A simple trick helped me avoid stubbing my toe at night

We’ve all been there: You wake up in the middle of the night to get a drink or go to the bathroom and end up kicking the table or dresser. Sure, you could invest in a traditional night light, but there may not be an outlet where you need one, and keeping the light on all night isn’t cost-effective or good for sleep.

But there is a solution. Smart lights and sensors can help solve these problems. With a variety of lighting types and functions, you can easily customize your directional light to save your toes and your sanity with these tips. Here’s everything you need to know about using smart lights at night.

Use the contact sensor on the door

Contact sensors consist of two parts that are attached to the door and its frame and are triggered when the two parts separate. You can then connect the sensor to your smart light and program it to turn on when triggered.

There are many types of sensors, including this one. Aeotec SmartThings Multi-Purpose Sensorwhich offers detection functions such as temperature, motion, light and vibration. However, to avoid kicking furniture at night, you can use a simple contact sensor like this one from ThirdReality will do its job.

If you’re not sure how to set up your smart home, be sure to check out our beginner’s guide.

I like to use contact sensors to turn on the lights at night because they are less likely to go off accidentally than a motion sensor if a pet walks by.

To use the contact sensor for nighttime excursions, you’ll create a daily routine on your chosen smart home platform. Be it Amazon, Google, Apple or another platform, your situation may not reflect mine. My smart light My bathroom turns on 2% brightness and a warm tone when my contact sensor recognizes that I have opened the bathroom door. The light will stay on for 10 minutes and then turn off automatically.

Motion sensors

While I prefer touch sensors for lighting automation in many situations, depending on the location, sometimes they are not the best solution, such as in a hallway. As with contact sensors, motion sensors can activate automation when triggered. But in this case, as you may have guessed, the automation is created by movement, not by opening the door.

I use these devices at night, connecting two motion sensors at each end of the hallway and one in the kitchen to turn on the lights in those areas. As with the contact sensor automation, I turn the light up to 2% brightness and a warm tint only when the sensor detects movement. But instead of only turning off the lights after a certain amount of time has passed, I use motion as an indicator of when the lights should be turned off.

The light will turn off only after the sensors do not detect movement for five minutes. I use the same process for regular daylight lighting when connected to motion sensors.

Save your toes!

These smart sensors and lights have kept me from hurting my feet and waking up my family more times than I can count. I like to use devices I already have in my home to solve problems like this. Although I might get light strip with motion sensor or light strip to install, it will be one more device to manage when I already have several useful solutions.

In addition, smart lighting can be useful in other areas of the home: from I help you save money on energy costs to help you wake up naturally. Adding these convenient devices to your home provides lighting flexibility and customization that regular light bulbs cannot, including helping prevent nighttime injuries.