Aug 14
If you’re on the hunt for the best way to accessorize your fancy new solar powered tent
     |
Aug 14
Philips kind of blew our minds with the hue, which is an LED lightbulb that can be controlled with your smartphone or computer. Of course, though, there had to be a catch, and it seems like that catch is that the lightbulb is easily hackable, allowing users with a dark mind to put the lights […]
Aug 14
If you’re the proud owner of some smart Philips Hue light bulbs
| |
Aug 14
Oh, Philips. Why’d you have to make it so easy for ne’er-do-wells to go full Aiden Pearce on Hue smart light users? A recent study by researcher Nitesh Dhanjani reveals that Hue’s control portal — known as the bridge — uses a shoddy authentication system when communicating with smartphones and computers. That system uses the bridge’s MAC address, which is easy to detect. As such it’s also easy to hack the device and cause a blackout.
In Dhanjani’s demo video below, he introduces malware into the bridge through a compromised website. This lets him find the right MAC address and take control, turning the lights off again and again, ad infinitum, regardless of the switch’s status. Sure, there’s no immediate threat of widescale blackouts — smart lighting has yet to be adopted en masse, after all — but this is a security issue companies need to address, especially since lighting plays such a critical safety role.
Filed under: Internet
Via: Ars Technica, The Register
Source: Nitesh Dhanjani
Aug 09
Philips has been making multi-colored lighting for some time, but even so the hue system came as a surprise last year. ZigBee-enabled wireless LED bulbs, remotely controlled by an open mobile app, and promising the sort of smart home functionality that would once have demanded many thousands for installation, hue quickly sold out in stores […]
Aug 06
You might remember that last year we were dazzled by Philips’ Wi-Fi controlled LED bulbs
| |
Aug 06
Lightscaping at home with Philips’ Hue LightStrips and Bloom (hands-on video)
Posted in: Today's Chili
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.
Aug 06
Philips has outed two new Hue-compatible LED multicolor lights as part of its “Friends of Hue” range, the LivingColors Bloom and LightStrips, each working with the remote control app and open API. The LightStrips is 6.6 feet of flexible LED light cord, with self-adhesive backing the ability to trim the length to suit your particular […]
Aug 05
It’s the dog days of summer, even at 10pm your neighborhood is just slightly warmer than the surface of Venus, and everybody in town’s got their A/C units cranked up to 11. Which would explain what triggered the rolling blackout that has now left you and yours sitting in a darkened home. Just because you’re going to swelter until the power comes back doesn’t mean you need to do so in the dark. Here’s some ways to lighten up the situation
| |
Jul 27
If you’ve ever tried to compare flashlights or lighting of any kind, you’ve probably been confronted with a bunch of confusing terms like lumen and lux that are supposed to describe how powerful a light is.We think? Well here they are explained in a single image.
| |
Who's in charge here?
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.