Your garden, façade and pool lights can run on the same system as your indoor lighting, AC and curtains. You control all of them from the same keypads and the same app. At a Dubai villa, that means outdoor lights that come on at sunset, join your evening scenes and switch off without anyone touching a switch.
This guide covers which outside lights you can control, how schedules and scenes work and how pool lights fit in. It also explains what changes between a new build and a renovation. Interior designers and architects have their own section near the end.
What outside lighting can you control?
We can bring each outside lighting circuit onto the system and group the circuits into zones. A zone is a set of lights that switch and dim together.
With separate zones, each part of the garden can behave differently. The entrance might stay on until midnight while the uplights on the palms switch off at 11pm. The pool lights come on only when you ask for them.
You can also have a keypad by the pool or a motion sensor on the path to the gate. Every product we fit outdoors is IP rated and tested in Dubai heat. An IP rating is a two-digit code that shows how well a device keeps out dust and water.
- Garden lighting: path lights, uplights on trees and palms, step lights and boundary walls.
- Façade lighting: the lights on the front of the villa, the entrance and the gate.
- Pool lighting: the underwater lights and the lights around the pool deck.
How does scheduling work?
You set the schedule once, and the hub runs it every day. The hub is the small box that runs your system, and it sits inside your home.
Schedules can follow local sunset and sunrise, so you never have to reset the times as the days get shorter or longer. On wired KNX systems (KNX is the wiring standard most wired systems use), an astronomical time switch can do this job. It calculates the sunrise and sunset times for each day.
A typical schedule turns the façade and garden lights on at sunset. Later in the evening it dims them, and it switches them off before morning.
Schedules run on the hub, not over the internet, so they keep working if your connection drops. If your home network stops, the keypads still work.
How do outside lights work with the rest of the home?
Your outside lights join the same scenes you use indoors. A scene is one button press that sets several things at once.
Symphony is our automation platform, designed to make large, complex homes easier to manage. A big garden can have many separate fittings, and Symphony lets you run them from a few keypad buttons.
Garden lighting and watering are often planned together. We provide Rain Bird and Hunter irrigation controllers and work with your irrigation contractor. Both schedules sit in the same app and keep running if the internet goes down. Our guide to smart irrigation covers this in more detail.
Would you like the outside lights to follow a set pattern while you travel? Ask our engineer at the home visit whether your system can be set up to do this.
- Evening: living room lights dimmed, curtains closed, garden and façade lights on.
- Entertaining: pool lights on in the colour you choose, deck lights up, garden lights on.
- Goodnight: every outside light off except the entrance and the path to the gate.
Can you change the pool light colour from your keypads?
Yes. We use Soliara pool lights and control them from our own system, so colour and dimming sit on your keypads and in the Avario app. You don't need a separate pool app.
Who wires the pool lights depends on your project. It can be our team, your electrician or your pool contractor.
If your pool already has lights from another maker, mention them when you book. Our engineer can then look at them during the visit.
Wired or wireless outside?
For a new villa, we recommend wired KNX. The control cables go in during the build. Our team can lay them, or your MEP contractor can (the firm doing the mechanical, electrical and plumbing work).
Wired control suits gardens well. Concrete walls block more of a wireless signal than lighter walls, and long distances weaken it too. A wired system can also keep the control equipment in an indoor panel, out of the summer sun.
In a renovation, wireless can still work well. We use Zigbee, a low-power radio standard for smart devices, which we find is the best wireless option in the UAE. If your garden circuits already run back to switches or a timer indoors, our engineer checks whether control can be added there. That can save digging up the garden.
A wireless system usually takes a couple of days to install. Wired systems go in step with the build, or during a major renovation. Our guide to KNX automation in Dubai explains the wired option in full.
Who designs the outside lighting?
We can design it for you. Our team chooses the fittings, their positions and the light levels, working with local lighting specialists. You receive a lighting layout drawing, a fitting schedule and light level calculations.
We can also supply the light fittings and LED drivers (the small units that power LED lights). If you already have a lighting contractor, we work with them instead.
Outdoor fittings in Dubai have to cope with heat, sun and dust, so check each one's IP rating. The code comes from the international standard IEC 60529. The first digit shows protection against dust and other solids, and the second shows protection against water. For lighting inside the villa, see our guide to smart lighting control and lighting design.
What affects the cost?
It depends on your garden and your project, so our engineer prices each home after seeing it. These are the main things that change the cost:
We usually send your written quote within two days of the home visit. If your villa is still on drawings, we can prepare a budgetary estimate from them first.
- The size of your villa and garden.
- How many lighting zones you want to control separately.
- Wired KNX or wireless.
- New build or renovation.
- The fittings, keypads and brands you choose.
- Whether pool lights and irrigation are part of the system.
For interior designers and architects
Bring us in while the lighting plan is still on paper. We work from your drawings, either from your own lighting scheme or with a lighting design we prepare alongside local lighting specialists.
If we join early, we can plan control zones, cable routes and keypad positions before walls, paving and planting go in. That saves cutting into finished surfaces later. The project's MEP team can run the KNX cable, or our team can.
We offer switches and keypads from 18 high-end suppliers, so the finishes can match your interiors. We deliver samples to you, so you and your client can see them in person. Our partner programme for interior designers and architects explains how we work with design studios.
Questions people ask
Will my garden lights still work if the internet goes down? Yes. Schedules run on the hub in your home, and the keypads keep working. At home, the app also works over your Wi-Fi without the internet.
Do the outside light schedules keep running while I'm away? Yes. They run on the hub in your home, so they carry on whether or not anyone is there.
Can I add outside lighting control to the system I already have? It depends on what is installed now and how your garden circuits are wired. Our engineer checks both at the home visit and tells you what can be added.
Who looks after the system once it's installed? We build a maintenance plan around what your home needs. It can cover the irrigation controller and its sensors as well as the lighting.
To put your garden, façade and pool lights on one system, book a home visit or engineering survey. Our engineer looks at your garden circuits, pool lights and any existing system, and then you get a written quote.
