App-Controlled Landscape Lighting

With the advances technology has made in the last decade, we can run almost everything from our smartphones.

From baby monitors to security cameras, ordering fast food to remote starting your car, there isn’t much you can’t do from the convenience of your phone.  So it should come as no surprise that low voltage landscape lighting manufacturers have found a way to bring that same convenience to the great outdoors.

What’s Possible

With the recent product offerings by companies like FX Luminaire and Brilliance, you can create nearly any atmosphere or ambience you’d like in your outdoor space.  Imagination and budget might be the only things that limit you.

For example, with a LUXOR system from FX Luminaire, your low voltage lighting fixtures can be powered by a single run of wire but organized into zones that can be controlled independently through an app on your Android or IOS device for on/off times, brightness, and color.

That’s right.  We said color.

color-changing LED

photo courtesy of FX Luminaire

It’s now possible to adjust the colors your LED low voltage lights emit through an app’s user interface, with color choices numbering over 30,000, simply by swiping your finger across the color palette on your device’s screen.  These options give the client the ability to create themes for their different outdoor living spaces, changing with the time of day, time of year, or for special occasions.  Perhaps a green and gold theme on Packer Sundays?

As you might expect, with each step up in flexibility and convenience comes an additional cost.  Where a traditional low voltage lighting transformer might have a retail cost of between $.50-$1.00 per watt (depending on capacity and quality/brand of transformer), to be able to wirelessly group your lights or change color, you should expect to pay an additional $500-$2,000 for the transformer and control unit, depending on the control options you choose.  Additionally, many of these fixtures are designed to work wirelessly with the control module back at the transformer, meaning there’s additional hardware and technology built into each fixture to allow it to communicate with and be controlled by the primary control unit.  Expect to pay more per fixture for this level of flexibility as well.

How much would a system like this cost?  Given the number of variables involved, it’s really not possible to say without meeting with you to discuss your needs.  But whether your landscape lighting needs are utilitarian or you want the latest tech to allow you to host the most amazing block party, we’re here to help.  Just give us a call.