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Seems Google may have missed a golden opportunity when they announced Android@Home but never followed through with any actual products. Still, that hasn’t stopped others from making their own attempts at a connected home, like these colored LED bulbs from LIFX.
We told you guys about ’em back in September and if you didn’t think there was much of a market for Android-controlled LED bulbs, you’d be wrong. The Kickstarter project still has 13 days left to spare and just today it has completely sold out of its backing tiers, hitting $1,315,266 of their modest $100,000 goal. Not bad, LIFX. Not bad.
Inside the bulbs are multiple colored LED’s inside and a WiFi transmitter used to control the bulb using the handy Android (or iOS) app. I admit, I couldn’t quite find the appeal of changing the lighting in my room from white to red (aside from late night booty calls), especially at $70 a pop. But, after checking out the info page, you’ll notice there’s a lot of cool stuff you can do with connected light bulbs. For one, you can have the bulbs flash when you receive a notification on your phone, or change the light from bright white, to warm and dim right before bedtime. When it comes to safety, you can set the bulbs to automatically power on when you approach your home and set them to power on while your away on vacation. Definitely cool in a geeky kinda way.
With no way of getting in on LIFX’s early Kickstarter campaign, you can still sign up to be notified when these finally hit the market. That doesn’t mean LIFX isn’t without competition. Philips recently released their own connected light bulbs, complete with Android app called Hue, which are currently being sold in Apple stores. Looks like we’re getting one more step closer to controlling our entire lives with our smartphones. What do you guys think? Android-controlled light bulbs: hot or not?
[LIFX via Kickstarter]
Philips already has a similar product for sale. So, I guess Philips bet them to this. In the case of Philips, each bulb doesn’t have it’s own Wifi access point, instead it uses a central hub that uses Zigbee. Seems better for the long run as that would allow adding more Zigbee devices in the future.
http://www.meethue.com/en-US/getstarted
Available for Android. Just bought mine on apple.com today.
Ooooh.. I kinda want some too.
Yeah, mentioned that in the last paragraph of my post. Philips solution is also $10 cheaper.
I like the notification idea… It’s making me feel funny… In my pants!
You know I see how cool it is, but at the prices these things are sold, I see it as a luxury. (cheap? lol)
*COUGH*
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Changing-Light-Bulb-Remote/dp/B003MB6UEO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351807022&sr=8-1&keywords=colored+light+bulb
Lol I bought one of those a few months back. Works horrible. More for small spotlighting on the wall. Doesn’t light up a room.. :/
Plus, no Android app! :p
Yeah yeah I know, lemme know if the starter pack drops below $100 lol
i wish i had the money to buy 3 of those. :(
But like the Pebble watch and Ouya and all the other vaporware; nobody will see this for a million years.
Android powered lightbulb*
*Actually it is Android or iOS powered, but screw those other asshats.
Mentioned that in the post… well, aside from the asshats part. :p
This is kind of a RIP OFF. I have LED lights in my home theater that are able change multiple colors (15), dim and turn on and off through the use of a remote control. Each bulb comes with it’s own remote however one remote can control them all. They are only $30 a pop. I can’t see spending $40 more for a phone app and WiFi that I will never use.
I wanted to order these so bad! I think the idea of automatic lights is amazing. Just think, you would never have to yell at, or be yelled at, for leaving alight on as you could set a timer or proximity sensor. Also, who wouldn’t want a broader Wi-Fi range? These thing could very well be the future for industry as well; consider the money that goes into Wi-Fi range extenders, then light bulbs separately. Also, these LEDs will save you even more money in energy efficiency.
ALL AROUND AMAZING!!
Where do you read that they are WiFi extenders?
wow i can’t believe they’re actually trying to make a company out of this screwball idea… sounds like something Froogle would do
What you pay $70 for a booty call? J/k
Would have loved to have gotten in on this.
I’m going to go with not hot. They are LED after all…. Very little heat generated.
Seriously… 1.3 million raised for smartphone controlled lights…. how about we donate that money to something useful, like cancer research…?
Aside from being able to change colors, it’s things like this that explain why people are getting fatter. Now you won’t even need to get up to turn off the lights… lol.
I like tech. Gadgets and ideas are what make all the advancements we enjoy today possible, but trying to make money off this ludicrous product just rubs me the wrong way.