Speaker Bulbs: The New Tech That’s Redefining “Surround Sound” September 16, 2016 00:00

Have you ever committed to hosting a party with great music and atmosphere, only to realize you don’t have enough speakers or decorations to live up to expectations? What if you could ensure your hand-selected tunes would be heard in every corner of your home, and the only thing that could top the sound was a dazzling light show?

What if you could get both from just a lightbulb?

If you’ve been paying attention to the lighting world, you know that smart bulbs are the wave of the future. As Dan Ryan, co-founder of Bytelight, put it, “just as no one buys a smartphone based on its ability to make phone calls, future buyers of smart-lighting will not be buying lights for their ability to produce illumination… You will find lighting intersecting with adjacent industries like security, sensing, big-data, and even advertising.” Now, smart lighting has even drifted into the world of entertainment, letting you turn your home into a concert venue. But before we get to that…

A brief overview of smart lighting

In order to fully appreciate the benefits of adding smart lighting to your home, you need to fully understand what it is. In basic terms, it’s a way to refer to the host of technological improvements that’ve been made to the traditional lightbulb in recent years.

While the fluorescents and neons of the 20th century were certainly impressive at the time, it wasn’t until the discovery and development of LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) that the public was really galvanized into replacing the traditional incandescent bulb. Besides a lifetime that lasted 25 times longer, the Department of Energy states that LEDs are six to seven times more efficient than their incandescent counterparts. What’s more, their price has gone down by 85% in the past 8 years.

While smart lighting fans certainly appreciate the energy savings their bulbs bring, most choose to install systems to add a dimension of convenience and entertainment to their homes. With the technology, you can program your lights to turn on automatically different times, and control the brightness and timing of each bulb from your mobile device.

Smart lighting, while once a novelty, has become commonplace in homes everywhere – and the technology is only becoming more popular.  Digital Journal reported that analysts at Technavio projected a 19.06% smart lighting market growth from 2016 to 2020, with Business Wire citing Research and Markets analysts predicting the total market value to be worth $21.6 billion by 2025. These figures aren’t surprising either once you hear about all the perks of a smart bulb, even in some cases doubling as a Bluetooth speaker.

Speaker Bulbs: The (Sound) Wave of the Future

Yes, you read that right: certain smart bulbs can even play your favorite tunes directly from the bulb itself. Here’s how it works:

Bluetooth technology has opened a vast range of possibilities when it comes to connecting devices over a small distance. Combined with a slew of innovations regarding hardware efficiency, power output and network sophistication, many companies have developed the manufacturing expertise to fit small speakers directly into a bulb, which seamlessly transmit audio from your smart device to a receiver nestled inside the light.

Now, as far as quality goes, the products on market cover the entire range of quality from studs to duds. Typically, the old adage follows as, for the most part, you get what you pay for. Only willing to shell out $10? You’re doomed to be let down with tinny, bass-less tunes coming from a boring bulb. Ante up a bit more though and you’ll be rocking out to sound quality from bulbs that rival a home speaker system, and double as strobe lights. Here are a few you can’t go wrong with:

Introducing the Flux Smart Blast

This particular smart bulb delivers powerful room-filling audio from a 3-Watt driver and connects to any Bluetooth capable device – be it tablet, phone or computer, to play music from Pandora, Spotify, or any other source you can think of.

The lighting itself emits a soft warm light at 3000K (here’s  a nifty lighting guide from Topbulb to for reference) and will typically last up to 20,000 hours. Boasting a 4.2 out of 5-star rating on Amazon, this modestly priced bulb is an affordable $26 apiece and is worth every penny for the price conscious consumer.

Step It Up with the Flux Smart Melody

Those looking to invest a bit more in functionality should check out the Flux Smart Melody. This bulb adds several capabilities to the Blast framework, namely the ability to control to a remarkable degree of just what color light is emitted by the bulb. Though choosing only one out of a 64,000 color palette may seem a daunting task, rest assured you can change hues and tones on a whim with a simple finger swipe in the app. Add the ability to dim and brighten at your leisure and you’re sure to find the perfect combination for any occasion or mood.

The most impressive feature of this bulb, though? Its colors actually pulse and change with the beat of your music. At $40 apiece they won’t break the bank either. Say goodbye to cheap bargain speakers and multi-colored Christmas lights for your next party, and hello to the Flux Smart Melody.

How Bluetooth Makes Speaker Bulbs Sing

The genius behind speaker bulbs, and smart lighting in general, is Bluetooth. The technology, according to Bluetooth themselves, “uses radio waves instead of wires or cables to connect to a phone or computer. A Bluetooth product, like a headset or watch, contains a tiny computer chip with a Bluetooth radio and software that makes it easy to connect.” For a more detailed breakdown, check out the official site’s Q&A.

Basically then, Bluetooth as a convenient and simple way to connect devices within a short range. Most modern day devices like smartphones and tablets come Bluetooth capable right out of the box and is purportedly built into billions of products around the world. Bluetooth capabilities have played a major role in the development of the Internet of Things (IoT for short) which is essentially the movement towards a more “connected” living, where everyday items both send and receive data to other sources.

Setting Up Your Bluetooth Speaker Bulbs

One of the perks of Bluetooth is the simple setup for capable devices and the Flux Smart bulbs are no exception. We’ve outlined a few basic steps for each bulb below so you can get right into playing your tunes from any light bulb socket you please.

The Flux Smart Blast

1.     Screw the Flux Smart Blast bulb into any socket you want and flip the switch
2.     Open your device’s Bluetooth settings and look for the ULIGHT device
3.     Connect to ULIGHT from your device and start the music!

The Flux Smart Melody

1.     Screw the Flux Smart Melody bulb into any socket you want and flip the switch
2.     Open your device’s Bluetooth settings. Look for and connect to the BL_05 device
3.     Open the JBSmartBulb app on your device and connect to BL_05. Now you’re connected and can jam to any song and color you want!

Your Turn

Do you have any speaker bulbs in your house? Would you consider using them now that you know more?

Let us know in the comments, then turn your home into a giant sound system with some of Flux Smart’s versatile, easy-to-use speaker bulbs.

6 Surprising Health Benefits of Smart Lighting September 14, 2016 00:00

With the invention of smart lighting, fumbling for switches and struggling to set the mood are now problems of the past. It’s obvious this new and improved way of lighting your home makes life easier, but you might be surprised to find it has some little-known health benefits too.

Here are 6 ways equipping your home with smart lighting can improve your health:

1. Less falls in dim light 

With the addition of smart lighting to your living environment, if you’ve got a phone then you have complete control over your home’s lighting. That means no more having to get off the couch to turn the lights down so you can tune into a Saturday night movie, no more snuggling into bed only to realize you left the kitchen light on at the other end of the house. Instead, all you have to do is reach into your pocket and turn them down right from your phone.

While so far this might seem like simply a neat little feature, consider the more serious benefits of avoiding late night collisions and falls on the way to the bathroom. The CDC cites over 700,000 hospitalizations occur each year due to a fall, 20% of which occur in the lower light conditions of nighttime.

That’s over 140,000 cases that might have been averted had there been proper illumination. With smart lighting, avoiding accidents like these is even easier because every light switch you need is right next to you in your phone.

2. Lowered anxiety

There’s nothing worse than stepping onto a plane for a much-needed vacation and wondering whether or not you left the lights on. We’ve all been there, and we all know that once a thought like that gets in your head, it’s not leaving until you get home. Smart lighting enables you to be constantly connected to your home base so you can check if your lights are on from anywhere in the world!

Another feature that adds to the anxiety-reducing health benefits of smart lighting is the security advantages it can create. Many systems allow you to set up a timer right from your phone that cues your interior lights to flick on at a certain time. What’s more, you could even have varied plans, where different lights turn on and off in alternating patterns, giving potential intruders the impression that someone is definitely home. You could even take it one step further and sync up your motion detectors to interior lights so if anyone sneaks around the back of your home, BAM! the living room lights up like a pinball machine, scaring off any would-be thieves.

3. Start the day better 

The advent of smart lighting has spawned the development of what are called “dawn simulators”. Also known as “artificial dawn”, this particular lighting system is (yep, you guessed it) a way to mimic the rising of the sun right in your bedroom. 

You early birds out there may not understand this one, but some people have a hard time getting up in the wee hours of the morning. The alarm buzzes away and four snooze cycles later, you’re rushing out the door tying a tie with one hand and brushing your teeth with the other.

If that morning routine sounds all too familiar, you may benefit from a dawn simulator. Instead of the harsh and grating beep of an alarm to rouse you from your slumber, dawn simulators slowly emit more and more light to gently wake you from sleep.

While you may think you detect a bit of spiritual mumbo jumbo to this, the science in fact supports this method of waking up as leading to a more energized day, due in part to its effects on balancing melatonin and cortisol levels in your body. Can’t argue with that, can you?

4. Alter light to suit your mood or goals

One of the most exciting aspects of smart lighting is being able to control exactly how bright or dim your environment is from wherever you want. Taken one step further, many companies have even started developing color changing bulbs such as the Flux Smart WiFi and Bluetooth LED dimmable and color changing bulbs, boasting an impressive range of over 16 million different colors! And while changing the brightness and color of any room you want is certainly an aesthetic benefit of smart lighting, this control also offers up a few surprising health benefits as well.

Take for instance the influence bright light can have on your psyche. There are many studies out there that point to the psychological benefits of getting your daily dose of light, due in part to the somewhat recent classification of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) as a physical ailment which we’ll get into later.

One aspect of light brightness that is as well-known though is that bright lights has been shown to make depression even worse. The Wall Street Journal recently published a story highlighting several studies which found that strong ambient light seems to intensify emotions, i.e., happy subjects felt happier while sad subjects felt even sadder. In contrast, dimmer lighting seemed to give way to a calmer, more rational state of mind. Additionally, there’s an entire form of therapy (though not wholly proven by studies) devoted to treating disorders solely with various colors of light. Even still, what sounds more calming than relaxing after work in an aqua blue lit room?

5. Treat the winter blues

Seasonal affective disorder has made its way into the scientific community in recent decades and was only first reported and named in the early 1980s. The disorder itself is due to the reduction of natural light due to the shorter days and less intense sun of winter. The lack of sunshine can create in some people major depression, altered circadian rhythm (the body’s day/night cycle), as well as disrupted hormonal patterns. So if you’ve always felt a wave of significant and long-depression come on with those gray months, you may want to do some research on SAD or speak to your doctor.

The most widely accepted and utilized treatment of the disorder is “light therapy”. This involves “daily exposure to a box containing fluorescent lamps during the symptomatic months”, with the optimal dose being 10,000 lux of full spectrum or cool white fluorescent light.

While light boxes’ surge in popularity has inspired an enormous range of designs, certain smart bulb manufacturers have begun focusing on providing full spectrum light as well. 

6. Save the environment

Last but certainly not least, smart lighting technology contributes to the worldwide effort of reducing our environmental footprint. Using smart, energy-efficient light bulbs in your home means we have to burn less fossil fuels, which ultimately translates to less toxic gas emission. And when it comes to energy consumption, light bulbs have come a mighty long way from the incandescent bulbs of yesteryear. 

LED fixtures typically have a lifetime of around 50,000 hours which, if used for 12 hours a day, would last more than 11 years. Traditional incandescents on the other hand will only stay lit for about 2,000 hours, or less than half a year.

The extra-long comparable life of the LED comes from the fact that almost 90% of the energy put into incandescent lamps is lost in the form of heat whereas LED lights give off barely any. When you factor in having to toss less burnt out bulbs as well, “lighting homes and businesses with more efficient products,” as the U.S. Department of Energy puts it, “is one of the easiest ways to reduce America’s reliance on fossil fuels and save money.”

What do you think?

How many of these health benefits did you know? Are there any we missed?

Let us know in the comments, then start the journey to an easier, healthier life by checking out some of Flux Smart’s fun, energy-efficient products.

Smart Lighting: A Bright Idea You Won’t Want To Miss Out On September 12, 2016 06:00

If you've ever woken to nature’s call in the middle of the night, you're probably familiar with the dread of traversing the pitch black obstacle course of unseen kid’s toys, razor-sharp furniture corners, and the occasional unlucky pet.

When faced with such a task, most people only have two options: recreate a mental picture of what you think your surroundings look like, or “mummy walk” (slow baby steps with outstretched arms waving) your way to your destination.

But those with smart lighting have it much easier. For them, simply pressing a button on their phone or speaking a voice command illuminates the path ahead, navigating them to their destination with pinky toes and shins unbruised.

If you’re tired of problems like bumps in the night and want to experience a host of other benefits like the convenience of home automation, complete color freedom, and substantial energy savings, then smart lighting is the bright idea you've been waiting for.

Smart lighting and smart light bulbs explained

Smart lighting can refer to a range of different systems and products. In its most general sense, smart lighting is the altering of what most people would consider traditional bulbs to meet a specific purpose.

Chronologically, the development of smart bulbs was focused solely on optimizing energy efficiency. Starting with grandfather incandescent (the old-fashioned filament bulbs), the timeline of the lightbulb continued into fluorescent tube technology, through fluorescent bulbs, and up to the invention and honing of LED (or Light Emitting Diode) technology. In its earliest days then, smart lighting was simply a reference to more efficient lighting.

As technology progressed, though, innovations were made with regards to lighting as well as to sensors, power usage, and connectivity. Soon we were able to pack more modernization and advances into a lightbulb than you had on your first cell phone, probably with a better signal too!

With all these additional abilities, the modern lightbulb has been transformed into something new entirely. Now, smart light bulbs and systems are capable of a synchronicity and automation that used to be seen in early science-fiction movies.

With an expertly crafted smart lighting system, your home’s lighting can react to your movements, lighting up a room as you enter and dimming as you leave. You can be gently awoken from a night’s sleep as your room slowly fills with ambient light to mimic a sunrise. You can change the entire aesthetic of any room by cycling through a dizzying array of colors emitted from each light source, changeable on a whim. The possibilities really are endless.

The biggest benefits to using smart lighting

Smart lighting technology has nearly reached the point where its only usage limitation is the creativity and skill of the person operating it. Here are five great reasons you’ll want to think about investing in smart lighting technology:

1. Save energy – one of smart lighting’s main draws is the energy savings it can provide, which can be broken down into two different sources: the bulb efficiency and its ancillary capabilities. The most obvious energy savings come in the efficiency of the LED bulb itself, which boasts a usage life of 50,000 hours, 25 times that of an incandescent.

The lesser known efficiency, and more interesting ones, are made possible by what makes the smart light bulbs “smart”. With their ability to connect to different devices as well as house multiple sensors, certain smart bulbs can automatically turn off when you’ve left a room. Additionally, some have daylight sensors which can dim and brighten with the light of the day, saving you from paying for unnecessary light. Tack on the ability to integrate your lighting usage into scheduling and power management apps to meet your savings goals and your smart lighting system could save you a lot more than you expected.

2. Connect everything – As we just mentioned, one benefit of smart light bulbs is that they are capable of connecting directly to a system, typically a tablet or phone or even a central control hub. This allows you to control not just one bulb at a time, but entire sets all at once. You can set up timing schedules for certain lighting patterns, establish criteria for responses you determine (i.e. walking into a room during one time frame could result in a different kind of light than if you’d entered at a different time), etc. Another possibility is linking patterns with activities occurring on the control device itself. If you’d like your desk lamp to flash blue when you receive a Facebook message, it can be done! The only limit is your creativity.

Digital Lumens, an intelligent LED lighting company, even went so far as to use the motion tracking sensors of their lights to help determine employee movement, contributing to a better understanding of space utilization as well as providing insight into manufacturing issues like inventory management and staff efficiency. They even synced it up with the facility’s climate control system!

3. Control from anywhere – One of the most appealing benefits of a smart lighting system is your ability to control your home’s lights from anywhere in the world. Consider, for instance, how many times you’ve left home only to realize you left all the lights on. Instead of heading all the way back, smart lighting lets you switch off any light in the house right from your phone.

Don’t forget about the security benefits of such a feature by the way. Say you’ve just arrived at your vacation destination only to realize you didn’t leave any lights on while you’re away, leaving a prime target for any intruders. All you have to do is flip on a few lights from your phone or, better yet, quickly create a timing schedule so your home’s lights will pop on in the evening to scare off any would-be burglars, thanks to smart lighting.

4. Wake up naturally – Several smart bulb manufacturers have taken advantage of new findings that suggest our bodies are wired to be most effective when we are slowly awoken by gradually increasing light, such as that of the rising sun. Unfortunately, some of us either don’t have a window directly facing east or end up getting up when it’s still dark out so waking via sunrise isn’t a luxury we can afford. Smart bulbs like the FluxSmart Bluetooth LED Lightbulb are solutions to this problem as their “sunrise mode” will slowly bring you into the day by gradually increasing the light according to your desired wakeup time.

5. Add some color to your life – For many, the biggest draw of smart lighting is its ability to change to any hue to suit your mood. The Fluxsmart WiFi LED Light Bulb, for instance, boasts an astounding array of color capabilities, with over 16 million different color varieties at your fingertips, including different tones of white light. The color capabilities of smart bulbs can be set to different schedules and timers as well. If you are looking to mellow out your evenings before bed, tone it down to a calming blue. Not a morning person? Energize the start of your day with a radiant yellow. You can even sync up colors with your music, making your next house party a breeze.

Ready to step into the future with smart lighting?

While technology like the smart bulb was at one point only available to the public in the form of science fiction flicks, smart lighting products have now reached a reasonable and accessible price range. Additionally, whereas the bulbs were once an eyesore due to lack of technological sophistication, now their rising popularity has given way to exciting and stylish designs that can either accentuate the style of your interior or not draw attention to itself at all like a normal bulb.

Now that you know just a few of the benefits to outfitting your home with smart lighting, are you ready to start saving on your energy costs, add a whole new level of customization ability to your environment, and experience the convenience (and awesomeness!) of home automation?

Check out all the fun products Flux Smart has to offer.

Difference between Flux Bluetooth and Flux WiFi Smart Bulbs March 6, 2016 15:51 13 Comments

We get a lot of questions asking whats the differences are between the Flux Bluetooth and Flux WiFi smart bulbs. While the two bulbs share a lot of similar features, there are some differences.

Connectivity

This is the obvious difference. The Flux Bluetooth smart bulb uses Bluetooth 4.0 or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology for connectivity. The Flux WiFi smart bulb on the other hand uses wifi technology for connectivity.

Device Compatibility

Bluetooth 4.0 is a relatively new technology and not all smart phones supports it. And because of this the Flux Bluetooth smart bulb requires some of the newer smartphone models (iPhone 4s and higher, Android 4.3 and above).

Wifi technology on the other hand is pretty standardized and been available in most devices for a long time. So the Flux WiFi smart bulb supports a wider range of iOS and Android devices.

Setup

The Flux Bluetooth smart bulb has a very simple setup process. Screw in and power on the bulb, download the free app, and connect to the bulb.

The Flux WiFi smart bulb has a two step setup process. First you connect your phone to the bulb's wifi endpoint. And then you open the app and follow the instructions to pair the bulb with your home wifi router. 

Connection Range & Remote Connection:

The Flux Bluetooth bulb require you to be within the Bluetooth range (30 feet unobstructed) to control the smart bulb. 

The Flux WiFi bulb's range is the range of your wifi network. If you can connect to your wifi network, you can control the bulb. And one of the really cool feature available with the WiFi bulb is the "Remote Connection". When this is enabled, you can connect and control the bulb from anywhere you have Internet access on your device. How cool is that?

Multi Device Control

One of the limitation of Bluetooth is that it's a 1 to 1 connectivity technology. So the bulb can be connected to only one phone at a time. So if you are in a household with multiple devices, only one of them can connect and control the bulbs at a time.

Since wifi does not have this limitation, the Flux WiFi bulbs allow multiple devices to be connected to the bulb at the same time and even control the bulb. Perfect for those lighting wars. 

So there it is. Both bulbs offer very similar functionalities, but the Flux WiFi bulb offers few extra nice to have features like remote connection, multi-device control etc. So if you are looking for a super simple setup and a robust smart bulb, the Flux Bluetooth is the one for you. But if you want additional bells and whistles like remote connection, and multi-device control, go with the Flux WiFi. 

But either way, you are not going to be disappointed. So go try them out and change the way you see light.

Bonus Question:

Some of you have asked if you can control the two bulbs together. That is currently not possible as they use different underlying technology and hence different apps.

Flux Smart Lighting Website Launched July 18, 2015 10:52

Flux Smart Lighting's website has officially been launched.