The Philips Hue lighting system is a great way to spice up the ambient color of your home by just swapping out a few lightbulbs. Now the smartphone-controlled illumination system is getting its own TRON-like hardware meant for accent lighting.
     |
Fountain pens seem hopelessly geeky to the uninitiated. Why bother with an expensive, finicky pen when most of us do all of our writing on keyboards and touchscreens anyway? And what’s wrong with a ballpoint?
| |
Earlier today, Philips announced two new add-ons for its app-controlled Hue system: LivingColors Bloom, a standalone portable fixture, and LightStrips, a 6.6-foot LED tape that you can affix to any surface using the included adhesive back. Both products are fully compatible with the existing Hue system, including the base station and three-bulb kit that launched at Apple Stores last year. Knowing that part of the solution’s appeal is its quick and easy setup, we decided to build out a five-light rig at home using three standard bulbs, one Bloom and one LightStrips set. It took less than an hour to get up and running, including swapping out bulbs, running power to LightStrips and setting up the base station and app.
In order to take full advantage of available “scenes” (lighting color macros based on uploaded images), you’ll want to install all of your bulbs in one room or open space. You can very easily control the color and brightness of each unit using the Android or iOS app, however, so if you prefer to go that route, there’s no reason you can’t install Hue all over your house, as long as you don’t go beyond the 50 maximum units each base station can support. For now, most of the available scenes support one through three fixtures, not the five you’ll end up with if you have one complete kit, a Bloom and LightStrips in your home, so we avoided using scenes for the time being. If you’re using app version 1.1 on iOS, you can take advantage of IFTTT integration, too, letting you set up a virtually endless number of macros.
Even with five Hue fixtures in a small space, the room was a bit too dark — this solution works best for accent lighting, so unless you’re prepared to use 20 bulbs in a room, you’ll probably want to mix in traditional fixtures, too. Still, Hue serves its purpose well, and we definitely see the appeal despite the $200 you’ll spend on the base kit, $80 for the bloom and $90 for the LightStrips. See our installation in action in the hands-on video after the break.
There’s no shortage of home automation solutions on the market, but none can touch the cool factor of Philips’ Hue. The Android and iOS-controlled lighting solution consists of a base station that controls up to 50 different lights, including the company’s existing LED Connected Bulb, and two new additions, designed to let you add light without a standard lamp socket. The first product, LivingColors Bloom, is a compact fixture that you can position on the floor, on a shelf or anywhere in a room. It sits on the ground and bounces your pick of 16 million colors off any surface.
LightStrips, on the other hand, is a better fit for more permanent (and subtle) installations. The 6.6-foot LED strip can be cut to size, and includes an adhesive backing, so it can be easily mounted under a counter, bed or inside cabinets. Both offerings support the full Hue color spectrum, and are compatible with existing apps and macros, including the IFTTT integration that debuted in May. Hue Bloom is set to retail for $80, while LightStrips will run you 90 bucks. Expect both products in Apple Stores this Thursday.
Filed under: Household
Mounting a power strip or some other electronic doodad? Use a piece of masking tape to align the mounting holes with your wall screws, and everything will line up perfectly.
| |
The new $200 Bluetooth speaker is SOL Republic’s first non-headphone product, and its first collaboration with Motorola.
| |
Temperature is everything when it comes to fermenting beer. Thanks to a surprise heatwave, our last batch of homebrew went from lager to ale to horrible once we could finally taste it. If the BrewBit Model-T reaches its $80,000 Kickstarter goal, Inebriated Innovations could have the solution to hobby brewers’ wort woes come next March. Each black box has dual power outlets as well as two temperature probes, allowing for independent control of heating and cooling. If you’re so inclined, the open-source software and hardware means that you’ll have an easier time hacking it to suit your needs. As of now, the company is just over halfway to its funding target, with 15 days to go. The early backer donations have already been claimed, but you still have a couple of weeks to snag either the single probe ($160) or dual probe ($175) model. We recommend you save the waiting for your suds’ aging period.
Filed under: Household
Source: Kickstarter, BrewBit
Keeping your USB-powered gear powered up while camping in the woods or hiking the Appalachian Trail can prove quite a challenge. Solar chargers and backup batteries can help, sure, but when you’re already hauling dozens of pounds of gear, an integrated solution is where it’s at. Goal Zero has a pair of new products to help streamline things a bit. First up, the Lighthouse250 Lantern can provide 48 hours of 250-lumen LED output with a full charge, and it can charge up a gadget via a built-in USB port. If you don’t have a solar panel handy, you can use the hand crank to juice up the lantern in the field. The company’s also teaming up with Eddie Bauer on a solar panel-equipped tent, the 36-square-foot Katabatic 2 — you’ll need to add your own battery pack to store the energy collected from the 18-watt roof-mounted panel. Eddie Bauer has yet to announce pricing for the tent, which should ship next spring, but you can expect the lantern to retail for about 80 bucks in Q4.
Filed under: Household, Peripherals
It’s easy to lose perspective on such things living in a city like New York, but people do indeed still have landlines at home. And really, in a world so dominated by the smartphone, why not get one that sort of splits the difference between the two? Granted, the Panasonic KX-PRX120 has the kind of specs that would make us shake our collective heads were it positioned as a standard handset, but as far as cordless phones go, it’s, well, certainly more exciting than what most people having sitting on their kitchen counters. The phone has a 3.5-inch TFT touchscreen display, a microSD slot, a WIFI / Bluetooth interface and an optional answering machine. The device runs Android 4.0 and gives you access to the Google Play store, so you can use it to Skype with help from its front-facing camera. The KX-PRX120 should run around £169 ($259).
Filed under: Cellphones, Household, Mobile
Thailand isn’t exactly known for its unquestionable ethics; activities that would quickly be labeled as illegal in the West are practiced in plain view in Bangkok. Loose regulations mean that a nearly limitless array of goods and services can be purchased with cash and even credit — a currency like Bitcoin would only be necessary for the most heinous of exchanges. It’s a bit ironic, then, that the Thai government is now the world’s first to ban Bitcoin. Following a conference at the Bank of Thailand yesterday, the Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department voted to make the digital coinage illegal, prohibiting people from buying, selling or trading Bitcoins for goods or services. Additionally, Bitcoins cannot be moved into or out of the country, rendering any current stockpiles worthless. The Bank of Thailand ended its dispatch with a promise to revisit the ruling in the future, though this landmark decision could prove to be the beginning of the end for Bitcoin.
Filed under: Household, Internet
Via: The Telegraph
Source: Bitcoin Co. Ltd.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
