Apple Will Sell App-Enabled, Color-Changing Light Bulbs | Hacker News Reader

Apple Will Sell App-Enabled, Color-Changing Light Bulbs

mashable.com

21 pointsiProject14 comments

Apple Stores Will Sell Philips App-Enabled, Color-Changing Light Bulbs

There is also Lifx http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/lifx-the-light...

Doing the math, Lifx is on the hook for 23,680 bulbs. They raised 1.315M$ in their Kickstarter. If they could get Phillips to cut them a deal on the bulbs to get them under $55/bulb, they could write Phillips a check, transship the bulbs, and everyone would win :-).

Any reason I should wait for LIFX instead of getting the Hue right away?

From the conversations going on on Kickstarter the LIFX was a mesh network configuration, whereas with the Hue you'd be connecting a bunch of slaves to a central hub. This could come into play depending on the amount of bulbs you plan to use and where.

And keeping in mind the hue kit starts at 160 + 60/ bulb, mesh networking can be more cost efficient.

You shouldn't. http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/09/18/kickstarter...

Basically the R&D costs for this type of product are in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Because this is blazing new trails in material science and electrical efficiency of individual components, it's impossible for a modestly funded startup to get the disruption factor by identifying shortcuts or optimizations.

You don't need to do that kind of expensive research if your goal is just to make a nifty color changing lightbulb and you don't care so much how expensive it is to buy or operate.

The hard problem is making an LED bulb that competes with incandescent or CFL bulbs on both quality of light and total cost of ownership. So far I haven't seen Lifx come out and directly claim that they are trying to solve that problem (but please let me know if they have, I'm curious).

10w RGB COB LED + enclosure with heat sink + control board.

As best as I can tell from the Phillips site, they only have an iOS app. LIFX at least seems to also have Android as an option.

Wow, this is crazy but I'm 100% sure I saw an Android app link on http://www.meethue.com/en-US/getstarted#howitworks earlier today.

Why buy one instead of the other when you can buy both, write a review and post here? ;)

It's a startup and this is Startup News, of course.

They already do. Saw them in the new Palo Alto store.

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