Soltech Vita Grow Light Smart Home Integration & DIY Light Shades

I am just getting started with using grow lights and armed with my knowledge of LED lighting I greatly appreciate the vita grow lights impressive specs. With a Color Rendering Index of 95 and 3000 kelvin color spectrum, this shows that attention to detail was given when making this light and great consideration was given to the fact that these lights would be used in residential settings. Any light over 3000K is absurdly unnecessary outside of a garage, shop, utility room, grocery store, doctors offices, etc..

The best feature comes in its form factor being less than 1lb and 3.75” x 5” which makes this the perfect light weight option for me to use with a 3m 5lb command strip ceiling mount hook. I was able to find light weight bamboo shade covers at IKEA for $4.00 each.

Lastly I appreciate the dimming capability as it can be paired with the smart home scheduling to coordinate with daily sunrise and sunset. This is extremely helpful for anyone with sensory sensitivity especially if using the grow lights in an occupied bedroom.

Now onto what could be better but isn’t a deal breaker. At this price point I would have expected to see some zwave integration, not WiFi or Zigbee as these don’t work well in heavily walled homes and easily drop off and over crowd the 2.4ghz frequency. So to overcome this short coming I purchased a separate zwave outlet dimmer switch that does require having a compatible hub (Smartthings etc..). I was able to set up a sunrise dimming and sunset dimming routines to slowly brighten in the morning and dim off in the evening over the course of an hour using my Alexa app to create the routine.

Something to consider is that if placing multiple Vita grow lights in one area then use a single strand multi socket pendant light that can be controlled by a single smart switch.