Tech companies are known for taking bright ideas and turning them into cool products. Sometimes, it's surprising how bright those ideas can be.
This week's products proved to be very illuminating, literally. They're light bulbs.
where it’s @
The Ilumi A19 LED Smartbulb requires a connection rated for 60 watts or higher. The bulb retails for $59. The BR30 LED Flood Smartbulb retails for $69 and requires a connection for 85 watts or higher. Both require the Ilumi app, which is free on the iTunes App Store for Apple products or Google Play Store for Android products. More information is available at ilumi.co.
I know -- light bulbs? Stay with me. I promise, it gets better.
These aren't just the standard light bulbs, or even those new swirly light bulbs that take forever to brighten up. These are "smart home"-compatible light bulbs.
For those not in the loop, products that are "smart home" compatible usually are controlled by apps on a smartphone. The apps can control when the product turns on or off or utilize whatever options the device has. I've reviewed such devices, including a switch that turns devices on and off based on times set up in a smartphone app.
The Ilumi light bulbs work on the same principle. The free app provides several options, and even a couple of fun things, that change the light emitting from the bulb.
If the name sounds familiar, it's because the company's founders, Corey Egan and Swapnil Bora, appeared on the NBC show Shark Tank, where they received backing for Ilumi from Mark Cuban. Since then, they've produced a second version of their multicolored light bulb.
I tested two bulbs, the A19 LED Smartbulb and the BR30 LED Flood Smartbulb. The A19 likely will be the most common one, as it resembles a standard light bulb.
The A19 is about the same size as a standard light bulb, but it's much heavier, so be certain you have a sturdy lamp. The A19 is rated at 800 lumens, or about a 60-watt bulb. Be certain your light can handle a 60-watt or higher bulb, or you could damage the bulb and the lamp.
The BR30 rates at 1,100 lumens, or about an 85-watt bulb. It can screw in to a standard bulb connector.
The unique thing about the Ilumi bulbs is they don't just provide a standard white or yellow light. They provide a spectrum of colors, depending on what is chosen in the app. A color wheel allows the user to choose bold colors or muted ones. So you could have a bright red glow if you wanted to sit around telling ghost stories, or a muted yellow to reduce eye strain when reading.
The app detects the bulb or bulbs and allows you to put bulbs into different groups. This makes it easy to control bulbs by rooms or areas. It also allows you to create Scenes, which are scenarios set up to determine which bulb comes on as which color and at whatever time is chosen. Experiences allows the user to choose different ways to turn bulbs on or off, or even have fun with the bulbs through music or games.
I set up the A19 to come on at 7:04 p.m. every night with a slightly pink glow. I set up the BR30 to come on early in the morning with a yellow glow and go off about 10 a.m. Both took only a couple of minutes to set up, and they worked each day. Even with the A19's lamp on, as soon as 7:04 p.m. hit, the light instantly changed to that light pink color I had chosen.
The Experiences menu is where the impressive features lie. You can set up one or several experiences and drag them into priority order, so one event won't occur to overrule another.
Circadian imitates the sun's natural glow, which is supposed to be in tune to a body's natural rhythm and increase wellness. I'll be honest, I can't really say whether this works, but it did change the bulb's colors as expected.
Torch is an interesting feature. When on, it detects the presence of the smartphone, so as you wander into the darkened room, the Ilumi turns on automatically. The light will fade to black once the smartphone is out of range. Unfortunately, it also may do that if the smartphone is idle -- even if you are still in the room.
Shake allows you to turn the lights on by shaking the phone hard. This can be an issue if you also use a shake to activate the iPhone's undo feature. You can set the Shake feature to work all the time or just during certain times of the day.
Simon is a fun Experience. It allows you to play the old memory game using the light bulb and the app's screen. The bulb changes colors, and you must touch those colors in the order the light bulb chose. The game gets steadily harder as more colors and patterns are added.
Perhaps the most fun Experience is Music. This option allows you to choose a style in which the light will illuminate, and it changes colors to music beats according to that style. For example, I changed the style to Disco and found an electronic song, and the bulb changed colors to the beat of the music. The stronger the beat, the better the bulb works. There were occasions where the bulb seemed to get lost, at which point it just dimmed and stayed the same color for a bit. Music with too much going on seemed to confuse it more. Oddly, it did seem to work really well with songs from Kylie Minogue. Perhaps the inventors are fans.
Admittedly, the app is a bit clunky at times, but upon startup, it did mention a new app was in the works and coming soon.
The Ilumi bulbs worked as advertised, and are fun to use. They won't always be used to play Simon or turn a living room into a disco, but it is nice to be able to turn down the harshness in the evening, set a romantic tone or just have a different color light than bright white or standard yellow.
These products proved to be bright ideas that developed into bright products.
Melissa L. Jones can be reached via email at mljones72@me.com.
SundayMonday Business on 01/25/2016