There will come a time when our homes are completely automated, just like in several horror movies in which a house slowly murders its unsuspecting occupant. The Insteon is a pretty good step towards that inevitable murder–it’s the first LED lightbulb that you can control with a smartphone app.
Lots of LED bulbs have some kind of remote triggering–I’ve been using the GiiNii speaker-in-a-bulb lately, which can be controlled with a little remote–but this is the first we’ve seen to have a smartphone app. It assigns each bulb in your house a unique IP address, so you can trigger each one independently with an app (compatible with iOS and Android). And for the system to really be worth the cost, you’ll want to outfit your whole house in these things. The bulbs cost $30 each (which is not too bad; LED bulbs last for decades and even the current best LED bulb on the market runs $25), but the real cost is the $100 Insteon SmartLinc Controller you’ll need to buy if you want to hook up devices like smartphones.
[Insteon via SmartPlanet]
from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now