When you spend a lot of changes on smart lighting systems, you want to know that it will last. Here we break down the expected timeline of the smart lighting system and find out which components may fail first.

Smart lights use LEDs, and reports show that the lifespan of LEDs is much longer than that of incandescent bulbs. The LED can last 30,000 to 50,000 hours of output until the brightness is reduced to the initial 70%. At the same time, the service life of CFL bulbs is 8,000 to 10,000 hours, while traditional incandescent lamps can only be used for 1,000 hours. Applying a little mathematical calculation shows that you can run an LED bulb for 8 hours a day for 17 years. Even so, you will only deal with a slight drop in bulb brightness. If you are really worried about ensuring that the lifespan of smart lights is long enough, you can set a schedule at any time so that they only light up when needed.

Over time, the LED will emit less light. Rather than burn out due to overuse, they are more likely to become unusable due to wiring failure or the gradual decline in color quality before then.

The reason LEDs last longer than incandescent bulbs is that they do not rely on generating heat to generate light. An incandescent bulb sends a voltage through the filament, and the filament heats up until it also starts to glow, but more than 90% of its energy will be lost in the form of heat. Therefore, the pressure on the materials that play a role in LEDs is much less, but this does not mean that they do not generate heat at all. Inappropriate materials that do not consider the small amount of heat they generate may cause burnout. In this case, LEDs made with poor-quality heat sinks are likely to burn out. Home wiring that runs at excessively high voltages can also blow up smart light bulbs. However, there are also outliers. Generally speaking, you should not expect smart lights to burn out like incandescent bulbs.

The lifespan of smart bulbs is indeed longer than that of non-LED bulbs. Compared with "dumb" LED lights, a potential flaw of smart lights is software support. For example, Philips Hue bulbs require a wireless hub to communicate with your phone. After a while, the mobile app stopped supporting voice commands to any Hue bulbs connected to the first-generation hub, requiring users to upgrade to the next-generation. In these cases, the smart bulbs themselves worked well, but the backbone of the software they needed failed. It still supports basic functions, but it can be expected that with the development of the software platform, smart lights will lose some functions.

Worst of all, over time, smart light bulbs become more and more useless. Any LED bulb may degrade light quality, and it is unlikely that a manufacturer will provide software support for any given product indefinitely.

With all this in mind, I hope you can pick up a set of smart bulbs with a clear conscience. These bulbs can be used for a long time and should be able to provide convenient and colorful lighting for your home. However, there are many more LED lighting. We have a comprehensive guide to smart lights that should provide additional background for these products.

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