Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interestingly, their target demographic is specifically people who wouldn't do that.
Buddhist monks?
[deleted]
Reset C by GE Light Bulbs [video]
71–80 of 93 posts
Re: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs [video]
#72Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start.
Re: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs [video]
#73Stop buying smart bulbs. It’s an absolutely horrible idea from beginning to end. What people want is a way to switch a lamp on and off. For that you need a smart switch . For it to work you can’t have a dumb switch in your wall first - because when the dumb switch is in the “off” position, the smart lightbulb doesn’t work! What do people that buy smart bulbs do, tape their light switches in the “on” position so you c…
1) we have one in our bedroom - wife loves to crotchet in bed, but of course then inevitably I'm the one being kicked out of the bed to switch the light off. Smart bulb solved that issue, I can just switch it off from my phone. 2) yeah smart switches sound great but it's physically impossible to get them installed in the UK thanks to the unique way our electrical wiring is done - the switch on the wall only has the p…
> the switch on the wall only has the positive terminal in, the ground is wired directly into the bulb socket.
This is the standard practice in many countries. Wiring the return wire is unnecessary.
> So smart switches just don't work.
This is false.
There are remote controlled switches that are designed to work with a single wire. I have one right now in my room, they utilize an energy-harvesting circuit to obtain energy from the changing magnetic field surrounding the AC line to charge a capacitor to power itself. Also, it uses 433 MHz RF, so it means it doesn't have Linux and IoT craps embedded inside, no firmware upgrade, no factory reset.
Yet, I can capture the control sequence using RTL-SDR, and use a 1$ RF transmitter from my Raspberry Pi to control my light programmatically if I want, though I never needed to, fortunately.
Re: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs [video]
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) we have one in our bedroom - wife loves to crotchet in bed, but of course then inevitably I'm the one being kicked out of the bed to switch the light off. Smart bulb solved that issue, I can just switch it off from my phone. 2) yeah smart switches sound great but it's physically impossible to get them installed in the UK thanks to the unique way our electrical wiring is done - the switch on the wall only has the p…
> the switch on the wall only has the positive terminal in, the ground is wired directly into the bulb socket. This is the standard practice in many countries. Wiring the return wire is unnecessary. > So smart switches just don't work. This is false. There are remote controlled switches that are designed to work with a single wire. I have one right now in my room, they utilize an energy-harvesting circuit to obtain e…
Interesting, but I suppose I got something wrong then, as there must be a reason why pretty much no company offers smart switches in the UK market even when they have smart switches in other markets.
Re: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs [video]
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the switch on the wall only has the positive terminal in, the ground is wired directly into the bulb socket. This is the standard practice in many countries. Wiring the return wire is unnecessary. > So smart switches just don't work. This is false. There are remote controlled switches that are designed to work with a single wire. I have one right now in my room, they utilize an energy-harvesting circuit to obtain e…
Interesting, but I suppose I got something wrong then, as there must be a reason why pretty much no company offers smart switches in the UK market even when they have smart switches in other markets.
> no company offers smart switches in the UK market even when they have smart switches in other markets.
Honestly I don't know, I'm not sure about the UK.
Perhaps those "smart" switches can't be powered by this technique due to their higher power consumption? But then, why can't one just use dumb RF switches, and put the heavy-duty digital "brain" inside a separate unit as I suggested? Because the encoding scheme doesn't scale? But it should...
In all possible ways, the same principle should be fully applicable in the UK... Sorry, I don't understand, it should be answered by someone who knows better than me...
Re: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs [video]
#76Was a pinhole reset button so hard to implement?
Yeah, it would be. You want the user to stick their hand up in a lamp, with the power on? And try to poke a button with a sharp metal object? I suppose you could add a big capacitor or battery so that it could be reset when not in the lamp, but that is non-trivial.
Perhaps you could use an on/off switch, and do something like this.
function power_on() {
bool sw_pos_last = eeprom_read(SWITCH_LASTBOOT);
bool sw_pos_now = input_read(SWITCH);
if (sw_pos_last != sw_pos_now) {
eeprom_write(SWITCH_LASTBOOT, sw_pos_now);
factory_reset();
}
}
No power is needed to latch a reset request when the bulb is disconnected. Seems easy and straightforward, at worst you need to power the bulb on/off several times.
> I suppose you could add a big capacitor or battery so that it could be reset when not in the lamp, but that is non-trivial.
Even if you go this way with only a momentary switch, it's not trivial, but I don't think it's rocket science either, just an example to make the point: using a flip-flop and a 100 uF capacitor, with an isolated Vcc supply (can be supplied by the MCU). The flip-flop draws 1 mA of current at 5 volt, you press a reset switch to invert the flip-flop, when the bulb is turned on later, the MCU would read a different state and trigger the factory reset. 100 uF would give the user at least 2 minutes to react, assuming the worst capacitor. To detect the power loss of the flip-flop, use a comparator before MCU reapplies the power, the cost is less than 1 USD, and I bet the electronics engineers can come up with a even better solution.
Re: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs [video]
#77Somehow, when GE robs you of less than a minute of your life using a magic knock interface that would enthrall players in a video game, it feels like they still manage to age you by two decades with consumer hostile psychological warfare.
Re: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs [video]
#78I've had these bulbs and done this reset process more times than I can count. For years the software was some of the worst I've ever used. It would constantly lose pairing with the bulbs. In order to re-pair with the bulbs, all the bulbs had to be reset individually using this process, and then all configuration had to be deleted from the app and every bulb needed to be re-added as a new bulb. Pairing was error-prone…
Maybe my Hue lights are not that expensive in retrospect.
Re: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs [video]
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
People get angry that their submission didn’t get them the worthless internet points and this one did.
when people look over my coworkers shoulder and see his 23K HN point count at the top of his screen, they acknowledge hes calling the shots in code reviews.
Are you serious? This sounds like an awful workplace.
Re: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs [video]
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
However, they recognised the complexity of the reset process, and that customers may have a more-significant-than-none need for a reset. (A simple example that occurred to me: Lost/destroyed phone). This video was the result. A professionally filmed video, even with low needs such as this one, also come with significant costs, as well as the PR fallout when people realise it's absurdly complicated compared to pressin…
A surface mounted switch and a tiny hole in the casing would be easy and cheap... but it would ruin waterproofing, which would make the bulb unsuitable for places like a bathroom. That's probably too big of a market to lose just to simplify a reset procedure that will rarely be used.
The hole method become a problem when your only fixtures are embedded/in the ceiling and you can’t reach it.
Some people will end up using a metal hairpin... next to an live, exposed Edison socket
Some LED lights also get quite warm