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Comment by lm28469 | Hacker News Reader

$90 for a "smart" lamp, $2600 flip phones, ...

Man if this isn't a symptom of gadget/tech bubble on the verge of bursting I don't know what it is.

$90 for a bedside lamp isn't really that much compared to their competitors. It's a splurge but it's really no different than buying something designer -- and it's a lot more functional than most designer lighting.

Plus the cost of getting your lighting connected to your network will run you about $40 on its own in the price of the bulb or built into the stand.

Or you can press a button and it lights your 2$ bulb that will most likely outlive this $90 gadget which will end in an electronic waste somewhere in latin america or africa.

But hey, if it's not pilling outside of our nice comfy air conditioned, voice controlled, connected homes who cares, right ?

https://theconversation.com/europes-electronic-waste-has-bec...

You're not wrong, but neither is the parent poster. A 2 pack of Phillips hue light bulbs is like $80 and that isn't a stand alone unit. You need to provide your own light fixture and internet. The fact of the matter is that regardless of how little you like this technology, or however wasteful it is, there is a huge market for this stuff and people will purchase it.

Of course there is a market for it, it's the main feature of our current economy.

"alienated consumption has become just as much a duty for the masses as alienated production" - Guy Debord

I don't care about this particular product, or connected lamps in general for that matter, the underlying causes are very interesting though.

As a counterpoint, it is easy to spend more than $90 on a "dumb" lamp and bulb, depending on your style preferences and where you shop. There will always be a market for higher-end products.

Another way to look at this is Casper's business model. Casper mattresses are cheaper than equivalents sold at the likes of Mattress Firm (AFAIK), although not as inexpensive as IKEA. When you look at it this way, Casper's accessories (sheets, night stands, lamps) can be a way for them to sell complimentary products, at the same time they sell you a mattress, at a higher margin.

> As a counterpoint, it is easy to spend more than $90 on a "dumb" lamp and bulb

Sure, and this is as much as a problem, but a different one.

These new tech gadgets are a symptom of consumerism in general. They're the perfect products : they cost X times more than their dumb counterparts, need constant updates from private companies, run closed source code, are near impossible to fix for the common folks and due to increased complexity they have a life expectancy of a few years at most (but that's not really a problem because the V2 will be released next year anyway)

For some reason I save the boxes of most of my consumer tech gadgets. Looking in the closet where I keep them makes feel sort of sick. At myself.

And yet I want this lamp.

Technology addiction. As a caffeine addict, I've 'gone off' it before, and for three days it's terrible. There is a very physical withdrawal.

With technology, the addiction manifests as a light, ever present anxiety. Both in the use and acquisition of such products.

I don't know where this all goes.

What really made me sick was living in an apartment building and seeing the piles of Amazon boxes in the basement/recycling area. General consumption is a problem far worse that CO2 emissions. Our e-waste is destroying water supplies in the African nations it's all shipped to, where kids dig through old products for any salvageable metals and components. Resist the urge to buy useless stuff.

What entitles you to proclaim that your neighbors are buying "useless stuff?"

You'll see a lot of Amazon boxes in my recycling as well, but they all contained things I would have purchased anyway after driving to a store someplace.

Are those Amazon boxes really that wasteful? The alternative is probably people driving to various brick-and-mortar stores to buy these things. How much carbon emission was avoided by having these people buy from Amazon and have it all delivered on one truck?

Amazon doesn't just sell unnecessary trinkets, they sell everything, including everyday items you'd probably buy at Walmart/Target/the mall/etc.

"In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption. The dictatorship of consumer goods has finally destroyed the barriers of blood, lineage and race; this would be good cause for celebration were it not that consumption, by its logic of things, forbids all qualitative difference and recognizes only differences of quantity between values and between men." - Raoul Vaneigem

For me I've found logic, pragmatism and the seeking for and analysis of any facts or data I can find has cured some mental problems for me*

All of these gadgets provide utility, but with a cost, in money, time, having to remember to charge it, the weight of carrying it around, the space it takes up in your house, the mental resources it uses having to learn how to use it and think about it etc.

Its like, in the 90's I could have had a PDA, personal digital assistant, it has so much functionality, calendar, clock, track your appointments etc. But its another thing u need to carry, you need to periodically buy batteries for it, you also have to enter the your appointments into it. A small notebook and pencil was just a better overall solution when you do a cost/benefit analysis of it holistically.

I think you could easily rate your existing stuff, eg. (If its not a tool) and you havent used it in the last month then its basically useless and you can get rid of it. Also for prospective stuff, you could ask, will this save me time? Will it save as much time as I spent working in order to earn the money to buy it?

*my example is anxiety, I would be anxious that I'm having a heart attack or a stroke or something is medically wrong with me. So I looked up the actual symptoms of those things, which are like fainting, nausea, dizzyness, blurred vision etc. If I ever felt anxious I would go through the list and determine if I actually was really experiencing any of those symptoms. The answer was inevitably no, 'feeling a bit weird' was not one of the symptoms. This helped each time, and after a while I stopped feeling anxious altogether.

Ahh, the hidden cost of stuff. Everything comes with a bit of baggage. Where to keep it, how to maintain and repair it, how to find it amongst your other stuff, and how to get rid of it once served its purpose. It gives me a bit of anxiety just thinking about it.

Other people have already addressed that $90 is not that much for good lighting.

But why would the price point of things have any bearing on whether we're in a bubble? If consumers are buying those things at what you would consider to be a high price, that's an indication of strength in the market for tech goods. A strong market doesn't imply a bubble. If there was a great deal of investment in expensive products which were then not being purchased, that would be bubble, but the price point itself does not stand as evidence that this is what's happening.

> If consumers are buying those things at what you would consider to be a high price

Seems like I can't stop quoting Debord in that thread.

"The spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. Its sole message is: >>>>> “What appears is good; what is good appears.” <<<<< The passive acceptance it demands is already effectively imposed by its monopoly of appearances, its manner of appearing without allowing any reply."

If you stop at the surface of the problem, sure, people buy it so it must be good.

The problem runs much deeper than that though, where does it stop ? Is it an ever ending quest for gadgets, each generation of them costing more than the previous and bringing less actual value to their user ? Is that the conscious goal of humanity or is it a byproduct of an uncontrolled economy of consumption ?

It sure is a nice way to spend our disposable income.

IDK, where I am, "dimmable" bedside lights are not very common, and I'd like one. And also I have often considered getting a "wake up light" for winter mornings. If it can do that one weekdays only, that would be even better.

If both of those wants can be met in one, in a good-looking low-hassle product, then I'd pay for it.

We did a lot of research on this, and fewer than 5% of people studied (Americans of various socioeconomic status) had dimmers in their bedrooms.

Would you mind providing a link to your study?

We never published it (just internal market research), but that result was based on about 500 responses. We controlled for the typical demographics.

That's surprisingly low. I would have expected much higher since I have been told that a bedside dimmer light is a US custom. It isn't a UK one at all as far as I know.

I'm in the UK, and I would guess that it is even lower here - close to non-existent outside of smart-home and IoT enthusiasts, and US expatriates.

Do those "dimmers" with under 5% use include the ones with only 3 levels? I thought those were common?

You're referring to 3-way, I think. I think most people would classify that as a dimmer.

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