This project started with a goal of $100K and that was quickly surpassed as people started to catch wind of this concept. The funding is now over $876K and climbing. What makes people so interested in this new light bulb?
Well, “light bulb” is a bit of a misnomer and these should be called lighting instruments if you want to be more accurate. The LIFX is actually a system that utilizes LED lights and wireless technology to allow for real-time and very detailed control over the light that you have in your environment. The LIFX is meant to be used in conjunction with a smartphone app that allows you to do everything from dim and brighten the lights to controlling the exact hue of the light produced. There is even a function for reactive lighting that will change in response to the music playing through your smartphone.
I could go through all of the functions of this programmable lighting solution, but one of the most important factors is efficiency and working life. Because LEDs are the light-source, the LIFX should have a working life of about 25 years and be more efficient than incandescent bulbs in regards to power consumption. These are bulbs that you take with you when you move.
Let’s get down to brass tacks. This is not a cheap lighting option by any means. The technology in this device is ever decreasing in cost, but a single bulb is currently going to cost you about $69 and they are only available through the Kickstarter project. If you buy 10 of them at once you can get the price per bulb reduced to about $49, but that’s still pretty prohibitive for many people. I wouldn’t expect to see strings of these replacing the LED Christmas lights any time soon, but if this technology catches on I would expect to see these popping up in a lot more homes and business in the coming years.
I remember when CFL and LED lights were prohibitively expensive. People thought they would never have a place in the average home and now I have CFLs in most of my lights and LED Christmas lights in my closet that I bought on a whim. The LIFX could be the future or it could just be proof of concept, but the current pledge rate seems to say that there is a market and it wants this light.
[Editor’s note: This article was kindly contributed by Robert Lobitz who runs the LED Lights Gallery, providing a great selection of powerful, efficient LED lights for almost any use that you can think of].
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