Our bulbs in our pathway goring from the street to the house are beginning to burn out. So, something has to be done.
I have been planning on doing something with LEDs for some time - so is now the time ?
My question is, the ‘normal’/cheap LED strips being used, are they good enough to light up a pathway ? What are your experiences with this ?
Our pathway from the street to the house is right next to a garage where there is an overhang(?) where the light can be placed. The overhang is about 2½ meters over the ground.
And the next step. The Pathway ends in a covered terrace before the front door. The terrace is 4 m x 10 m - would maybe two lines with LEDs (going the long way) be able give some light ?
Now, not looking for light as inside, but just so you can see where you are walking. Terrace is not being used when it is dark - to cold… this is Denmark
Looking forward to hearing your experience, and what type of LEDs you can recommend.
I’m quite sure nobody will be able to give you a good answer since it depends a lot on what color the walls are, are they reflective or do they suck up light.
What material is the walls and ground, what is your expectations? I know you wrote something but your way of explaining your mental image is probably different than my way of explaining it.
Even if you get a good recommendation of a strip then if that is not enough light then you need to run a second strip.
This will double the consumption and mean your power supply needs to be replaced.
The only real recommendation I can give you is get a high density LED strip.
If I understand your description correctly then this is direct light?
That means you need to have about 1 LED per cm (or more) to make it look decent.
A larger distance between will probably not look as good.
But that also means more expensive and more consumption, meaning a beefier power supply that is more expensive.
I have both addressable LED strips and ones that just have a hand held remote control.
If it is dark either one could give enough lighting to see where you are walking.
How you will get power to the strips is one of the bigger concerns here. Some are 5v and some are 12v.
I would say go with 12v. If they are protected from direct rain under an overhang then IP65 would likely be fine for you. I have some in an outbuilding with no climate control and they are fine. It is sheltered from rain, but not humidity or temperature.
Something like this link:
This is just an example…there are tons of them out there.
Good Luck!
HI
Thanks for the responds.
Another option is to continue to use the current lights and add some cheap Ikea Trådløs bulps - zigbee controlled. There is 240 volts in all the sockets
Today the lights are controlled by motion sensors in both ends - sensors connected to the 240 volts.
Has any one seen zigbee/zwave/wifi motions sensors that is powered by 240 volts ?
Or is the solution to use battery powered motion sensors…
Four diodes and two massive resistors?
That was a joke, don’t do that.
But you could open up a device and look if you could power if from a usb charger or something.
But then the usb charger would have to be isolated some from the humidity if you want it to work.
I would say it’s possible, and I would probably give it a go if I had the need.
But then again is it really a problem if the sensors are battery powered?
Are these broken? Perhaps you can reuse them?
Just add a ESP to “feel” what the state is on the data cable and you got a mains powered motion sensor connected to HA.
Maybe battery powered is not a problem - only that the Ikea lights that I have in the rooms, with a ikea motion sensor seems to die pretty fast I think - faster then I would like in the pathway.
Any one has experience with motion sensors with a battery that is larger then a ‘coin’ battery ? working on wifi/zigbee/zwave
Regarding - ESP, can you give a bit more hint. I know the ESP’s, but what would you put between the mains (240 volts) and the ESP ( 5 volts ?) ?
And a bit off topic. Any one knows of how to do a Christmas light setup with light bulbs - instead of LEDs (there there are 'programs for it), like have the lights show green and red at certain intervals ?
A phone charger.
Some chargers are so small they can be pulled apart to their bare circuits and mounted inside other things. Perhaps there is room left in the motion sensors you have?
Just make sure you isolate the parts from each other.
I have place a phone charger inside my coffee machine to power a LED strip.
Yep, their service is great, and price-wise they are good as well. Not as cheap as importing from China off course, but the benefits of quick delivery (usually next day within NL), pre-filter in quality and still very reasonable prices make them my go-to shop for most components.