Lighting and energy saving: tips for a smart home

Here are some practical tips to better illuminate and save money.

Lighting and energy saving, a possible combination; just think that 80% of the electricity consumed in a home serves only to illuminate. Consumption that can be reduced by up to 20% with led lighting, for example using efficient low-consumption lamps.

The energy savings through lighting helps us pay cheaper to use but also to reduce national consumption of fossil fuels, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thereby improve the quality of our lives. But how?

Intelligent lighting: Which light bulb?

It starts with light bulbs, so the first step is to choose the right one for our needs. Size of the space to be illuminated and its functionality, are the first two components to keep in mind: a kitchenette should be lit differently from a bathroom, a living room or a bedroom.

Certainly, all traditional incandescent lamps that have been banned from marketing since 2011 must be banned from home. They had a low cost but also very low efficiency, short duration, and high heat output.

Also, the halogen lamps should be replaced since they ensure a greater efficiency compared to traditional incandescent, but always have poor efficiency. Not to mention that low voltage ones need a transformer.

The fluorescent lamps have a high cost but then compensates with high efficiency (but they need a reactor if not integrated into its interior).

Finally, there are LED light bulbs, which save up to 80% of electricity compared to a normal light bulb. They have low maintenance costs and a very long life span. They do not heat and do not contain mercury and lead so they can be disposed of as unsorted municipal waste. The only condition is that they do not light up immediately.

Practical tips for intelligent lighting

For each room, it's lighting but above all its activity at home. Go ahead then to the central suspension lamp for general lighting but not to those equipped with many lamps because they could consume more without an equivalent advantage in terms of lighting.

Yes to particular lighting for objects and paintings, perhaps with LED lights.

Yes to the floor lamp near the sofa to read, yes to the low-consumption lamp to watch TV that should never be seen in the dark to avoid eyesight problems. In the kitchen, free lighting for the sink spotlights and cooking and worktops.

In the room, the general lighting could be realized with wall lights and bedside lamps.

For the study desk, go ahead for adjustable table lamps with very low voltage lamps that must be positioned on the opposite side of the writing hand; today, however, it is mainly written on the computer, so the lamps must be oriented about 60 cm above the top.

In bathroom ceiling lights and spotlights in the ceiling, preferably halogen or LED for illumination of the mirrors and of the basin. For the outside, therefore, since it may often be possible to forget about lit appliances, it is better to use lamps powered by photovoltaic panels perhaps controlled by a photocell that is activated only with the passage of people or with a previously programmed timer