How to Upgrade to Smart Outdoor Lighting

Outdoor lighting can be tricky. Often, outdoor lights are controlled by inconvenient light switches. Other times, neighbors might complain that your outdoor lighting could be disrupting their peace. When a homeowner faced similar issues, she called the team at Ask This Old House for help, and master electrician Heath Eastman showed up with some perfect options for solving her lighting challenges.

How to Upgrade to Smart Outdoor Lighting

Install the Driveway Lights

1. Start by laying out your new light fixtures. In our homeowner’s case, Heath picked out LED deck/step lights to be mounted to the side of the house along the driveway. He planned his layout by starting in the middle of the length of the house and worked his way out in even 6-foot increments. He decided to mount the lights on the water table to hide the wires underneath.
2. Hold the new light in place and mark the center. Use a drill or rotary tool with a filing bit to bore a slot in the water table for the wire.
3. Install the light fixture with a drill and the included screws and tuck the wire into the slot in the water table.
4. Run the connecting low-voltage landscape wire behind the water table. Cut the wire and strip the wire at each light. Slide a connector and a piece of heat-shrink over both supply wires and tighten with a hex wrench. While the landscape lights came with easy clip wire connectors, Heath chose to remove them and use burial wire connectors instead. The waterproof sealing of the heat shrink tubing makes it extra weatherproof.
5. Match the ribbed wires and smooth wires, tighten the connection with a hex wrench, slide the heat-shrink over the wires, and use a heat gun to create a weather-tight seal.
6. Install the weatherproof transformer somewhere convenient to the lighting system. They typically install with two screws, but this may vary between manufacturers. Once installed, cut and strip the wires, slide them into the transformer’s box and their terminals, and tighten with the hex wrench.
7. You can plug the transformer into an outlet to check for function, but we’ll be installing a smart plug later for remote control.

Install the Garage Wall Packs

1. Start by shutting off the breaker to the existing flood lights. Test with a voltage tester pen to ensure there isn’t any power in the wires.
2. Remove the existing light by unscrewing its mounting screw from the base, disconnecting the black wire, then the white wire, then the ground wire from the junction box. Remove the mounting bar as well.
3. Install the new mounting bar across the junction box, centering it before snugging it down.
4. Attach the ground wire to the new mounting bar, leaving a pigtail to tie to. Connect the new light fixture’s ground wire to the copper wire before connecting the white wires and then the black wires.
5. Center the new light fixture over the mounting bar and attach the light using the mounting screws. Check for level and adjust as necessary.

Install the Smart Devices

1. Shut off the breaker controlling the light switch. Remove the cover plate and remove the existing switch.
2. Smart switches require a neutral (the white wire), which is often installed in the back of the box. If that’s the case, pull the neutral wires out of the box, remove the wire nut, and install a short “pigtail” wire before reconnecting the wire nut.
3. Cut, strip, and connect the switch wires to the appropriate wall wires with wire nuts:
   Green wire to the bare copper wire
   White wire to the neutral (white) wire
   Black wire to the constant (black) wire
   Red wire to the load wire, which is usually also black
   Blue wire gets capped with a wire nut
4. Tuck all of the wires back into the electrical box before mounting the switch to the box and installing the cover plate.
5. Outside, plug an outdoor-rated smart plug into the outdoor outlet, and connect the driveway lights’ transformer to the switch. Flip all of the breakers back on, one by one.
6. Use the smart switch’s app to connect the smart plug and program your lighting scenario. You’ll be able to connect the new garage lights to the smart switch and control the driveway landscape lights through the outdoor smart plug.

Materials

• Low voltage LED deck lights
• 12/2 low-voltage landscape lighting wire
• Low voltage brass connector & heat shrink tubing
• Coaxial staples
• Low voltage outdoor landscape light transformer
• LED wallpacks
• Smart dimmer switch
• Outdoor-rated smart plug

Tools