Sunrise, sunset. Wake up naturally with automatically increasing light in the morning. Drift off to sleep with slowly dimming lights.
Automatic on and off. Your lights come on when you get home and switch off when you leave. Never pay for power you aren't using again.
LIFX works on 110v-260v. We are considering a 12 volt version but this may be held off till after our initial production run has been completed.
We have considered security. The WiFi connection will use the standard security set-up that you are currently using. Mesh networks based on 802.15.4 will encrypt packets using AES-128. Higher network stack layers will need to handle exchange of security keys and deal with problems like "replay attacks". In short, your lights will be as secure as your home wifi network.
Your switch will need to remain on and the dimmer at full. This provides full power to the light socket (eg. as if there was no dimmer.). You will not be able to use your wall mounted dimmer to dim your LIFX smartbulbs, you will need to use the LIFX app to do this.
We are still working out the exact details of the warranty for the LIFX smart bulbs. To ensure that we comply with the legal requirements across a number of different countries, we decided its best that we seek legal advice to ensure that we are compliant. As soon as we have this information we will update you all.
Our prototype system was tested with a master and 9 slave smart-bulbs. Our choice of networking hardware and software stack will allow hundreds of smart-bulbs.
Since we will provide open source LIFX client libraries for iOS and Android and document the LIFX protocol API, if your home automation system is extensible (nearly all are) and you know how to interact with it programmatically then it is possible to create "glue" software that integrates them. Companies in this space that we love include: Smart Things, Ninja Blocks, IFTTT, Belkin, Ubi and more (we are not affiliated with these companies we just love them).
Until we complete the production antennae design and hardware testing, we can't provide a final answer. However, we use a standard WiFi module and when testing the prototype the WiFi reception worked within the bounds of an normal home environment. Given the significant variation in WiFi equipment and environments your mileage will vary. However, roughly the same range as WiFi range on your mobile device would be a ballpark estimate. In regards to the mesh networking, for the prototype we used transceivers with 2 mW transmit power and found that a separation distance of 10 metres within a home was readily achievable. As we perform production hardware testing, we'll keep you updated.
Only the master smart-bulb has an IP address. Our aim is to use IPV6 to control the bulbs but we want to do further testing on this. Doing so would require the master to be an IPv6 connection on the WiFi side and route through to the IPv6 mesh network for the slave smart-bulbs.
Yes. All of 802.11a/b/g/n from the same internal WiFi chip.
Yes. The API and our choice of network protocols will permit access by multiple devices simultaneously.
No. The bulbs have been developed for indoor purposes. We may make an outdoor version down the track.
