LIFX Android powered lightbulb raises $1.3 million, sells out of Kickstarter backings
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]