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.

Comments

Dumbest story title, ever?

[gweihir]

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.

Re:Dumbest story title, ever?

[drinkypoo]

CFLs? Every Slashdotter needs to walk into a room and instantly have 6500K light or people... will... die !

Fluorescent lights give me a headache. I don't care if this is supposed to be medically possible, since it happens to me. They all do it, though some are substantially worse than others. So-called "daylight" fluorescents are the worst, e.g. ott-lite. Those give me a headache in record time.

Solar panels? Take more energy to make than they'll ever produce, and it lowers property values to have free electricity.

Only idiots believe that solar panels take more energy to make than they will produce, which has been false since the 1970s.

IGPs? Sure, I only play cheesy online Flash solitaire, but I NEED A quad 7990 and an external 3KW PSU just to feed it.

My problem with IGPs is that they are from intel in which case they really are shit (I actually play games in 3d, this is no longer a corner case since the majority of the population of the USA plays video games) or from AMD in which case the drivers are shit. I've owned several systems with embedded nVidia graphics. That's in the chipset, though.

Electric cars? They "had to" push it home on that show with the car guys. And Elon Musk eats Christian babies.

There's at least as much support for EVs here as against.

And LED bulbs? Still new enough that you have the uninformed Luddites bitching that they cost $60 each, despite the fact that you can now buy them for under $20 regularly and around $10 on sale

How many $20 LED lamps have you bought? How many $10 ones? ALL SHIT. You must spend real money on an LED lamp to get one that even has current limiting, let alone power regulation.

Re:Dumbest story title, ever?

[Jherek Carnelian]

How many $20 LED lamps have you bought? How many $10 ones? ALL SHIT.

Cree makes good bulbs because they are driving demand for their LEDs - Cree and Philips are probably neck-and-neck for the lead position in the LED market.

They've got a 40-watt equivalent for $10 at Home Depot and a 60-watt for $14.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?356710-Cree-A19-9-5w-60w-800lm-2700K-for-13-97

Re:Dumbest story title, ever?

[BenJeremy]

And LED bulbs? Still new enough that you have the uninformed Luddites bitching that they cost $60 each, despite the fact that you can now buy them for under $20 regularly and around $10 on sale

How many $20 LED lamps have you bought? How many $10 ones? ALL SHIT. You must spend real money on an LED lamp to get one that even has current limiting, let alone power regulation.

Microcenter has "40W" house-brand Inland LED bulbs for $6.99, dimmables for a buck more. They work great in my house, and I haven't had a single one go bad or burn out in the year or two since I started getting them. They seem to be well built, and have nice solid heat sinks, though the one here in my desk lamp is cool enough to touch (and by touch, I mean put your fingers on it and hold them there) anywhere on the lamp body.

Our kitchen uses two of these bulbs in the fixture, and its as bright as it's ever been with any other bulbs.

On the subject of 'smart lighting' - $50~70 is too much for a bulb, but it speaks to the X-10 enthusiast in many of us to be able to control lighting at the source... but the price needs to come way down. I expect that to happen as production ramps up. Given a cheap interface chip, China could pump the components out for less than a dollar premium on a BOM for a smart bulb. Tie that in with efficient, color-changing LEDs and you could sell them all day long at Wal*Mart for $15 each and make a good profit.

Realistically, "smart lighting" is the way to get people to buy the more expensive LED bulb, anyway.... there is more perceived value in buying a consumable product that can also do cool things. Forget the fact that LED bulbs are far cheaper, in the long run, simply based on lifespan, let alone energy cost, to purchase over any other type of bulb. CFLs don't help the cause of buying energy efficient lighting, since they sometimes last no longer than regular bulbs, yet cost two or three times as much (again, forgetting energy cost savings). Give consumers a neat capability with that expensive cost, and they'll be far more interested as they see more "value" in buying LED bulbs... but that doesn't happen at a $50 price point for 99% of the consumers out there. At $15, yes, it probably becomes more viable for people to start lighting their homes with LEDs.

Re:Dumbest story title, ever?

[ebh]

The problem I have with Crees is th form factor. We have recessed lighting in our kitchen, mostly R30, and the fixtures are 40 years old, certainly superseded by newer standards. Regular R-30 bulbs fit perfectly. The Cree equivalents take some work to fit right, especially the ones with the built-in bezels.

That said, I love the light they produce. It's a bit brighter, and only slightly whiter than the light the 65W incandescents put out, at a fifth the power consumption.

I have one question for the pick-your-color manufacturers: Have you ever consulted an interior designer? The colors of paint, fabric, etc. in a room are all picked with specific lighting in mind, both natural and from lamps. Start futzing with it, and things will start looking crappy. Ever wonder why a hotel room looks fine under CFLs but the same CFLs in your bedroom make everything an ashy grey? It's because the colors in the hotel room were picked specifically because they complement the color spectrum put out by the CFLs.

I'm looking forward to the day not far off when I can have all LED lighting in the house, but I have no desire to make radical color changes (except for special applications people have mentioned ike aids for the deaf).

Re:Dumbest story title, ever?

[NFN_NLN]

I have one question for the pick-your-color manufacturers: Have you ever consulted an interior designer? The colors of paint, fabric, etc. in a room are all picked with specific lighting in mind, both natural and from lamps. Start futzing with it, and things will start looking crappy.

Thanks for this post. I was running out of material for my "First World Problems" meme generator. But this is pure gold :)

Yeah, let's do that...

[Anonymous Coward]

*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.

Re:Yeah, let's do that...

[Knuckles]

*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.

Fix your router?

Re:Yeah, let's do that...

[Flozzin]

Ok. Slightly better. But why wireless? Why internet? If you are not home do you need to control lights? If you are that bad about not turning off lights when you leave are you really going to remember once your gone? You need more than a dimmer switch? Really? Why? Why not wire all the lights to a central keypad in the home(think dedicated tablet computer). Can't wait for these to be wide spread enough to where you can drive down the street at christmas time, hack the entire blocks house lights and turn it into a spectacular light show for yourself set to music.

Re:Yeah, let's do that...

[QuasiSteve]

While getting into 'smart lightbulbs' is probably going to be a highly personal choice...

Do you want it hacked?

It's fairly unlikely that the light (I say light because some are bulbs, some are sockets) itself would be hacked, but rather your router - and although pranksters making your house look haunted would probably get old real quick, and e.g. flicker-induced epilepsy would be pretty bad, you'd probably have other issues at that point.

Do you need another wifi signal degrading signal in your home?

That makes very little sense.

Taking up bandwidth?

As does this. Are you suspecting these lightbulbs of serving up Linux torrents 24/7?

Wake up and want to piss at night, fumble for your phone or hit a switch?

I'd have to ask at what point you removed the switch. There's nothing preventing you from having a switch, and even a dimmer (depending on bulb being okay with it), in addition to the 'smart' application.

It boggles my mind why they think people want this.

Maybe they want their smartphone to slowly increasing lighting levels based on the time of day. Perhaps they want the light to come on automatically when they enter a room (having the smartphone on them). They may want mood lighting control outside of the expensive brand names and better than the $15 ebay solution.
You could probably waste a few minutes searching the web for what people do with these and find dozens of applications.

Just because you and I don't find them all that appealing (hey, I have the $15 ebay solutions.. they work well enough for what I want out of RGB lights), doesn't mean your mind need boggle.

My main complaints with these are that they're almost exclusively bulbs which are going to be expensive to replace. I'd prefer them to be sockets. Unfortunately this would require a new standard in order to deal with RGB (and beyond) bulbs - and more likely than not, this would be proprietary solutions at first; why make a simple set of connector rings when you can use a serial interface with a proprietary encoding so that only your bulbs work with your sockets, right?
Similarly, they all disagree on what wireless standard to use - even if they use the same wireless standard, the actual protocols or specifics of implementation may differ.

I'll wait for some level of standardization, let the early adopters deal with the growing pains, and enjoy the cheapo ebay things for now. If I really wanted them to be 'smart' right now, I'd throw an Arduino or something at the problem.

Re:Yeah, let's do that...

[Ultra64]

> My router falls over roughly twice a week and needs rebooting.

Then it's broken and needs to be replaced.

Re:Yeah, let's do that...

[tbird81]

Wake up and want to piss at night, fumble for your phone or hit a switch?

That problem is easily solved. You just buy old iPhones, keep the app running, and mount them permanently with a power supply onto your wall. This way you've got a convenient way of switching the light on and off from a known location.

Re:Yeah, let's do that...

[Gaygirlie]

You're blaming a broken router on these bulbs. It's not their fault that you're unable to fix your shit.

Re:Yeah, let's do that...

[nblender]

Admittedly not a lot of people want this but .... We have a place out in the forest... Sometimes when we arrive, it's late at night and it's _dark_ out there... I mean, if it's overcast and the middle of the winter, you can't see _anything_... So we have a yard light that I control remotely via crappy unreliable X-10.. The house is already internet connected via cellphone so I have various scripts on my webserver to let me control things like the thermostat and the X10 yard light. yeah; you could keep the car headlights on until you can get up to the door, unlock it, and turn the lights on.. The remotely controllable yard light also works well in conjunction with the security camera.. Infrared mode doesn't work all that well.

No, not life changing but a small matter of convenience.

Why so expensive in the US?

[rebelwarlock]

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?

Re:Why so expensive in the US?

[jonbryce]

In the UK, normal LED bulbs designed as plug-in replacements for incandescent and CLF bulbs typically cost about £13. The Philips Hue bulb, which can change colour with a remote control costs about £50.

Re:Why so expensive in the US?

[jpatters]

I'm in the US and I just got a bunch of LED bulbs from Costco for $5 each. Not the color changing ones though.

Re:Why so expensive in the US?

[adolf]

Down here in Ohio, I've also seen incandescent stop lights clogged with snow.

*shrug*

It depends on the snow and the wind and the temperature and the duty-cycle of that particular light bulb.

Meanwhile, contrary to what everyone seems to assume: LEDs can get pretty toasty. This is why pre-packaged bulbs and fixtures tend to be mostly heatsink.

IIRC, they're only still about 40% efficient. This is more than an order of magnitude better than an incandescent, but it still means that substantial heat can be generated with use.

Re:Why so expensive in the US?

[SuricouRaven]

Two reasons for the heatsink. Firstly, they can get pretty toasty, yes. Secondly, high temperatures greatly shorten the lifespan of a LED. Incandescents or CFLs can take the heat, LEDs can't, so even if the heat dissipated isn't that great they still need large heatsinks.

Re:Why so expensive in the US?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

In Germany, they cost 10€-20€: http://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85Z%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=farbwechsel+birne&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Afarbwechsel+birne

I personally like the volleyball sized ones: http://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85Z%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=farbwechsel+kugel&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Afarbwechsel+kugel

They are great for nights outside on the balcony with the laptop and a cigar. I also have one that is waterproof for the pool. I find them in the junk bins in discount supermarkets.

Re:Why so expensive in the US?

[anubi]

I have noted some MR16 LED's I bought run hot. The "Shoe Palace" at the local mall installed this same kind of lighting and I notice about 10% of their emitters are now dead. It is my belief that the LED's were sold on their initial appearance of being very bright, not for their longevity. So the marketers overdrive them to make the specs look good for a quick sale.

I bought mine for outdoor illumination, but after examining them, it appears they are very poorly sealed against moisture. Not the LED, rather its the inverter electronics that appears quite vulnerable to condensation which would be expected in an outdoor application, much like you would expect same in a bathroom application.

I have been looking at those 10-watt LED chip arrays from China, which look like they would survive outdoors as long as I ran them substantially below their rated power due to not having them heat sunk very well. They still need a driver, but in this case, I will put up with the inefficiency of using a ballast resistor in order to get the reliability and robustness against moisture that I do not believe I can get from a buck ( switching ) converter.in a wet environment.

I definitely wanted the outside lighting to run on 12 volts ( DC, full wave rectified, minimal filtering for voltage spikes that would destroy the LED ), I considered the 12 volt 20 watt MR16 halogens unsuitable because their current draw demanded heavy expensive wire, I wanted to run my lights with repurposed CAT5 cable ( which I have lots of) snaked in old garden hose as a direct burial conduit. Obviously, the ends are exposed to water, kids and pets, so line voltage is definitely out. I can get 10 ohm 25 watt ( 1 volt per 100 mA ) ballast resistors pretty cheap, and run them way under rating so they barely run warm. They are well sealed, so if they get wet, no big deal.

You may have seen a lot of indicator type LED's and small flashlights and think these things are the ideal cold light source. When I played with higher powered LED's ( 1 watt and up ), I was quite dismayed with how much heat I was going to have to deal with. Incandescents make even more heat, but the heat does not destruct the lamp like heat will shorten the lifetime of a LED.

I have several UltraFire WF-502B flashlights I bought so I could re-use the lithium 18650 style cells I recovered from "spent" power tool and laptop battery packs. I was doing some research on how to build charge equalizers with the cells and later fell in love with the lithium cell technology. These are quite nice high powered flashlights which deliver an unusual amount of light. The flashlights are made from machined aluminum, and they are the first flashlight I have ever had that ran noticeably warm after it has been turned on for a few minutes. They have about a 5 watt LED in them, on a massive block of aluminum heat sunk to the aluminum body of the flashlight. Yes, a beautiful design, and it also illustrates well that high power LED's will heat up.

I know our Government is doing all they can do to ram Fluorescent and LED technology down our collective throats. It is still my firm belief that those technologies are downright dangerous in the bathroom, where condensation wets the innards of the thing, then when you turn it on, ka-blooie! By their construction, incandescent bulbs are extremely resistant to condensation ( and if they are on, no condensation will happen because of the heat ).

Yes, there are some good bulbs out there. There is also a lot of junk. I do not want to diss the new stuff, but in my book, its too early to retire the legacy incandescent.

I have seen the color changing ones where one can custom mix red, green, blue, white LED outputs to make almost any desired hue, and they have their application. I do not know if I really want it all that bad, but maybe it would be good for things like mood lighting. I know I highly prefer my light around 2700K, ( quite yellowish ), but others may want the higher temperature 6000K ( downright cold bluish ) light.

X10

[Animats]

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.

Re:X10

[mysidia]

Remote off/on control of home lights and appliances just isn't that useful.

Yeah it is... it's extremely useful; when combined with programming capabilities, it can save electricity, reduce human effort, and improve security.

However, while it's useful... it's usually not useful enough to justify the price that manufacturers charge for it, and the total cost of refitting existing buildings and appliances with remote control features

The automation people need is available through alternative methods that don't require remote control; timer on the coffee pot; outdoor lights with built-in day-night/motion sensor (instead of remote controller using the system time).

When the technology is as cheap as the extra cost you pay for a coffee pot to get the timer feature; when the technology is as cheap as the extra percentage cost you pay for your car to get the "cruise control" feature or the "radio feature".... when the technology is as easy to use as those, and is as inexpensive to get setup and up and running as those;

Then the technology will start to be adopted. Get it down to $5 - $10 per lightbulb, and if it's reliable and easy to use, it will become ubiquitous.

It provides a benefit.... that benefit is just worth less than $200 for a bridge to run it plus the ~$300 or so in terms of cost for additional building surge protection (to prevent all the components getting fried next time there's a power storm), plus $50 per switched light, plus $50 per controller, plus probably ~$70 per circuit average, to get the electrician installation of the required components,; amounting to probably ~$4000+ for true whole-home remote control of just the lights

How long will it last

[Pallas Athena]

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.