CES Update – Philips Hue and Osram Lightify

Philips Hue

George Yianni, Lead Designer and Filip Jan Depauw, Director of Connected Lighting at Philips Lighting emphasized that making Hue work with as many other systems as possible is a high priority.

“We’re really focused on trying to be the lighting experts inside smart homes and work with all of the other companies who are doing interesting things inside the home with connected products,” explained Yianni. To that end, Hue can inter-operate with hub products like the SmartThings system and can be made to respond to inputs from a wide variety of well-known devices like Nest Thermostats and home security systems.

Yianni also showed off some neat media integration—the Hue tie-ins with Sharknado and 12 Monkeys are neat, but more interesting to us was Hue integration with games like Minecraft, which took the form of an in-game mod that changed the room’s Hue lights’ colors to mirror the game’s environment. Planting a torch on a cave wall caused the lights to flip on; diving underwater cast the room in a dark blue glow; dying led to red flashes as the player’s heath meter bottomed out.

Philips recognizes that it’s time to focus firmly on the future of the ecosystem and how to make Hue lights into actual lifestyle-type products that people want to use instead of just “fancy expensive lights that change colors.” Developing their own sensors is one path. You can read what they said here.

OSRAM LIGHTIFY

North American lighting leader OSRAM SYLVANIA is unveiling OSRAM LIGHTIFY™ connected lighting kits at CES, providing a portfolio of cost-effective indoor and outdoor lighting products that can be controlled and automated via an app on your mobile device to help you save energy, enhance comfort, personalize your environment, and experience joy and fun.  LIGHTIFY is designed to empower creativity and personal control for consumers of all walks of life. With LIGHTIFY, consumers can complement their decor and decorate a living room or a child’s bedroom with colorful light, which is much easier than painting, and can dynamically change the atmosphere to suit a particular mood. They can also add a creative touch to their outdoor landscaping with LIGHTIFY. College students can create a fun environment in their dorm room, and business owners can craft the right ambiance at their restaurant or bar.

“Light has never been so enriching, helpful, individualized and networked. OSRAM LIGHTIFY brings the future of lighting into your home or business today,” said Aaron Ganick, head of LIGHTIFY, OSRAM SYLVANIA. “Consumers want to personalize their environments without breaking the bank. Now, they can enjoy intelligent, affordable connected lighting that adapts to their desires and lifestyle at any time from any place easily via their mobile device. What is LIGHT to you? Relaxing? Inspiring? Magical? LIGHTIFY can help you experience your answer.”

The OSRAM LIGHTIFY lighting system begins with a wireless Gateway that can be plugged into a standard wall outlet, and wirelessly syncs with the existing WiFi network in your home or business. Other gateways require plugging the device into a router, taking up spots and limiting you to where the gateway can be placed. With LIGHTIFY, you can place the Gateway anywhere you want.

The Gateway connects to LIGHTIFY devices (up to 50 per each Gateway) via the ZigBee Home Automation standard. Initial products include a true A19 Tunable White 60W replacement LED bulb which delivers over 800 lumens, unlike other 60W replacements that offer less lumens and therefore less brightness. It has an adjustable color temperature, meaning it can go from a warm 2700 Kelvin light up to a 6500 Kelvin cool white, at any dimness level. In addition, there are flexible, color changing, indoor LED light strips. Now for the first time, consumers can also benefit from that same color control functionality outdoors with Gardenspot Mini RGB LED lights, perfect for enhancing any landscape. Also available will be an A19 60W replacement RGBW LED bulb, which can provide up to 16 million colors to match a scene or mood, and also has tunable white functionality. OSRAM will also be offering ZigBee smart switches that will initially provide on/off/dim functions with the ability to control multiple scenes in the future.

For more information about OSRAM LIGHTIFY, visit www.osram-americas.com/lightify

09 Jan