Imagine knowing the upcoming weather without even having to look outside or watching the weather forecast on your local news channel. With a little help from some scientific breakthroughs, you don’t have to even look at your phone! The right set of smart bulbs will tell you all you need to know.
Smart lights can display the weather forecast by changing colors. Depending on what color you program your lights to turn to, you will be able to know what to expect on a given weather day by watching for color changes. To do this, pair your smart lights to an IFTTT account.
So now you’re probably wondering how to program your smart bulbs to forecast weather and how it works. We’ll discuss the details below, as well as how this technology could grow and change in the future.
How to Program Smart Bulbs to Forecast Weather
In order to access the weather channel for smart bulbs, the smart bulbs you’ll need to buy are smart bulbs that are compatible with the IFTTT website/app. There are other compatible apps that will enable your lights to forecast the weather. It all depends on what kind of bulb you have.
Some smart bulb manufacturers might use their own unique app that only works with their brand, so make sure you research the specific type you need before making a purchase.
The brands that are compatible with IFTTT are Lifx, Philips Hue, and WeMo. These smart bulb brands are all compatible with weather forecasting technology and features.
IFTTT is a site that enables you to do access information and connect it to your apps and devices. For smart bulbs, forecasting weather is one of those upgrades made possible through IFTTT. Your IFTTT account is where you can connect your smart bulbs to the weather channel to enable them to change color for different weather forecasts.
After doing this, you will need to set up the smart bulb’s reaction for rain, snow, heat, sunset, sunrise, etc. Each type of weather has to be programmed into your bulbs. You will also have to do the bulbs one by one unless you can select only a few that you want to change for a specific type of weather.
For example: If it’s a sunny day outside without a cloud in sight, your lights are set to their normal white color. If the wind has blown pollen and dust into the air, your lights now change to green.
Spring brings rain and thunderstorms which cause your lights to turn blue or a muted gray/green. Next winter comes in covering everything with a thick blanket of snow, dropping the temperature to freezing. In these conditions, your lights may turn light blue. Summer brings scorching heat and your lights respond with a bright orange hue.
Some of these reactions may be preset, while others can be custom programmed.
Here is a step by step guide about how to set up your bulb recipes on IFTTT.com.
Weather Functions on IFTTT
After syncing your lighting system with IFTTT, you have various options on how you want your setup to be. The best starting point is to set the current temperatures according to the weather that is most common in the area in which you live.
On IFTTT, you will need to program different triggers that will prompt the lights to change colors during weather changes or specific temperature benchmarks.
These triggers will work for any kind of weather you are trying to program your lights to detect. For example, you can set the triggers to change the color of your lights when the temperature goes below a certain threshold or gets hotter than you are normally used to. This will trigger the lights to change accordingly and you will have a heads up if want to dress for warmer or cooler weather.
You can also program your smart bulbs to recognize the sunrise and to turn off at exactly that time. Or if it is the sunset, you can program the lights to turn on. Setting different weather types will require you to have to set different triggers every time since they can only function for one specific type.
For example, if you want your lights to change colors for both rainy and sunny days then you will have to go through the process for both of them and input the presets.
When it comes to programming which specific colors you want for different kinds of weather, you need to choose colors that are not really dark or hard to discern. For cold and hot weather, pick two different colors that are distinctly different while at the same time being a bit on the lighter side.
That way the lighting in your room is still pleasing and not hideous. Having two separate distinct colors for both hot and cold weather will also help you see that there is a change in the weather. If this is not distinct enough, you may misread it and wear a sweater when it is 80 degrees outside.
These features seem to function best when used in your living room or bedroom. This is where light is most visible in your home and the place where you will probably use your smart bulbs most often.
Do you want to find out how exactly Smart Bulbs Change Color? You can find the info within this article that we wrote.
Home Streamliner’s Take
So now that we know that smart bulbs can reflect changes in the weather, what is the implication for the future of forecasting weather?
Well, the obvious answer is that if you would prefer to know the weather based on the color of your lights, you may pay less attention to the TV or your phone’s weather app.
However, some things to consider would be if there is a scenario where there was a blackout, you would not be able to know what weather is headed your way next. Also when you are away from home, you would have to check your phone for the weather anyway, so smart bulbs are not a perfect solution.
Overall, this is a cool and flashy technological advancement but its implications will be made clearer as time goes on. This may well be a new way that we get our weather updates! The question at the moment is if these smart bulbs are worth the cost, time, and effort to be able to forecast the weather in this new and exciting way. Programming them will only get easier in the future.
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