29 / 116
www. e l e c t r i c a l c o nn e c t i o n . c om . a u
2 9
They will no longer have to worry
about their kids being afraid of the dark
when they go to sleep, with light bulbs
that can now fade out gradually at night
and fade back in come morning. They
can have lighting respond to motion
detection so they do not ever have to
touch a light switch again and they
can have their lights turn on and off
randomly when they are on holiday to
simulate presence.”
Essentially, connected bulbs could replace
potentially-complicated lighting control
systems in basic installations, or simply be
used to enhance basic lighting systems.
“Lighting is one of the most successful
verticals in home automation and the
wider electrical industry. When we ask
consumers to think of home automation
applications, being able to control
lighting is easily one of the most common
answers. Smart bulbs are the easiest and
least intrusive ways to get started, as it is
as simple as replacing a light bulb and you
are good to go.”
Perhaps the most well known supplier
of connected light bulbs is Philips
Lighting, which launched Hue in 2012.
Filip Jan Depauw is co-founder of Hue
and the head of business development,
strategy and marketing for Philips’
Connected Lighting division.
“We want to take lighting beyond being
just a light bulb,” Filip says.
“We want to create rich lighting
experiences. We want it to play are role
in security, entertainment and energy
management systems.
“We’re trying to make lighting more
than a commodity device hanging from
your ceiling.”
The challenge, Filip says, is to get
consumers and industry to move away
from that commodity mindset.
“That’s the biggest challenge with
devices built for the internet of things –
proving the relevance to consumers.”
He explains that in order to change
this mindset, it was of absolute
importance for Philips to develop a
product that made sense: “When a
customer buys Hue, we want them to say
‘I’ve made an intelligent decision’.”
“That’s why, when our R&D team told
(co-founder George Yianni) and me
that they could connect lights to the
internet, we asked ‘why would you want
to do that?’. That question sparked the
development of the Hue ecosystem.
“We needed to make sure that whatever
we developed was relevant to consumers.
“We found that four aspects of Hue in
particular caught the attention of end users.
The first was soft security – scaring the
ghosts away and making sure you could
come home to a house that was well lit.
“The second was ambience creation –
being able to steer some of the lighting
within your home from your personal
device.
“The third was around the biological
effect of light – light can do wonderful
things for your body, so we looked to
develop something that could help you
relax, concentrate or re-energise.
“The fourth was receiving notifications.
By connecting lights to data sources
you can, say, set your light to blink red
if it’s going to rain tomorrow, or alert
you if you receive an email from a
particular person.”
Above all, Filip says, they needed to
make the installation process as simple as
possible. As a result, “you can install Hue
in five to seven minutes and you don’t
need to be an engineer to do it.”
Electricians would be remiss to think of
Hue, WeMo and the likes to be nothing
more than a light bulb replacement. The
truth, it appears, is that these devices are
much more than that. They could, in fact,
be the ideal entry point or upsell tool for
your business.
Overleaf is a comparison guide to some
of the readily available solutions in the
Australian market.
SENGLED BOOST
Sengled has
introduced the
Boost LED +
WiFi repeater
bulb (coming
soon to
Australia).
The Sengled
Boost is an
LED light and
WiFi amplifier.
The LED bulb
supports two
WiFi network
modes: Access
Point (AP) and
Repeater. It has
two built-in
antennas for a
high throughput data exchange rate of up
to 300Mbps.
The Boost LED + WiFi repeater bulb is
compatible with most smart phones, tablets
and computers that support Wi-Fi IEEE
802.11b/g/n standard at 2.4GHz.
EMBERLIGHT
The emberlight socket turns any bulb into a
smart light. You simply screw in a bulb and
that’s it.
There’s no additional complex wireless
hub to install and then configure.
A smart phone app guides you through
connecting to your home’s WiFi network.
You can then take control of your lights
using a tap, proximity or on a schedule
you set.
Representatives for the company confirm
that emberlight will be available in Australia
mid-2015.