GigaOM » Philips

The Hue lightbulb makes some connected friends and gets new skills

Stacey Higginbotham — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:00:27 +0000

Hold onto your Hue lightbulbs, because Philips is updating its connected lights and the app that controls them with some new capabilities. The most fun element is a partnership with IFTTT, the startup that allows you to link your connected devices — like your color-changing lightbulbs — to your web services with an easy few-step process.

This means you could create an IFTTT recipe that lets your Hue bulb turn a different color, or blink when a file is uploaded to your Dropbox, an email comes in or it’s going to rain. IFTTT already has a partnership with Belkin’s WeMo, so hooking it up to the Hue seems right on track.

To me, the IFTTT partnership is the most exciting, but others may like the geofencing aspect that can automatically turn on or change the light’s settings as a Hue user arrives home — without the user even having to take their smartphone out of their pocket. That, plus a feature that lets users schedule their use settings on a calendar as opposed to resetting them every day were added in response to user demand.

Philips has been riding a wave of success in the developer community since launching the lightbulbs last October. Despite the $200 price tag for a starter kit containing three bulbs and $59 price tag for each bulb, many tech-savvy people are picking them up and playing with them. In March it opened up its software development kit to make that play easier and give larger companies the tools and support to integrate the bulbs into their own connected home products.

Today’s features just tie it even more into a developing network of connected devices that can communicate with each other over the web — a vision the creators of the Hue seem to embrace based on my discussion of how they view the internet of things during a podcast in March.

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IoT Podcast: Why the Hue internet light bulb is a bright idea

Stacey Higginbotham — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 11:30:51 +0000

If you visit the Apple store you might see a sleek, black package of three lightbulbs by Philips that advertise themselves as being colorful and connected. You might then look at the $200 price tag and walk away. But as George Yianni, the creator of the Hue and a systems architect at Philips says in this week’s podcast, that price tag isn’t too crazy when you look at what you get.

When Philips asked Yianni to create a connected light bulb in 2011, his response was to wonder why people might need or want such product. In the interview he explains what he discovered, how people are using it (both the mundane and the wacky) and talks about how Philips is thinking about adding connectivity to other products. I got the sense that a connected Sonicare toothbrush might not be in the cards. Check out the podcast for all that and some insights from Kevin Toms, the Hue’s SDK designer and developer advocate on the Hue’s newly created developer program.

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Show notes:
Host: Stacey Higginbotham

Why Philips created the Hue and why it’s so expensive
Philips’ view on why the internet of things should be open
How can you tell when you should you add connectivity to a product?
Why Philips built a formal developer program

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Philips opens an iOS SDK for Hue, its connected lightbulb system

Erica Ogg — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 15:55:43 +0000

Not satisfied with merely being able to control your Hue lightbulbs with a few taps on your iPhone? Starting Monday Philips is opening up Hue’s APIs and issuing a software development kit (SDK) for iOS developers who want to make their own mobile apps to turn off, dim, time or sync their Hue bulbs.

Philips’ smartphone-controlled LED lightbulbs have been for sale in the Apple Store since late October. Since then, the company says some developers have already gotten creative with Hue, including one app that syncs the bulbs with music and another that uses the iPhone’s calendar to schedule when the lights should be on.

Using the low-power wireless protocol ZigBee Light Link, Hue bulbs talk to a bridge that in turn talks to the iPhone (or an Android device). ZigBee is also used by other wireless lighting devices for the home, so between that and open APIs and an SDK, there should be a lot more creative ideas for ways to control home lighting systems, but other devices in the mix as well.

Philips calls its new developer effort “just the first phase” of what’s to come. It says new features are already in the pipeline, including geofencing and scheduling. (And, as you might expect with wireless connected bulbs, the bulbs are self-updating.) iPhone controlled lightbulbs are just a splash in the coming connected home and internet of things wave. And as is the case for most early adopters, the people who dip their toes in the water first are going to have to lay out some dough for the privilege. Philips’ Hue system is not cheap: the starter kid, which includes the bridge and three bulbs is $199, and additional bulbs are $59 each.

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Cree launches an LED bulb for under $10

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:31:29 +0000

LED chip and parts maker Cree has launched a line of low cost LED bulbs that will be sold at Home Depot, and one even retails for under $10. Some of the cheapest LED bulbs out there sell for $20, and Cree calls its new ultra cheap LED line “the biggest thing since the light bulb” (and it trademarked that phrase, too).

Cree makes the bulk of its revenue from of selling LED chips and components to other LED bulb and lighting makers. The company is profitable and doing well.

On Tuesday Cree also announced a better-than-expected earnings, raising its guidance for its fiscal third quarter, and reported better than expected profit and revenue for the current quarter. Cree earned $20.4 million on revenue of $346.3 million for the most recent quarter. Along with those strong earnings Cree saw its shares jump 12.5 percent in morning trading (as much as 19 percent earlier this morning).

Cree is selling three new LED bulbs: 1). a 40-watt, warm white replacement for $9.97, 2). a 60-watt, warm white replacement for $12.97, and 3). a 60-watt day light for $13.97. Cree says the bulbs save 84 percent of the energy that would be used by comparable incandescent bulbs, last 25 times longer, and come with a 10-year warranty.

As we explained in our research report for GigaOM Pro (subscription required), the LED market has hit a turning point, particularly for commercial and industrial building owners who are installing LEDs because it makes financial sense. Check out our report on LEDs (digest here), written by Ucilia Wang, and here’s our podcast discussion about the report.

It’s been a harder sell to get consumers to buy LEDs, but with new cheap products like this line from Cree that will slowly change. Still, consumers expect super cheap bulbs — compact fluorescents can sell for a buck or two, and incandescents for well under a $1.

Other companies that sell low cost consumer LEDs include GE (which bought LED startup Albeo last year), Philips and Lemnis Lighting, which introduced a bulb last year for under $5. Worldwide sales of LEDs rose 2.1 percent to $13.7 billion in 2012 from $11.3 billion in 2011, and will grow to $16.4 billion by 2017, according to Strategies Unlimited.

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Digital lighting slowly claiming a spot in the Internet of Things

Ucilia Wang — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 02:00:22 +0000

The digital lighting industry is in a quandary. Prices for LED lights are falling quickly, making the technology more compelling to customers, particularly owners of office buildings and warehouses. But the price decline has come at the expense of manufacturers who have over built production capacity and now need to idle some of their equipment.

This imbalance of supply and demand is also happening at a time when market researchers are expecting growth for the LED market to slow in the next several years. Our new report on the LED lighting sector on GigaOm Pro (subscription required) focuses on the latest LED technology, new applications, and the role that LEDs are playing in the increasingly digitized home.

While LED lighting isn’t widely used in homes yet, the technology isn’t new. LEDs are commonly used for indicator and traffic lights. But improving the technology so that it can radiate the same intensity, warmth and even distribution as incumbent incandescent and fluorescent lighting continue to be a challenge.

Already, the making of the diodes themselves is cornered by rivals with large factories. Eleven companies control over 70 percent of the market for LEDs packaged to be turned into bulbs and fixtures. That makes it more difficult for startups to fight for market shares against the likes of Philips, Samsung, Cree and Osram Opto Semiconductors. Many of the large LED manufacturers also design and make their own LED bulbs and lighting systems.

Meanwhile, venture capitalists in recent years have shied away from investing in manufacturing technologies. Manufacturing technologies often take a lot longer to scale and more money than expected to reach the market. Even when they do, many forces — from strong competition to changes in public incentives that have driven clean tech’s growth — have gutted the ambitions of new entrants who thought their technology breakthroughs would naturally lead to high customer demand and profits.

What will be interesting to watch are new business models that go beyond just the sales of LEDs and their bulbs and fixtures. LEDs share a similar DNA as other semiconductor-based technologies, from sensors to wireless networking. Marrying lighting with these technologies can deliver uses in sectors from farming to location-based services. LED lighting, in effect, will serve multiple functions and occupy a spot in the widening web of Internet-dependent goods and services.

Photos courtesy of Soraa and Ucilia Wang.

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The growth and promise of the LED market

Ucilia Wang — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 19:18:38 +0000

LED production has grown tremendously, accompanied by a significant fall in prices that will further propel the sale of this energy-efficient digital-lighting technology. But challenges remain on the road to widespread adoption. Figuring out ways to use power efficiently for lighting will be crucial for a future when the world’s population will likely be much larger.

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Digital Lumens shows how factories, warehouses are embracing LEDs

Katie Fehrenbacher — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:57:33 +0000

Digital Lumens, which sells LED lighting systems for warehouses and factories, announced on Thursday that it’s raised a $10 million round from its existing investors, bringing its total funding to $35 million. The Boston-based company says it’ll use the funds to continue its growth, and it now has 500 large installations of its LED systems in industrial buildings, covering some 50 million square feet of space.

The startup’s growth shows how LEDs are breaking through in the industrial and commercial sectors. That’s because LEDs can save building owners money over the life of the systems, because the lights are more efficient and customers pay smaller monthly electricity bills than they would with traditional lighting. Digital Lumens says it is now saving some of its customers more than $25 million per year.

In contrast, LEDs are moving more slowly into homes, because the cost savings over time aren’t that attractive (or apparent) to the average home owner. A new LED bulb, like the one from Philips, costs $25 compared to a few dollars for a compact fluorescent bulb, or under a $1 for an incandescent.

Industrial building owners also benefit from the LED management systems that Digital Lumens sells, and the company wirelessly networks its lights and uses sensors to dim them in areas of the building that aren’t being used. The startup uses LED components from Cree, and designs its own lighting system and develops the lighting management software.

Digital Lumens also has a lighting as a service business that it’s developed and is launching this year. The company is backed by investors Black Coral Capital, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Stata Ventures.

Venture investors put far less money into cleantech startups in 2012, and that trend will likely continue in 2013. Most companies that are still able to raise funds are maturing companies that are showing growth, like Digital Lumens. And energy efficiency (like LEDs) is one of the sectors that VCs still seem to be willing to fund.

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Home LEDs starting to look more normal

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 17:00:39 +0000

Good bye to Philips yellow, groove-laden LED bulb.

Lighting giant Philips says it’ll start selling a newly designed LED bulb in the new year that actually looks like a normal light bulb. Philips’ current LED bulb that can replace a standard 60 watt incandescent bulb is bright yellow and has silver grooves lining it (see left). Philips will start selling its new white LED home bulb (that doesn’t have those grooves) starting in 2013 at Home Depot stores (see right).

Philips says due to a new air cooling technology that it’s developed called AirFlux, the company was able to eliminate the silver grooves (called heat sink fins) on the former bulb. The company also ditched the bright yellow color, which I always found a little off putting.

Philips’ newly designed normal-looking LED bulb

The new “normal” bulb will cost $25 — which isn’t bad in the LED world — and at launch time interested customers can get $5 off that sticker price. The new bulb is also more energy efficient than the old one.

LEDs are continuing to drop in price and become more mainstream for both industrial and commercial sectors, as well as residential homes. According to GigaOM Pro and Pike Research, by 2020 LEDs will make up nearly half (46 percent) of the $4.4 billion U.S. commercial lamp market.

Startups are also making some headway in the LED market. GE recently bought a startup called Albeo, which makes LED fixtures and platforms. I’ve been testing out the liquid-cooled LED bulb by Switch.

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Alliance seeks to make smart TVs more likeminded

Daniel Frankel — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 18:40:45 +0000

Part of the reason why the smart TV hasn’t caught on as a dominant connected device in the living room is that competing manufacturers have introduced a confusing array of technology platforms.

This has made it challenging for developers to make apps that can run on a large cross-section of these televisions.

But on Wednesday, manufacturers LG Electronics and TP Vision (which makes Philips-branded smart TV sets in a number of territories) announced the formation of the Smart TV Alliance.

The group’s mission: to create a set of open HTML-based standards so that application developers can make apps that run across smart TV brands.

The group says other Japanese manufacturers (Sony? Sharp?) are in the process of joining its alliance. Last fall, Sharp joined LG and Philips in announcing an intention to create this alliance.

Also read: LG, Sharp, Philips harmonize smart TV standards

“The Smart TV Alliance creates a larger playing field which encourages developers to create more and better TV applications at the same time giving manufacturers and consumers the richest source of movies-on-demand, music services, games, social networking and more,” said said Bong-seok Kwon of LG Electronics, president of Smart TV Alliance, in a statement.

The group is making the first version of its software development kit available for free on its site.

Using the television as a primary device to connect the living room to the internet would seem like a no-brainer. But according to a study released Wednesday by the NPD Group, consumers actually seem to prefer other devices like Blu-ray players to perform that task.

According to the NPD report, 80 percent of Blu-ray users who connect their boxes to the internet actually use them to access such things as over-the-top TV programming. Only 69 percent of smart TV users who have connections do the same.

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The Internet of things: creating tomorrow’s health care

Jody Ranck — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:20:23 +0000

By 2020 it is estimated that 20–50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet. Many of these devices will be collecting health data or will be connected to health and medical devices in the home, the hospital or the wider environment. The Internet of things (IoT), meanwhile, refers to the growth of sensors and things that connect to the Internet via RFID, Bluetooth, ZigBee and satellite. In health care, its growth is likely to open new disruptive business opportunities for services that add value to the data collected. This paper provides a preliminary overview of the landscape of opportunities and drivers in the current health and health care environments and highlights some of the challenges that remain. Companies mentioned in this report include IBM, Arrayent Health, Kaiser Permanente and Ford. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.

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