Although, you are on the right track. Most of the other people posting this thread are missing the point. Hue, is a home automation package not just lightbulbs, and therefore priced accordingly.

Market it to Apple customers at the Apple Store.

Brilliant!

$59 LEDs? Not even government mandates can make these a viable proposition.

Those who claim “it’s too expensive” obviously are missing the fact that the only other systems with this capability are bundled into home automation contract services starting at $30 or more per month … forever.

Kudos to Philips for bringing to market a smart standalone non-subscription lighting product. It’s about time somebody brought some intelligence to the lighting industry.

Switch to LED lights ASAP.

Test drive a couple.

Well those are my few thoughts?

Cheers,

If you’re trying to replace the bulb in an upright lamp I think you’d need a better approximation of the lumens, as in that application the light is heading out in all directions.

LED bulbs do produce waste heat (thus the aluminum heat sink fins), and heat is the enemy of electronics. My understanding is that LED bulbs may not fare well in ceiling canister lights because the heat is trapped and the hot air rises to concentrates near the base of the bulb, thus reducing the lifetime of the bulb. However, I expect to get many years of service from my LED bulb in its typical lamp fixture and shade which enables good convective cooling airflow across the heat sink fins.

About a year ago, I bought an LED bulb for $15 to gain some experience with this new home lighting technology. The LED that I purchased provides the same illumination as this Philips Hue wireless networking bulb (600 lumens). I have been using it for over a year in the lamp beside my bed, and it works *great* as a reading light. You don’t need 100W to read at night! It provides a warm light much like an incandescent bulb, and it can be dimmed using standard fixtures. Best of all, it uses about 85% less power than a comparable incandescent, and LED efficiencies have improved since I purchased this bulb.

There are 75W-equivalent LED bulbs on the market now, with 100W-equivalent bulbs on the way. If you want to make a real dent in energy consumption, switch to LED bulbs, where practical. As a nation, we could shut down a number of old, polluting power plants if a significant percentage of existing residential lighting were converted to LED bulbs. And there are high-intensity commercial LED lighting solutions available, too, that could save companies a lot of money over time.

To be honest, even an early adopter like myself is put off by the pricing. When I saw $59, I thought $59 for 3 bulbs, that’s excellent, because Philips LED bulbs are between $20 and $30 normally. So, when I realized it was $200 for a 3-pack, I just about choked! Sure, these are smart LEDs, that can change color, and etc, and can obviate the need for an expensive 3rd-party wireless smarthome system, but still, people will think this is just for bulbs!

I’ll consider buying some when they go on clearance. Having a few smartbulbs for vacation lighting and morning wakeup will be worth a little splurge.

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You’re right.. But I do find it slightly odd considering Apple is a (mostly silent) liberal company that has publicly donated to liberal civil issues (NO on prop 8) is currently led by a gay CEO and was founded by Steve Jobs who was a lifelong liberal/Democrat that supported Obama – his wife still does.

In modern usage, “Luddite” is a term describing those opposed to industrialisation, automation, computerisation or new technologies in general.

It is no secret that MDN and a vocal group of it’s forum posters are fans of Rush Limbaugh, these same posters frequently use words like commie to describe anything and everything that they dislike or disagree with.

Any regular listener of Rush would also know that he has a long-time blue pill induced condition for CFL light bulbs. I am not a fan, however I used to have a coworker than listened constantly and even I have heard this railing against the CFL bulb and the effort to ban incandescent bulbs.

I happen to agree with your post about home-automation and LED’s. I would consider the Hue solution @ $100/25 Initial/replacement myself. I also agree that the price will come down. It is currently about double what I think the market will bear. Even at my comfortable figure, many will not like it.

If I get 15 years of bulb life well, now that would be something.

It’s just that this technology is absolutely not ready for prime time (or the consumer market). If you can get 60W bulbs in bulk for about $1.25 each and these are $66.66 each for the first three, then the price difference ($65.41) must be made up somewhere.

Yes, some people will buy bulbs *only* for the “green factor”, but they are very unlikely to pay over 53 times as much — certainly not if their not going to make even half that difference back in the (unlikely) 15 year lifetime of the bulb.

As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread … when they get below $20 each, I’ll definitely think about getting them. When they get below $10 each I’m in for sure.

These Phillips Hue bulbs will come down in price quickly, and it’s a cool idea. Much better for home automation than having to buy new fixtures or wall plugs for lamps, etc. Most home automation systems today are not worth the money because they simply don’t work well.

Also, ~ $60 per bulb? Am I going to save even half that over the next 3-5 years on a per bulb basis? Absolutely not. When they get down to less than $20 each, I might become interested.

Nice series of Apple-inspired videos though.

Expensive, hell yes. And only 50W-equivalent? LAME. Push it to 75 or 100W equivalent, and then we can start a conversation around this.

When they bring out 60-, 100- and 150-watt equivalent bulbs, talk to me then. Until then, I will continue to use incandescents and CFLs.