How Pink Is Your Floyd?
The Rise of the Smartbulb
Get ready to dust off the old jokes about how many (fill in the blank) people it takes to change a light bulb. I just spent a week changing some of the bulbs in my house, and the complexity was enough to give me a migraine.
Programmable light bulbs — you never knew you needed such things, but maybe you do — are among the latest offerings of a technology industry that wants to fill homes with new Internet-connected appliances. So now the humble bulb of old is no longer a throwaway commodity.
It’s a smartbulb, complete with a computer-chip and wireless technology that connects it to the great hive brain in the sky.
The punch line, I suppose, is that these bulbs are worth considering if you ever fantasized about living in a Jetsons-type household, and if you have enough disposable income to pay the early-adopter tax currently being levied on them. For that price, you’ll enjoy features that may impress your friends, lower your electric bills and possibly even save the life of a loved one. But more on that later.