can use it to make daily life run a little more smoothly.
For example, if you have a big family with plenty of people coming and going, you can set the lights to come on when the first person leaves the house and have them switch off after the last person arrives home safely.
It’s these small things that give you peace of mind. And because you can set lights on a timer, it only takes a few moments on the app, and the routine is set. You can go in and change it at any time to adjust to your family’s needs.
And if you grant access to other family members, they can control your LED lights using the app, too.
You can also use the Hub2 app for sunrise and sunset timers. This means your lights will adapt to daylight changes without you having to do it manually. Just go to the Timers section and select ‘Sunrise’ and ‘Sunset’ as a timing option.
There are 62 timers available on the Hub2 app, giving you greater flexibility and control over your lighting system, so you can switch up timers for different times of the year.
Programmable Event Lighting
One of the cool things about having permanent lighting is that it can tie in really nicely with local events. For business owners, this is great because you can instantly add to the community spirit when there’s an event happening.
For example, if your town has a beloved sports team, you can light up your building in their color by simply selecting it on the app. Or, if you live near a college, you can choose their colors to welcome in the new students—this is such an easy way to build community with new people and to foster a sense of belonging, and if you have commercial lighting, it lets people know that you’re friendly and welcoming.
Of course, this doesn’t just apply to businesses—the same thing goes for homeowners, too. It’s easy to support your favorite team or join in with local festivals using the app.
You can celebrate your local sports team without having to put up string lights—instead, you can easily create a new pattern for the event using your phone.
Permanent Holiday Programmable Lighting
Programmable Christmas lights allow you to go all-out with your holiday lighting. It’s one of the many reasons why we love permanent outdoor lights. Using the app, you can select one of our premade patterns or create your own.
You’ll have a ton of options to choose from, so you can get that exact right color pattern you like for any occasion: Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, and more.
This means that your flood lights or track lights can be a standout feature on their own, which saves you a ton of time with decorating. Or, you can use it to highlight your other outdoor decor.
For example, you can use the app to turn the brightness up on your flood lights and direct light toward your nativity scene or switch up the colors of your track lights to match the pumpkin display on the front porch.
You can also save your premade patterns. So once you’ve hit on a color-changing Christmas combo you really like, you can set a timer to come on every single night and then save it for next year so you won’t have to set it all up from scratch.
You can set timers for months in advance—so you can surprise your family with a twinkly Christmas light routine on the first of December! Yearly timers take priority over weekly timers, so those ‘special occasion’ lights will kick in even if you have a regular daily timer set.
Holiday lighting is the best time to introduce some movement into your outdoor lights. Going into the premade pattern folder will give you a ton of choices to pick from: this is especially fun to play around with if you have kids in the house! Our premade animations take your regular lighting and ramp it up to another level.
Lighting for Security
A programmable lighting system can be so useful from a security perspective. You can control your outdoor lights from afar if you need to—the app will still work even if you’re not home, as long as you’re connected to the internet.
Just go into the app and switch on the lights as normal. You can also check the current status of the lighting system even if you’re not there—you’ll see it on the ‘now playing’ bar on the Hub2 app.
When you’re away from home, this is particularly useful for your peace of mind. (This is also the case if you have kids who have control of the lights—you can check in and make sure they’re not annoying the neighbors in the middle of the night.)
And if you’re tuning in from afar using a Ring doorbell or similar, you can switch your lights on just to check that everything’s okay—a lighting system illuminating dark spaces combined with a smart doorbell can really help to protect your home and your belongings, and it’s so worth it just to make you feel more relaxed when you have to leave home for a while.
If you’re a parent and you’re leaving your older kids in the house, you can make them feel safer by setting your outdoor lights to illuminate darker spaces, especially if they’ll be coming and going at night or in the early hours of the morning.
Once you’re home, you can switch out these timers if you want to because you’ll be there to control your lights yourself.
Programmable Architectural Lighting
In addition to creating festive displays with your programmable Christmas lights or setting timers to welcome your family home, you can also use the app to highlight specific architectural features.
Individual lights can be programmed using the app to showcase specific areas, like walkways, landscaping, eaves, or other small details you love.
Sometimes, your favorite little areas of your property aren’t that visible at night: isolating specific lights and making them brighter or a different color can really draw attention to these spaces. This is really nice when you’re having guests over, too.
If you want to enjoy your outdoor space when you have friends over, you can highlight your favorite areas on and around your home.
You can map out specific lights using the ‘zone’ feature, which allows you to group lights together and easily access them later.
You can name these zones yourself, which makes it easier to keep track of them, and you can give them a name that makes sense to everyone in the household!
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Is it easy to use the app?
Answer: The app is easy to use. You can go as deep as you want to when it comes to programming your lights—you can customize them to your heart’s content or just enjoy the preset patterns we have already available. We’ve designed the app to be easy to use even if you’re not particularly tech-savvy but interesting enough to dive deeper if you want to.
Question: How customizable is your programmable lighting system?
Answer: It is pretty customizable! There are 16 million colors and countless patterns to choose from, so you can spend a long time trying to find the exact shade you’re looking for. The Hub2 app also expands the number of lights you can control from 1,000 to 4,096 lights, giving you even more flexibility and creativity.
Question: Can I use the app on multiple devices?
Answer: Yes, you can use the app on multiple devices. Other members of your household can download it to their devices, too. You’ll need to invite them from your device, and they can accept the invitation the next time they open the app, which allows them access to the lighting system.
Is a Programmable Lighting System Right for You?
If you think a programmable lighting system might be the right option for your home, just get in contact with one of our Authorized Dealers—they’ll be able to give you a quote based on your home or business and get the ball rolling.
If you’ve already got the lighting system in place, enjoy playing around—there’s so much you can do with Gemstone Lights, so spend some time exploring the app and figuring out what you can do with it!