An IP Address For Every Light Bulb

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday NXP and Green Wave Reality announced to the world that they plan to give every lightbulb an IPV6 address. Hot on the heels of Google's 900 mhz announcement, Green Wave Reality already has iPhone / Android / and Web-based support. Looks like the lighting wars have started."

Comments

Wrong place

[plover]

Architecturally, this is the wrong place to put uniquely addressed devices. The addresses should be in the fixtures, to avoid the maintenance headache of readdressing bulbs every time they are replaced. If I want the lights in the room to dim, I don't want to tell the bulbs, I want to tell the room that I'm sitting in. The room contains the fixtures. The fixtures contain the bulbs. How the room talks to the fixtures and the fixtures talk to the bulbs are different questions, but individually addressable bulbs is a maintenance disaster waiting to happen.

Just because they're conveniently end-user replaceable doesn't make it a correct choice, just slightly more practical. X-10, Z-Wave and Insteon are all also equally incorrect in that they generally put the control at the point of the switch, instead of the fixture. Again, the user's ultimate goal is not to control the switch but to control the room's lighting, which is defined by the fixtures and their locations within the room.

Re:Wrong place

[The MAZZTer]

Easy, make the fixtures DHCP servers.

Re:Wrong place

[R0UTE]

And don't forget to NAT everything while you're at it.

Re:Wrong place

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Pervasive and ubiquitous surveillance, disguised as an assisting technology for energy efficiency.

How many gift Trojan horses must we look in the mouth, on a daily basis?

Re:Wrong place

[tlhIngan]

No NAT with IPV6; there are so many addresses that it's totally unnecessary. What, people want to do it anyway?

Well, if I want every lightbulb to have a consistent IP address when my ISP decides to give me a new prefix, I'd rather not want to renumber everything inside it. Or adjust all the settings.

Can you imagine? Your ISP decides to give you a new prefix and you'd have to program it into your switches so they can talk to the right lightbulbs again.

One of the benefits of NAT was the internal network was separated from the external - changes to the external IP addresses didn't influence the internal ones - simplifying management and administration. Some places don't mind going through the rigamarole, but I'm sure most homes have better things to do than manage their networks (if they even know how).

Sure you can assign more IPv6 addresses to ensure that your home server is always FC00::100, but having to know all the IP addresses of each machine when diagnosing things just gets to be a pain. Yes, you can use DHCPv6 to staticly assign addresses, but given how badly most devices handle DHCP IP address changes, it'll be a reboot fest.

Re:Wrong place

[Anonymous Coward]

"there are so many addresses that it's totally unnecessary" where have I heard that before?

Re:Wrong place

[cayenne8]

You know...I'm thinking that there might be a good black market demand for good old fashioned, incandescent light bulbs...no IP addresses, nothing to monitor your use with....and good nice lighting that is pleasant on the eyes.

Hmm...wonder what it would cost to make a few of these on the side?

Re:Wrong place

[hoggoth]

Yeah, motion sensor lights are just great.

A few weeks ago I was sitting on the toilet in a stall in the church bathroom. I was taking longer than usual; After about 10 minutes the lights shut off. So there I am sitting in complete pitch black. I called out lightly, but no one heard. I was too embarrassed to yell. I reached my hand under the stall door and waved it around trying to activate the motion sensor, to no avail. I reached up and took my light jacket off the hook on the door and started whipping my jacket over the top of the stall door, again to no avail. Then I was getting pissed. I partially stood, wiped as well as possible in pitch darkness, and pushed the stall door open, but still nothing. Then I waddled a couple of steps forward and started waving my jacket around towards the entry door hoping it would break into the motion sensor's area of view.

That's when the door opened, the lights snapped on instantly, and a little boy stood staring in shock at the nut case waddling like a penguin with his pants around his ankles waving his jacket in a circle over his head.

Yep. Love motion sensors.

Re:Wrong place

[Bengie]

"Can you imagine? Your ISP decides to give you a new prefix and you'd have to program it into your switches so they can talk to the right lightbulbs again."

You probably wouldn't want each light/fixture to have a public IP, just private. Let the control unit in your house have a public IP.

"One of the benefits of NAT was the internal network was separated from the external - changes to the external IP addresses didn't influence the internal ones"

At least with Vista/7, each machine gets 3 IPs by default. A private IP, a static Public IP, and a random public IP that changes avery few minutes and refuses incoming connections. You don't need to worry about your private IPs changing, just your public IPs. No biggie.

"Sure you can assign more IPv6 addresses to ensure that your home server is always FC00::100, but having to know all the IP addresses of each machine when diagnosing things just gets to be a pain"

Thank god for name-to-IP protocols that have been standard for the past 2 decades.

The transition will be annoying, but once we get use to IPv6, it will be easier.

Re:Wrong place

[BlueStrat]

You've just conceived of the scenario where the possession of a simple incandescent light bulb could be grounds for a charge of treason and punishable by death.

The incandescent light bulb ban might have a secondary benefit; it might increase border security with Mexico.

If "contraband" incandescent bulbs are being smuggled in at the Mexico/US border, the EPA and Progressives will have anti-personnel landmines laid, missile-equipped Predator drones patrolling, and automated gun turrets installed at the border before you can say "mass graves".

Strat

Re:Wrong place

[hldn]

ipv6 provides 2^128 addresses.

that's 340282366920938463463374607431768211456.

that's 340 undecillion, 282 decillion, 366 nonillion, 920 octillion, 938 septillion, 463 sextillion, 463 quintillion, 374 quadrillion, 607 trillion, 431 billion, 768 million, 211 thousand and 456

that absolutely dwarfs the number of stars in the entire observable universe (one septillion is a high estimate.)

i think we'll be okay (at least for a little while~)

How many sysadmins

[Ukab the Great]

does it take a change a lightbulb?

control lights from your phone

[aapold]

No longer will you need a lousy LED flash on your phone camera. Just tap to brighten all lightbulbs in the area. Or if you're into being dark and mysterious, a constantly running app that dims all lights within 50' of your GPS location... people will know when you're coming...