What so I buy a plug socket that goes on and off and then have a plain white bulb instead?
I want to get a smart bulb to control white tones to give a different ambiance.
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Yes, or ceiling fixing, and whatever colour or temperature bulb you want.
No reason a new fixing type couldnât support colour changing, that innovation just happened to coincide with âsmart bulbsâ so thatâs where itâs available. (As far as Iâm aware.)
My point is, itâs silly to have to replace perfectly functional smart comms. components just because the bulbâs gone.
But of course such a consumer saving translates to a less profitable business - why sell fixings once if you can get away with selling the technology inside bulbs, which are bought much more frequently.
But what if I want a full spectrum of colours like I have now with my hue setup?
I understand the use of smart plugs and would look at this type of thing www.getden.co.uk for TVâs etc but just a plain bulb⌠nah but then thatâs just me
Iâll waitThe additional circuitry to support smart control is relatively cheap once you have the the control circuitry needed to drive the LEDs and change colour.
If you put the smarts in the socket, youâd still need a communications protocol to tell the bulb how bright to be and what colour to be. It might as well be BTLE or zigbee or whatever.
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As I said,
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Why do you need BLE or any wireless protocol?
Allow me to rephrase my point: imagine the first generation of Hue lighting came in the '90s, as an innovation on dimmer switches - perhaps R/G/B dimmers so you could modify the brightness and relative combination of each primary colour - everything wired, the IoT hasnât happened yet, and weâre all using AskJeeves or Lycos, but heavens no, not while somebody else is on the phone.
If that had happened first, and been popular enough, (Iâm sure it could be done if you really wanted it) then when the IoT took off it would have been natural that light fixings would house the wireless communication ICs, and the bulbs would be the same âdimmable RGB bulbsâ weâd been using for a decade.
Instead, colour combinations was launched as an additional selling point of one of the first âconnectedâ lighting systems, Phillips already made bulbs but perhaps not fixings, and chose the most profitable route.
I would have estimated that it more than doubles the component cost, but thatâs by the by really - bulbs are cheap, smart bulbs have a much larger profit margin. You canât sell them at one price to first-time buyers and another price to replacers, so they have huge markup every time you buy them. As a company, thatâs obviously preferable to huge markup on the one-time purchase fixings.
How do you get the command to change colour or brightness into the bulb? Remember, it has 2 terminals. You either have to modulate the supply or transmit the command some other way.
The controller electronics in an RGB LED bulb is approx 60c - remember you need a controller channel for each colour LED. A BLE chip is less than 10c.
It doesnât intrinsically have to, though! Dumb bulbs (that work either with this hypothetical all-wires system, or this also hypothetical âsmart fixingsâ system) could have four DC terminals, or six AC.
You could even design the âsmart fixingsâ such that they took either six-terminal âmulti-hueâ bulbs, or two-terminal âfixed-hueâ bulbs (i.e. as easily purchasable today).
Okay. As I said though, that doesnât really matter - thatâs just good evidence for what Iâm saying about the massive markup.
You could but itâd be way more expensive and not benefit from the steep decline in prices that electronics brings to the problem. Youâve increased the wiring from the smart dimmer by 2-3 and copper is expensive, increased the cost of the bulbs through additional contacts, reduced reliability, broken compatibility with all previous installationsâŚ
The âhuge markupâ is to cover the research, development and lifetime support costs of what is currently a niche product. The actual electronics in these devices is very cheap when produced on serious scale.
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Iâm not saying itâs unreasonable, quite the opposite really. Iâm saying itâs unreasonable to expect a company to sell a one-off product (fixings) - making it harder to cover R&D costs and turn a profit - when they could markup and sell a consumable (bulbs) instead.
I just donât think itâs forever. Whether itâs driven by standards, âgreenâ campaigners, or a new company differentiating on price, I just think it makes much more sense to separate âthe IoT bitâ from the consumable.
Love âem mate! Hey siri is awesome.
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However in case of new LED bulbs can we really consider them as âconsumableâ? I have yet to have one of those die on me, as opposed to the legacy incandescent bulbs which burn out every few months.
Have you setup the location bit so they turn on and off automatically when you leave the house?
No, can I do that with HomeKit? I donât have an Apple TV or iPad anymore, sold them a few months back.
I have linked them with HomeKit and also Nest but I only have Nest Protects, nothing else with them.
You can do that with HomeKit but I believe it relies on a device acting as a âsource of truthâ for the homes location i.e. an iPad that doesnât leave the home, or an Apple TV
You can do it in Hue App under Routines > Home & Away
Correct. Although HomeKit has better customisation than the Hue service for me when it comes to home/away automation.