This article helps you to build your own wake-up light setup with smart lights. You need a bright light that can preferably change its color temperature from warm to cold light. This light has to be HomeKit compatible, so you can control it easily with your iPhone, Siri and Wake Up Light. It could be a standing lamp on your night table, a light strip that is attached to your bed, a lamp hanging from the ceiling or some other solution.
Make sure that the light is bright enough (see science), therefor I recommend to set it up as direct light. If your sleeping room is bright (many white-ish walls/ceilings), indirect light might also be bright enough (read about measuring your lights brightness below).
Choose Lights and Lamps
I bought an Eve Light Strip (2 m) on Amazon and placed it directly next to my bed. The light strip is very bright (1800 lumens) and has support for colors. This makes it the perfect companion for Wake Up Light.
Alternatively you can use an Eve Flare and place it on your night stand. This light is a spherical light that is compatible with HomeKit and can even be carried around.
The Philips Hue Starter Set with Bridge is another alternative. Philips provides a lot of smart lights that are compatible with HomeKit, but you need the Philips Bridge for these lights. They have a lot of different lights on sale, the quality is great but they are not the cheapest ones on the market.
In general when buying lights and accessories: look for the Works with Apple HomeKit badge to make sure they work with HomeKit and Siri. The smart lights listed here are compatible with Apple HomeKit and bright enough, when positioned correctly.
Measure your Wake-up Light
When you bought a light, make sure to test it in the dark. As the science points out, the brightness of the light is very important for the desired effect.
I used a Lux Meter from Amazon to measure the brightness of the lights. This helped me find the best possible position and brightness settings for my smart lights.
Think about your different sleep poses, which you might end up in, when waking up. If your whole body turns away from the light, is it still bright enough? But maybe having one side, that is a bit more dim is desirable for you.
Download the app
In order to create a wake-up automation in your smart home that turn your lights on and make them brighter over time, you need to download our app Wake Up Light for you iPhone or iPad.
Create a wake-up light alarm using this app and your self build wake-up light is ready to wake you up more naturally in the morning.
Additional requirements
You need to have a home hub in your home in order to create and manage automations (see Help). After setting them up next to your bed, make sure to use the Wake Up Light app to configure a light alarm.
Do you have any questions regarding Wake Up Light? Please contact me!