Smart bulbs hit the market
A light bulb is just a light bulb, right? Well, no; at least, that’s not the case anymore. Paul Skelton explains.
As anybody who attended the 2015 International CES in Las Vegas can attest, the number of ‘connected light bulbs’ has reached critical mass, with several new suppliers entering the market spruiking a new solution.
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While Australia is largely sheltered from the glut of connected light bulbs entering the market in US, several are still finding their way down under.
Whether this flood of new product is the result of increased interest in and awareness of the internet of things, or a heretofore undiagnosed widespread light bulb fetish, 2015 is set to be a good year for intelligent lighting.
So, what’s the appeal?
“Smart light bulbs are not just about turning your lights on or off from your smart phone. This technology is about giving consumers a whole new level of control and benefits,” Belkin WeMo senior product manager Andrea Bruno says.
“Consumers will start thinking of lighting in a completely different way. They will no longer have to worry about their kids being afraid of the dark when they go to sleep, with light bulbs that can now fade out gradually at night and fade back in come morning. They can have lighting respond to motion detection so they do not ever have to touch a light switch again and they can have their lights turn on and off randomly when they are on holiday to simulate presence.”
Essentially, connected bulbs could replace potentially-complicated lighting control systems in basic installations.
“Lighting is one of the most successful verticals in home automation. When we ask consumers to think of home automation applications, being able to control lighting is easily one of the most common answers. Smart bulbs are the easiest and least intrusive ways to get started, as it is as simple as replacing a light bulb and you are good to go.”
Perhaps the most well known supplier of connected light bulbs is Philips Lighting, which launched Hue in 2012.
Filip jan Depauw is co-founder of Hue and the head of business development, strategy and marketing for Philips’ Connected Lighting division.
“We want to take lighting beyond being just a light bulb,” Filip says.
“We want to create rich lighting experiences. We want it to play are role in security, entertainment and energy management systems.
“We’re trying to make lighting more than a commodity device hanging from your ceiling.”
The challenge, Filips says, is to get consumers to move away from that commodity mindset.
“That’s the biggest challenge with devices built for the internet of things – proving the relevance to consumers.”
He explains that in order to change this mindset, it was of absolute import for Philips to develop a product that made sense: “When a customer buys Hue, we want them to say ‘I’ve made an intelligent decision’.”
“That’s why, when our R&D team told (co-founder George Yianni) and me that they could connect lights to the internet, we asked ‘why would you want to do that?’. That question sparked the development of the Hue ecosystem.
“We needed to make sure that whatever we developed was relevant to consumers.
“We found that four aspects of Hue in particular caught the attention of end users. The first was soft security – scaring the ghosts away and making sure you could come home to a house that was well lit.
“The second was ambience creation – being able to steer some of the lighting within your home from your personal device.
“The third was around the biological effect of light – light can do wonderful things for your body, so we looked to develop something that could help you relax, concentrate or re-energise.
“The fourth was receiving notifications. By connecting lights to data sources you can, say, set your light to blink red if it’s going to rain tomorrow, or alert you if you receive an email from a particular person.”
Above all, Filip says, they needed to make the installation process as simple as possible. As a result, “you can install Hue in five to seven minutes and you don’t need to be an engineer to do it.”
Custom installers would be remiss to think of Hue, WeMo and the likes to be nothing more than a light bulb replacement. The truth, it appears, is that these devices are much more than that. They could, in fact, be the ideal entry point or upsell tool for your business.
Attached here is a comparison guide to some of the readily available solutions in the Australian market.
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