@title: Why does it explicitely mention the iPhone alone... like it was the only important gadget.. (yes the page says iPhone and Android). "from your smartphone" would have been better
Yeah good point - pitty I can't edit it.
The lightbulb reinvented
21–30 of 138 posts
Re: The lightbulb reinvented
#22They claim that one can still use the existing switches in addition to controlling the bulbs via WiFi, and this is a feature that seems somewhat important for e.g. guests, situations when you don't have your phone on you, etc. But I'm curious how it would work, switching of the light switch would also kill any fancy WiFi interface to the bulb.
I'm taking a wild guess here.. but I assume the bulb will reset to on @ 100% when the power is cut and turned back on..
That way, you can get manual control of the light by just flicking the power off/on..
Re: The lightbulb reinvented
#23nice idea, but unfortunately I do not see this becoming 'big' for a couple of reasons. For instance, even though one can buy LEDs advertised as having a 'warm' colour, the light produced is still rather harsh compared to halogen for instance. Most people do not want an entire house, or even a single room, lighted purely by LEDs. Same goes for the colour: on paper it's nice to read that colour can set a certain mood and such, but is there really any practical use? Who wants to sit in a blue/green/red room anyway? Another factor is that it seems to be a small subset of an actual existing but practical system: current domotica systems can be controlled by your smartphone, by a pc, over the internet, you name it. And there are already dozens of them.
Re: The lightbulb reinvented
#24[deleted]
Re: The lightbulb reinvented
#25nice idea, but unfortunately I do not see this becoming 'big' for a couple of reasons. For instance, even though one can buy LEDs advertised as having a 'warm' colour, the light produced is still rather harsh compared to halogen for instance. Most people do not want an entire house, or even a single room, lighted purely by LEDs. Same goes for the colour: on paper it's nice to read that colour can set a certain mood a…
My bedroom is lit by LEDs and it's fine. I also use a big 17W bulb as a table lamp and it's often the only light I have turned on in my apartment. It works almost as well as my big 6x40W halogen fixture. (Though obviously the halogen light is much brighter, there is "enough" light either way for things like walking around, getting dressed, etc.)
The only problem is that I think the color rendering index must be pretty bad. When I'm only using the table lamp, everything feels black-and-white like it does at night under sodium lamps.
I otherwise have a bunch of halogen lights, and they aren't that great either. I'm beginning to think it was a little early to ban incandescent lamps.
Re: The lightbulb reinvented
#26This would be great for connecting up to a CI server or monitoring system. If a build breaks, flash red or maybe if the site goes down go to solid red.
You don't want to work in a room with a flashing light.
Also, there are tons of colored LEDs that integrate with CI systems already. And it's something you can whip up with an ATtiny or similar in about 10 minutes anyway. (Hint, your VGA port has an I2C pin on it.)
Re: The lightbulb reinvented
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Color Kinetics has locked up almost everything useful with RGB LED arrays.
I'm assuming the LIFX did their due-diligence and attained "freedom to operate" before undergoing this venture - or is "assumption the mother of all f-ups"?
They are clearly using a Philips led lightbulb as a base. Maybe this kickstarter project is in conjunction with Philips.
Re: The lightbulb reinvented
#28$70 for ONE bulb, so that's $280 for 4 in one room, You could hack an LED bulb together to cheap using cables instead of Wifi, A better future proof idea would be to have a very very customizable app that you sell, An app that let's you interface with computer controlled Lights
Re: The lightbulb reinvented
#29The home automation market has been an utter disaster for decades. I hoped the "green" movement would nudge it mainstream. Not yet, and Google even killed off their home electricity monitoring projects.
Here's a similar product:
http://www.smarthome.com/2672-222/INSTEON-LED-Bulb/p.aspx
No color change capability and requires some other stuff as part of the system, but once you start turning on lightbulbs you quickly realize you need relays and sensors to control other things, too. So then you want a "system." And the systems currently suck.
Re: The lightbulb reinvented
#30They claim that one can still use the existing switches in addition to controlling the bulbs via WiFi, and this is a feature that seems somewhat important for e.g. guests, situations when you don't have your phone on you, etc. But I'm curious how it would work, switching of the light switch would also kill any fancy WiFi interface to the bulb.
I'm taking a wild guess here.. but I assume the bulb will reset to on @ 100% when the power is cut and turned back on.. That way, you can get manual control of the light by just flicking the power off/on..
But once somebody switches it off (with a switch), yo cannot switch it back on with the phone. It seems to me that having a home automation system that includes the light switches would be much better.