Five ways to wake up a little better – a guide

Five ways to wake up a little better

One smart light bulb could be enough to start the day more serenely.

In large parts of Norway, it can get really dark at certain times of the year. These days it is becoming especially evident. In a few weeks, we’ve gone from getting up after the sun to now staring at the black night when the alarm goes off.

To convince the body that it is still a good idea to get up before farting, we use our own lights and lamps. Then we don’t have to grope our way in the dark either. But it is not very convenient to wake up to the lights at full intensity.

Therefore, some years ago some lamp manufacturers have been putting together products that will give us a “natural” way to wake up. So-called wake-up lights try to mimic the sunrise by starting with a faint glow – then gradually switching to stronger lights.

Some experts think it may be better to wake up to a light rather than a regular audible alarm. We shouldn’t think too much about it, but we can agree that it’s often comforting to wake up gradually with the light getting stronger over time.

Sometimes we don’t actually need the alarm clock at all, the light itself can be enough.

Wake-up lights don’t have to cost a fortune – you can get the most affordable models from a few hundred dollars. At the other end of the scale, you can scroll up several thousand crowns for brighter models that may also have sensors that monitor your sleep pattern.

But if you already have a smart light bulb or a system that can control the lighting, you may already have what is needed for a better morning.

Many of these lights are controlled by applications that have some kind of sight that can be set in time, or some kind of automation that can be tuned so that the light turns on and gets stronger gradually.

In this article, we will briefly look at five solutions for creating such an awakening system based on smart lights from various manufacturers. This is far from everything that is on the market, but it will give an impression of what can be achieved.

You will need at least: Ikea Wireless Gateway and a compatible light bulb.

It’s not the most complicated solution, but the Ikea wireless smart home system has a timer function called “Up and jump”. This timer is special because it can turn on lights, sockets, blackout curtains and speakers at a certain time, but only smart lights and sockets start half an hour early.

The intensity of the lights will gradually increase over the next 30 minutes, before perhaps the curtain raises. If you set up your coffee maker the night before and plug it into your Ikea power socket/smart socket, you’ll also be greeted with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee as you sink into the kitchen.

There may be worse ways to start the day.

You will need at least: a Philips Hue bulb with Bluetooth technology. Alternatively, Hue Bridge plus compatible smart bulb.

Yes, Philips Hue can still be pricey, but newer Hue bulbs have the advantage that you don’t necessarily have to buy a Hue Bridge (hub control) either.

As for Hue’s Bluetooth app, it not only allows you to control a few lights, but also allows you to set up a wake-up routine if desired.

It is also possible to set up a sleep-like fade, if you feel the need for something like this as well.

The advantage of Hue over a number of other solutions is that we can also choose how long to fade in or out. For the Bluetooth app we can choose between 10, 20 and 30 minutes, while with the Hue Bridge we can choose between 5 and 60 minutes at intervals of five minutes.

You will need at least: a light bulb from WiZ.

This is a very simple and affordable wifi option for you who just want something that works. In the app we have a calendar / timer function where we can set up events for specific rooms, and in the long list of lighting modes to choose from we find two timed scenes: “wake up” and “bedtime”.

In order to wake up we will of course use the first, here the light will simply turn on at the specified “wake time” – albeit at a very low intensity. Then it will take thirty minutes for it to gradually become lighter.

If you set up a wake-up with colored LEDs, the light will start in another way with a somewhat pinkish tinge and gradually turn into a more intense and cooler light.

You need at least: someone Nanoleaf smart light panels.

Nanoleaf light panels have many uses. Not only can they create a good atmosphere in a boys or girls’ room, but they can also help get optimists out of bed. Or yourself, if you have a sense of this lighting.

Here we are simply going to promote a scene called “Vibrant Sunrise”, which you can download for free via the Nanoleaf app. Then we can simply use the calendar/timer function to set up that scene to run at such a good time before the alarm goes off.

The scene itself isn’t that complicated – it just starts with a dark, dull blue that gradually changes to light red, orange, yellow and finally white. The full enjoyment takes no more than seven to eight minutes and can also be combined with a gradual increase in light intensity if desired.

Because Nanoleaf allows any scene or lighting setup to increase intensity over a designated amount of time, almost any scene can be used to wake up. But we appreciate that extra “sunrise.”

Nanoleaf also has a handsome sleep scene called “Sleep Time”, where everything goes in the opposite direction.

You need at least: Google Nest Mini Or any other device in the home, as well as lighting devices associated with Google Home. Alternatively, Google Nest Hub.

Google’s smart home system and its associated voice assistant have over time gained a prominent role in the signer’s home. Pushing buttons and programming scenes is fine, but sometimes it’s a lot easier to say what you want to do.

With almost all the lights in the home being remotely controlled, therefore, we were ecstatic when we discovered a number of cute commands that work with all the smart bulbs, smart switches, and smart sockets categorized as “lights” in the Google Home app.

These are commands that increase or decrease the brightness of certain rooms or certain lights over a 30-minute period. This of course requires that the light source be dim.

Unfortunately, the function does not work quite as it should. Just asking Google to make a relaxing wake-up call will start brightening the lights in the room right away. Our solution was to say “look at a comfortable wake-up call at 7:15” or when you want Google to start dimming.

But this only controls the light. For alarm sounds, you should additionally set a regular alarm, for example at seven o’clock – you want the light to wake you up first.

The function can also be used for more than just getting up, and there are many commands that can be used. Lights Wake Up and Lights Sleep will gradually increase or decrease the brightness of a particular room.

We will find out more about this On Google Help pages, but the information is clearly not completely up-to-date.

If you have a Google Nest Hub, you have more options. With the help of the touch screen, you can set up a wake-up call as something recurring – eg for all days of the week – and you can choose exactly which lights you want to turn on. This applies to the whole house.

Alternatively, you can choose to let the hub screen take care of life lighting. But then you have to make him stand very close, for example on the bedside table.

In addition, you are free to choose when to turn on the light, then five to thirty minutes before the alarm.

The actual feature to act as an alarm light is on both the first and second generation of the Nest Hub. But sleep tracking is only in the latter.