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Smartest Light Bulbs Ever, Dumbest Idea Ever?
An anonymous reader writes "A spate of smart LED bulbs and light sockets are coming to market and seeking crowdfunding, following the (apparent) success of Philips Hue. But do they really make sense for lighting control? Here's a comprehensive roundup of 13 products and the pros and cons of the category." I like the idea of controllable, long-lasting light bulbs, but I haven't yet been tempted enough to pay $50 apiece.
No, not by a large margin. Also not "dumbest idea ever", but putting this in the title _is_ pretty dumb. Seems somebody is craving attention at any cost.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
*facepalm*
I can't think of anything worse than a bulb that's at the mercy of your WiFi router. My router falls over roughly twice a week and needs rebooting.
Congratulations, you just took one of the most reliable appliances in the home and made it grotesquely unreliable.
That's real progress...right there.
I don't need all this crap, just give me one that works like f.lux.
We've had LED bulbs for a while in Taiwan, and I've never seen them go above about $30usd (and even that is on the high side). I'm constantly hearing about $50 and even $80 bulbs in the states. Do you all have special tariffs on LEDs there?
All this junk and doesn't even mention the LuminAR bulb (I assume, I wasn't about to click through a slideshow to find out):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV5V-dQW8CI
It's not an awful idea to use a light socket as a standardized power source for more interesting things, but we can do better than some remote controlled colored lights. (Which is what I assume the article was about, I'm never going to know for sure.)
X10! X10! X10! X10! X10! X10! X10! X10!
"Home control" has been around since the 1990s. It was once promoted with some really annoying blinking pop-up ads for the X10 wireless control system. Around 2001, X10 was the fourth most popular property on the web. You can still buy X10 gear. It works fine. Nobody cares.
Then there was Echelon LonWorks. This was a technically better system than X10 (which was mostly one-way), and it's widely used in commercial buildings. It has really good noise immunity, which has resulted in it being used to control auxiliary systems (lights, HVAC, destination signs, etc.) in subway trains. As a home control system, which was the original plan, it went nowhere.
There's no problem doing this, and plenty of products are available. Remote off/on control of home lights and appliances just isn't that useful.
Not sure about the quality, but I think the price of the Phillips Hue is just insanely high.
Just for comparison:
http://www.limitlessled.com/
Right after the holidays there are loads of xmas strings of lamps.
The color balance can range from nice to awful.
A small string can be wound around a foil covered cardboard tube with a lamp adapter at the end.
The whole thing only draws a few watts.
There are a couple of problems that I see with this: - price. With all LED-solutions that I've seen so far, you need quite a few of them just to light one room. At 50 a piece, that will turn into a quite expensive toy. - usefullness. While there is quite a geek-factor if you can light up your room in blue or red, I very much doubt if it will be used for anything else but 'dimmer/brighter' after a few weeks. Which can be had with a single dimmer and a few standard spots as well. - lifetime. Yes, LED-spots do have a very long lifetime. Now how about the router? Or the protocol itself? I can see in the not-so-far future a number of people with lots of smart LED-spots that can't be used any more because the router is broken and can't be replaced because the marked has moved on.
A system I've been trained in is KNX. An open communications protocol for intelligent buildings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KNX_%28standard%29
http://knx.org
There's currently 300 manufacturers of equipment for this system and 144 qualified partners in Australia.
From the website:
"In order to transfer control data to all building management components, a system is required that does away with the problems of isolated devices by ensuring that all components communicate via one common language: in short, a system such as the manufacturer and application domains independent KNX Bus. This standard is based upon more than 20 years of experience in the market, amongst others with predecessor systems to KNX: EIB, EHS and BatiBUS. Via the KNX medium to which all bus devices are connected (twisted pair, radio frequency, power line or IP/Ethernet), they are able to exchange information. Bus devices can either be sensors or actuators needed for the control of building management equipment such as: lighting, blinds / shutters, security systems, energy management, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, signaling and monitoring systems, interfaces to service and building control systems, remote control, metering, audio / video control, white goods, etc. All these functions can be controlled, monitored and signaled via a uniform system without the need for extra control centers."
long time reader... first time poster...
Home Depot has them for under $10 now.
In Florida.
Poster was talking about traffic signal lights and they can get covered by wind-driven snow.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
Ah - "who has the green" makes sense now.
This would be great if it wasn't for the fact that during the last decade(s) people have been fitting multi-socket halogen fixtures instead of single bulb standard socket fixtures in their homes. I'd definitely love having an app-controlled lighting system, but it would have to be much more flexible than just a bulb or single socket solution. For light fixtures with several low power halogen lights I'd have to hide the control unit somewhere before the power is split to the individual halogens, i.e. somewhere in the fixture or as a special lightswitch (essenially then a controllable dimmner switch). All the light fixtures that already have dimmers would have to go the same way: the wheel dimmer would have to be replaced by one that can be controlled by the app.
As long as I can dim 3 out of 4 lights but still have to get off my ass to go turn down the fourth light (at the same place where I could dim them all), there is very little gain. As soon as someone offers a simple solution that is expandable to existing switches, multi-socket fixtures and so on, i.e. beyond standard bulb/socket then I'm in.
>> Smartest Light Bulbs Ever, Dumbest Idea Ever?
Yes, it's not a good idea. A traditional light bulb must be hot to work properly, so a sphere is the best form factor.
Trying to put high power leds and their controller in this form factor is a big mistake.
All these leds "bulbs" will fail prematurely because they simply are too hot. And the expensive ones with better thermal properties do not improve much this design mistake.
The right form factor or leds is strips, plates, or similar.
aaaaaaa
FTA: What could be a simpler approach to home automation? Just replace your existing bulb with a fancy new one, and it’s at your command with a simple app.
A simple app? Jeezum crow, what the hell is wrong with an on/off switch?
What pisses me off about the current crop of devices is that everyone is reinventing the wheel with a bunch of proprietary bullshit and unnecessary new protocols. The DMX512 lighting control protocol has been around for decades and is used by hundreds of existing stage and commercial lighting device manufacturers. I want RGB bulbs that talk to a bridge device that I can control with existing lighting control boards or any computerized system. I can already buy the devices for residential outdoor applications. Why the hell can't these indoor bulb idiots use what everyone else in the world is already using?
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
I use switch king for my home and I think it works great, works with the X10 stuff as well but there are many more adapters available and they only cost around $20-$30. Some mount behind switches and communicate wirelessly with a server, I use a cheap netbook for $300. I have probably spent about $700 total to get 5 rooms controlled wirelessly. I can control my lights with the switch king app on my iphone, any computer, or any switch on the wall. I can also schedule when lights should turn on and off if I want to. It's a nice and cool setup but is it still worth it, probably not :)
Anveto
Where you get the bullshit idea that "you need quite a few of them just to light one room" is anybody's guess.
They probably get it from reality. You can rarely sufficiently light a full room with a single incandescent. LED lamps which aren't directional are lossy and wasteful. GE has a design for incandescents which are twice as efficient as normal, I'd rather use them. Every LED lamp which isn't fifty bucks that I've seen has agonizing flicker, as well. They give me headaches just like CFLs.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If these lights or their controllers are publicly adressable on the Internet, they will be hacked. Fortunately the tech is still in its infancy and the people who install these things probably know how to maintain and update them. The damage that a hacked light or a central heater can do mostly amounts to an annoyance and increased power use, assuming that it has proper hardware protections and manual overrides.
Another safety issue is if burglars are armed with RF jammers; they could prevent the house owner from turning on the lights and even calling the emergency number. This is not as bad as it seems though, because burglars prefer empty houses and many are junkies and may not even be armed with proper clothes, much less a jammer
I'll pay $50 for a light bulb, but only if it's manufactured locally by union workers. And it better last a long time, not like these "5 year" fluorescent bulbs that I'm replacing every year.
Fortunately, the fluorescent have gotten really cheap.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I just wish more came in 4000K rather than 3200K.
Most people use lighting at night, before going to bed. There's a fair bit of research to the effect that high-temperature light before sleep interferes with sleep quality.
Office lighting is another matter entirely -- there, high temperature light is not only good for vision but increases alertness.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
These bulbs are so expensive that soon you will either remove them all when you move or you will add them into the sale price of your home. It could easily reach a thousand dollars if every bulb were replaced.
he lives on a fault line.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I guess it's a good thing CFLs don't flicker at 50-60Hz, then.
Cheap ones don't flicker fast enough to not be immediately perceptible, however. Nor do they last worth a crap, nor work in the cold, etc etc. I use them where I don't need light soon, or much light, or for very long. That means I am using about three of them, in a three bedroom house. I use fluorescent only in the kitchen, where there's four tubes with mixed warm and cool white. Everywhere else I use incandescent when I use the light at all. I turn off lights when I'm not using them, so the power consumption is negligible. (I also put computers to sleep if they consume more than a couple watts, etc etc. NAS is a dockstar. Media player is a Raspberry Pi w/XBMC and a Wii, will probably soon be just one Android device like a MK802 MkII or III. I care about power consumption, but I care more about not getting headaches. And since we have crap power and stuff tends to die here I'm not excited about spending a lot of money on expensive lamps.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hello -- interesting comments. I wrote this piece for CEPro.com, which serves professional installers of home automation, lighting control, audio/video and other home technologies. We're huge advocates of lighting control in general for security, convenience, ambiance and energy savings. But this new smart-bulb thing is a completely new paradigm for our industry. Traditionally, the intelligence resides in the light switches and hub. Most consumers aren't willing to swap out a light switch, but they may very well change out their bulbs. So will this smart-bulb thing catalyze the DIY market for home automation/lighting control? Will it encroach on traditional lighting-control architectures? My opinion: maybe so for cool RGB special effects, but this whole issue of having to leave the light switch on at all times, and the inability for kids and visitors to control the lights ... that's a problem. Best opportunities are probably in commercial environments. Thx
I use them where I don't need light soon, or much light, or for very long
I actually use this to my advantage in bathrooms. I have a line of small globe lamps on the top of the vanity. 5 of them are cold-cathode CFL lamps, which are VERY slow to warm up. 1 of them is a regular incandescent. When you flick on the lights in the middle of the night, you are not greeted with blinding light - the lights take about a minute to come up to full brightness. I normally hate the way my face looks in the mirror with CFL bulbs, but the single incandescent brings the quality of light way up.
If instant light is what you desire, GE makes a "hybrid" bulb that has a halogen inside the CFL coil. The bulb runs the halogen for a few minutes until the fluorescent part is up to full brightness. Note that the quality varies quite a bit within the brand. I find the ones rated for indoor/outdoor hold up far better than the indoor only. Problem is, GE does not mark the packaging - only the bulb itself! I see the indoor/outdoor variety at Walgreens for $10 and the indoor only in 2-packs at Target for $14.
Of course, a $10 bulb is going to screw up the payback time, so... :) I mostly use them because my house has so many lights that changing lightbulbs was a daily chore. Gotta love the 70s and the popularity of can-lights!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
My bulbs usually cost between $5 and $10 on E-Bay. I never buy them from local stores, nor do I buy ones that need cooling fins. I don't buy bulbs that shift colors or do any other stupid tricks. I have learned that bulbs based on the SMD 5050 do a great job. If you mix the bulbs (warm and cold) in a fixture, you get some pretty good lighting. Some fixtures even have a florescent mixed in, like the kitchen, where brightness is a big factor.
LED bulbs are extremely reliable. I have never had one fry. In my car trunk, I have a bag of mercury laden florescent bulbs waiting for our city's hazardous waste disposal day.
Know your sockets. Mine are E12 and E-26. I accidentally bought E14 bulbs which did not fit, but E-27 are OK in E-26.
The typical LED bulb is 9 watts. My projector is also LED (Optoma ML 500) and runs at 120 watts. So is my Vizio TV (LED/LCD). but I don't know the wattage off hand.
My power bills are significantly lower than they used to be. (It also helped to insulate a 1917 house). I just don't see why more people don't use them.
Less tomorrow.
It wasn't that long ago that dumb LED bulbs cost about $50 apiece. I just replaced a couple of PAR 30 floodlight bulbs with LED units (dimmable). Cost: $12 each.
The article raises some interesting issues. It's probably better to install smart switches and plugs than smart LED bulbs. Better yet, a smart switch that interrogates the bulb (or other fixture) for capabilities. If it sees an incandescent lamp, it just dims. If the bulb replies with an RGB capability, the switch forwards it the appropriate messages from your iDevice.
None of this will be worth a damn until the industry develops some standards (or the bad standards get washed out). I have an X10 system in my house (archaic by today's standards). But it works with any X10 manufacturer's components. Microsoft Home or Google Home aren't going to sell if customers have to buy Google Bulbs and Google Toasters.
Have gnu, will travel.
"I like the idea of controllable, long-lasting light bulbs..."
Unfortunately these LED bulbs are not so long lasting. They make big claims but in actual use I find that there are many failures. The new bulbs are certainly better than five years ago but they still have a dismal failure rate. This is poor performance on the promise.
most people don't want needless complexity in having a room light they can turn off or on. a dimmer switch is as complicated as it need get. the idea that I would need IT infrastructure to control lights is silly. sure, farting around with X10 can be fun, but slashdotters are hobbyist geeks and not joe average.
Do we now have hacks that post thinly disguised PR releases or vague descriptive picture stories? What a waste of /. bandwidth.
Betteridge's Law
Jhyrryl
I don't mean this to sound cranky, but if you care about power consumption then using 9 watts instead of 60 whenever your light is on (no matter how long it's on) is prudent. But I do understand the reasoning of "my car only gets 5 miles to the gallon but I only drive it one mile a day".
How much of that energy efficiency is negated by having to power the "always-on" circuitry in order to respond to the WiFi signals? One of the appeal of highly efficient LED bulbs is the savings gained due to the fact that they use far less energy when they are on compared to other bulbs. Products such as the Phillips Hue, may use almost as much energy when they are "off" just so they can respond to a WiFi signal from my smart phone. I couldn't find out from their website just how much power is drawn from the Philips Hue when they are "off". The total cost of ownership will need to include not only how power is used to illuminate the bulb for 3 to 5 hours a night but also how much is used when they are in stand-by the rest of the day.
You must not know shit about how HVAC typically works.
Since cool air falls and warm air rises, we take advantage of that by re-circulating cool air by sucking it in at floor-level intake vents.
As that gets pulled in, heat goes down locationally due to pressure.
Incandescent bulbs do generate a lot of heat. I would just run those all over the house to heat the place up, and ignore using the huge power-sucking electric heater.
Saved huge on my power bills sucking up only 3kWh instead of 30kWh every hour.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"Nonsense. It might be. It probably won't be."
I've got a 15w CreeMK-R sitting here, and at 6w (12V@500mA,) it's competing with ~100w of fluorescent lighting, plus my older than dirt 30w LED panel.
"Most LED lights in the price range we're discussing are built as simply as possible. They flicker like mad bastards, because the flicker is 60Hz."
Only the ones using PWM drivers do this. Those using constant current or a simple resistor to handle drive current simply do not flicker (and the ones using simple resistors for drive current regulation are simpler than the cheap PWM-powered ones.)
"I've bought so many LED lamps I get spam for them"
I'm not entirely sure that you're experienced enough in LEDs/optoelectronics to be able to judge a good one from bad.
And no, I'm not the AC you're replying to.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"Another problem is LED's have circuits, and these circuits do NOT like winter or fall."
Liar. I've got a 12w PAR30-style LED bulb, with the lenses and lens plate removed to expose the entire board so it would act as a wide flood lamp, and it's survived not only being out on my back patio, unprotected except for hanging under a tiny overhang, for a year, but that light is now in service inside an actual store, right next to the back door.
It is at least three years old, now. Totally exposed. Not one problem.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I have many CFLs, several LEDs, all dumb. I am OK with CFLs, and really like the LEDs (at least when they work), but the huge (current) cost does not meet my cost/benefit curve. I need simplicity, I like motion activated lights, I like wall switches, I really do not like to hunt for one more device to allow me to SEE!
I've had the Hue system in my bedroom for the last six months. Were they worth the price? Probably not, considering the starter pack price. Even so, I like them and I'm glad I bought them. Buying overpriced gadgets is a bad habit of mine anyways, so they weren't out of my norm.
The three bulbs are set up with one in the master bath overhead, one in a torchiere base by the bedside table, and the third in another torchiere on the far side of the room. The bulk of the lights in the master bath are on a separate switch (and are all LED, just single color white on/off instead of 'smart' bulbs). So when you're in there doing your morning thing and need lots of white light, flick a lightswitch for the regular bulbs.
As normal lights the Hue work just fine. The only annoyance is if you enter the room and don't want to have your phone out to switch things, you have to turn the main lightswitch in the room off then on again. This brings up the main bulb on that switch in a normal, soft-white mode, just like turning on a regular lamp. To toggle to a color-scene you have to pull out your phone, which isn't too much of a problem since like most modern geeks mine is always with me or nearby (usually on the nightstand charging), but is still slightly annoying. When they release the standalone controller they show in TFA's slideshow that will be a huge improvement.
The color scenes are surprisingly handy. I only have a few basic ones: Bright warm light for doing work at the desk (biased so the room light is brighter than the bedside), soft warm white for reading in bed (biased so the bedside light is brighter than the room), a blue/red/orange soft color combo for when I'm brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed (very relaxing), a "aaugh, the pain, I'm up dammit" super-white (they call it 'energize' mode in the app) which turns on automatically in time with my workday morning alarm, and the "gotta pee" mode where only the master bathroom light turns on to gentle, kind-to-the-night-vision red. The rest of the modes are all the usual "ooo lookit I can make the whole room /blue/" type of goofing off which almost never get used.
I thought the novelty would wear off after a while, and it did... for the 'goofing off' modes. But after refining into the work/read/go-to-bed/get-up/night-pee modes (which took a month or so) I really don't want to do without them. They're something I'm used to and actually miss when staying away from home. Having a room only be 'very bright' or 'no light' isn't enough of a choice any more. Yeah, I'm spoiled. But isn't that what this kind of gadget is for?
For those who are very particular about how warm/cool your normal light should be, Philips chose a good color engine for that; you'll be happy. The downside is that it can't do true green. Outside of goofing off, though, it's not often I'd need a solid green lit room.
If they'd come down notably in price I'd install them all over the house. All my house interior lighting is LED already, but it'd be nice to have similar 'color dimming' abilities throughout the abode instead of just in my room. But at $50 a bulb? Naaaah, one room is enough.
Wish list: The aforementioned controller (in various tabletop and wall-switch-mount formats). Higher maximum brightness. Slightly more green hue -- just a little. Lower cost.
CFLs die well before their time in rooms (like bathrooms) where they die from on/off cycles. In these rooms all bets are off regarding payback and/or mercury.
LED's are the ideal light for on/off rooms as they are the only technology that doesn't die prematurely under short cycles.
CFLs are ideal for places like porch lights, which will be left on for many hours.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Welcome to the future. Isn't it great?
I agree that CFLs die faster than they should, but they also cost almost nothing anymore - payback period is no longer an issue. The reason I'm not going all-in with LED at this point is three-fold: 1) when CFLs first entered the market, they cost many times what they do today, so I'm kind of betting that history will repeat itself, 2) I'm not convinced that LEDs will meet their stated lifetimes, which is high-risk with an expensive bulb, and 3) in many cases, a cheaper CFL is good enough and has a similar energy draw.
I still use incandescents in closets and stuff. Hell, I think the closet bulbs are from the 70s :) I also use incandescents over the dining room table, because the high efficiency bulbs make the food look gross. I'm experimenting with LEDs in the kitchen - I think they'll be fine since I'm already using CFLs in the recessed cans and, worst case, I can switch on the under-cabinet halogens if the food is looking gnarly.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The amount of power used to produce the replacement light bulb also matters. A closet light is on perhaps a couple of minutes per day. It's the same reason why I still have CRT monitors on my servers. Those monitors are only on for a few hours a YEAR (basically only during upgrades that can't be handled over a remote connection, or to restart them if things go wrong after a power outage), so the energy saved by replacing them would never offset the energy cost of manufacturing the new monitor. If those monitors ever die they'll probably be replaced with other castoff CRT monitors, unless castoff LCD monitors are essentially free by then.