Everything Else

I mentioned this on 68KMLA, but for those who haven't played with them and have $200 burning a hole in your pocketses, the Philips hue wireless lighting set is tremendously fun to play with. Smart People(tm) have found that it communicates with the mobile app with a simple HTTP REST API. So I wrote a Perl script to do the same thing. Now I control my lights from my gopher server or over ssh.

http://www.floodgap.com/software/huepl/

I really, really want to get more bulbs installed! Must ... not ... go to ... the Apple Store ...

I have a bunch of the l-prize bulbs (and friends, i.e. 1200 lumen models). I'll take them over a CFL any day of the week.

Have you tried the phosphor-based bulbs? How do the RGB bulbs compare in terms of light output?

I can see these coming in handy in the bedroom The trouble with the regular LED bulbs is that while they are dimmable, the colour temperature doesn't change (i.e. get warmer when dimmer like an incandescent bulb)

Verrrry interesting! I look forward to the prices coming down for that kit, though an exclusive deal with Apple probably means that's a long way off...

Still putting beans in the jar ...

You know what the ladies say, "boys and their toys "

These are 600 lumen bulbs. But quite adequate. In fact, I turned down the brightness on the bulb in the kitchen.

It's also worth noting that the elements aren't really RGB. They're optimized for lighting instead of colour fidelity, so CIE 1931 mapping is wonky.

As far as warming the bulb as intensity goes down, that doesn't happen automatically, but colour temperature is fully adjustable. I have these set to 340 mireds, which is about 2950 K, and is pleasant to my eyes.

I recently attended a wireless seminar where these Philips Hue lights were shown. Although
they have many features I think handling them is not user-friendly and they are too expensive, too.

Some months before I attended a seminar from JenNet. Before they were bought by NXP they
promised to create wireless control enabled light bulbs for one Euro (approx 1.2 US$) surcharge
on the price of a light bulb. GenNet has developed a light-weight network stack that works good
for controlling a few hundred devices (like light bulbs).
Another question is if NXP still wants to sell wireless control enabled light bulbs for only 1 Euro
surcharge (Link: http://www.jennic.com/products/protocol ... /jennet-ip ).

I'll grant the price is steep, but what about them was not user-friendly? The mobile app is getting rave reviews, and the underlying access to the base station is bog-standard REST.

When you consider a regular philips LED bulb like the couple I have (see pic) is $40 I think the hue kit for 3 fancy pants colour-changing bulbs is quite reasonably priced... I can see it getting expensive very quickly if you have a luminare/chandelier with lots of bulbs but to outfit a typical living space I don't think you could do it yourself more cheaply.

The only problem I see (didn't realize earlier) is that apple sells them, which means I have to go to the shopping mall and deal with the maroons at the apple store to buy a kit For what is really nothing more than a modern-day version of "the clapper"...



And I promise you, I'm the King of Spain. No, really!

They probably could have ... the Assist's girl friend (two words) is hooked up with a Korean guy whose family owns an LED factory. Let's say there is a beeeeg markup in these LED devices.

This also may help explain some of the awkward translations you see ... we help them occasionally. It goes Korean -> Korean English -> Chinese English -> Chinese -> English through two girls who are not what you'd call technical ... the Chinese girl and Korean guy communicate (sort of) in English (also sort of) because neither one of them speaks the language of the other. Ah, love .... or something like that

Markup? Of Course! BOM total about $10? Probably!


Ahhhh... the economics of modern society

Let's say these guys could make a 1e fancy-pants light bulb. Of course they could! You can build anything down to any price. Nobody would buy it... if they ever heard of the thing at all, they would think "oh cool" and keep walking. Don't forget the marketing, design, and ever-omnipresent WAF.



WAF: I offered to buy my lady a macbook pro or thinkpad... i.e. something I will want when she gets tired of it... she wants a cheep sony vaio from wall mart.. because her father had a vaio years ago and she liked that one... non-nerds are wierd: "well if you don't think I should get this sony, what about a dell??? they have them in pink!"

see Stieglitz cf "rent" .... welcome to 1750 France, without the cool castles.

It's all well and good until you realize you've just spent $200 on three light bulbs... and at that point of money-spending stupidity I would rather have these .

But that would mean I'd have to actually exercise.

So they don't use ant, shockburst, bluetooth, or wifi... sigh... in fairness, this is the sort of stuff that zigbee was meant for. Why do I get the feeling that I'm still going to wind up with one of these kits before long ? It is one of the nicest zigbee bridges I've seen.. (i.e. not an arduino shield so my standards are low)

Figured I could use a new pair of shorts anyways, tried those on.. and wound up with skins instead. Much much better it's for people who actually run rather than try to look cool taking the kids to school..

It is a nice ZigBee bridge, I agree. I had to eventually move it out into the commons area though because the can lighting one of the bulbs sits in basically acts like a semi-Faraday cage and was only intermittently responding. I also tweaked HuePl to "try hard" since sometimes the bridge twiddles its thumbs a bit.

The lights were a big hit for New Year's Eve (though the pinball machine helped more).

Planning for the future already ?

No, I went with the skins instead of the nike shorts

This is really OT.. wrong website completely

The future may be here before I know it

But then:


This is really more what I meant - not that $200 is terrible pricing today, it truly doesn't seem bad, but in absolute terms I'm not sure I want to spend $200 for novelty lighting. And I will keep repeating that to myself...

For a country that serves $9 hot dogs and $13 hamburgers, hey, such a deal !

Been to the grocery store with a shopping cart full of cash to buy a bar of soap recently ?