Every now and then a project arrives on Kickstarter that blows people away and the pledges just go through the roof. One example of this is the LIFX Wi-Fi enabled LED light bulb and it appears to have captured everyone’s imagination. The LIFX is a state of the art LED bulb that you can control with your iPhone including color changes, on/off, dimming and so much more.
LIFX is the smartest light bulb you've ever experienced. It's a wifi-enabled, energy efficient, multi-colored bulb that you control with your iPhone or Android. LIFX gives you unprecedented control of your lights, reduces your energy costs, lasts up to 25 years and delivers an amazing range of experiences we think you’ll love.
LIFX is incredibly easy to set-up. Simply replace your existing bulbs with LIFX smartbulbs, download and install our free app from the App Store or Google Play and you're good to go.
Once you have replaced your bulbs, you can control every one of them independently from your iPhone. As the bulbs are LED, you can program them to change color to match your mood, set them to come on from a dim condition to a light condition in the morning or vice versa in the evening and you can even set them to come on automatically to greet you when you come home. Of course you can just use them as normal lights with your existing hardware switches and just reap the rewards of the energy savings and long 25 year bulb lifespans.
If you like the look of this amazing Kickstarter project and would like a piece of the action you can grab one of the first LIFX bulbs for a pledge of $69 or more. That will secure you one bulb but there are various other pledge options right up to $5000. There has been a huge amount of interest in this Kickstarter project and it has already smashed its pledge target of $100,000; it currently sits at over $250,000 with 58 days left to go.
I have just replaced all of my bathroom lighting with LED bulbs and they do offer large energy savings without any issue with brightness or start up times. They are not cheap however and that is why the LIFX bulbs appear to be highly priced too. I really hope these make it into production as I will have them installed in every room in my home.
What about you, do you think the LIFX bulbs are a good idea? Could you see them in your home?
Source: Kickstarter
Reader comments
LIFX Wi-Fi enabled iPhone controlled LED light bulb arrives on Kickstarter
Signed up just to say - Every. Single. Room.
As an electrician who mainly does high end homes I would sell about 10 metric craploads of these a month.
I have my living and dining areas at home wired up with "Lightwave RF" energy saving bulbs that each contain a small radio receiver so you can control them wirelessly- you can also get a transmitter device for around £70 that plugs into your network to allow controlling them from your iPhone, and setting timers etc, plus a range of switches and sockets. B&Q currently stock them all in the UK under a Siemens rebranding.
It works great, and I imagine it would be even better if you could control the colour too! (Of course, the systems wont be compatible... but I'm still tempted.)
Note for UK users, I see LIFX will be doing Bayonet Cap bulbs too, as well as the Edison Screw type illustrated.
Peter
Soluble Apps
There are lights bulbs already in the market with 1,000,000 RgB LEDs in them that change color by use of a tiny remote control. That's an option if you don't want to wait for a wifi enabled one that run for about 39.99-49.99 a pop.