It's kind of sad that nearly two years after promising us intelligent, smartphone controlable, high-efficiency LED lamps with the Android@Home project, Google (and its partners) has so far failed to produce a single lamp.
So, I wasn't too surprised when I saw Apple now has intelligent lamps in their Apple Store. (You can only delay things so much, until someone else jumps in to fill the void).
These aren't Apple lamps, but that's for the best: These are the Philips Hue LED lamps.
Thes Philips Hue are "intelligent" LED lamps that you can control remotely via your iPhone or iPad (an Android App is expected for December).
The starter kit comes with three LED lamps and a ZigBee gateway you connect your home network. As for the lamps, just put them wherever you see fit.
After the initial setup (pressing a button), you'll have remote access to all your Hue lamps, meaning you can dim/brighten them at will, and even change their colors to suit your mood. You can also use preset scenes (or make your own), as well as create timers and scheduled events.
You can even set it to notify you in case someone doesn't turn on a light in a specified time frame: meaning you can receive a notification in case an elderly person did in fact get out of bed - or maybe a sleepy youngster trying not to get to school on time.
The starter kit costs $199 with the ZigBee gateway and three Hue lamps, and you can buy extra lamps for $59 each. It isn't cheap, but at least you're buying lamps that are using an open standard that will certainly be helpful in case you want to integrate it in a more powerful home automation system.
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