Programmable WiFi/ZigBee LED light bulb

[dhouston]

• http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/lifx-the-light-bulb-reinvented

[Dan Lawrence]

Basically useless except if you have a smart phone.

[Brian H]

Maybe someday we will see an X10 LED bulb with a built in interface. We can dream can't we? 

Smarthome has an LED light bulb with an Insteon Interface built into it.
So popular. It is on back order. As stock arrives. Being used to fill orders in the sequence they where placed.

[dhouston]

Basically useless except if you have a smart phone.

Or an Android or iOS tablet - or a PC or embedded device and a WiFi router. All you need is a way to send commands via WiFi which is not limited to Smartphones. Plus, they are planning an SDK so developers/hackers can have their way with it. From the link I cited earlier...

There's many more things you can do with LiFX smartbulbs in fact we're creating a software developer kit (SDK) and a hacker kit so hackers and developers alike will be able to release more and more apps to do things we haven't even thought of yet.

The free LIFX App will be available on the App Store and Google Play and we also have plans for a Windows, Mac and Linux app.

I might even get one so I can support it with the embedded hardware I'm developing.

[ITguy]

Basically useless except if you have a smart phone.

Not true, Dan!  An Android app can run on any Android device - including the cheap android tablets from many manufacturers - probably even the x10 one if you hack it so you can get to the Google app store.

ITguy

[dhouston]

Not true, Dan!  An Android app can run on any Android device - including the cheap android tablets from many manufacturers - probably even the x10 one if you hack it so you can get to the Google app store.

And you can bet on Amazon both selling the bulbs and providing an app that runs on their new Kindle Fire tablets.

[dhouston]

A week or two back, HA Dave posted about the $50 Belkin WeMo WiFi controlled appliance module. A few days ago I posted about Intel's embedded radio chip which will give WiFi to PICs/AVRs - probably an order of magnitude cheaper than current WiFi modules. Now, we have LIFX which uses WiFi to one master bulb/scheduler which then controls multiple slave bulbs via Bluetooth (they need an appliance module). I think X10 will soon be obsolete.

[Dan Lawrence]

Not true, Dan!  An Android app can run on any Android device - including the cheap android tablets from many manufacturers - probably even the x10 one if you hack it so you can get to the Google app store.

And you can bet on Amazon both selling the bulbs and providing an app that runs on their new Kindle Fire tablets.

I don't have or want a smart phone.  Cell phones are for calling people, not everything under the sun.

[dave w]

I don't have or want a smart phone.  Cell phones are for calling people, not everything under the sun.

Oh Dan, you are just an old Luddite! 

(I don't have a smartphone either      )

[dhouston]

I don't have or want a smart phone.  Cell phones are for calling people, not everything under the sun.

Nor do I have/want a smartphone.

But, unlike you, I actually read (and even understood) the entire LIFX web page so I know a smartphone is NOT a necessity.

[ITguy]

I don't have or want a smart phone.  Cell phones are for calling people, not everything under the sun.

So, Dan, do you not even know what a tablet is???  Because my post specifically said "including the cheap android tablets".  I didn't say a damn thing about a smart phone!!  If you're not going to actually read someone's post before you reply, why don't you just keep your opinions to yourself?

ITguy

[hawk1]

Amen ITguy! 

[Noam]

I don't have or want a smart phone.

You're entitled to not have or want a smartphone, but I'm not sure what this has to do with the topic of this thread.

Cell phones are for calling people, not everything under the sun.

Right. That's what SMARTphones are for.
Again, I still don't see how this has any relevance to this topic. We are discussing a new type of light bulb with embedded automation circuitry. We are not discussing the merits of smartphones.

[Dan Lawrence]

I don't have or want a smart phone.  Cell phones are for calling people, not everything under the sun.

Nor do I have/want a smartphone.

But, unlike you, I actually read (and even understood) the entire LIFX web page so I know a smartphone is NOT a necessity.

I know what a tablet is, my wife has one, but she leaves X10 to me.

[dhouston]

I know what a tablet is...

I would hope so. After all, the tablet, stylus and pictographs have a long history in communication.  Even old stick-in-the-muds should know about them.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script