The light bulb is one of the most important inventions of the modern world, but it hasn't changed very much in the past 100 years. So designer Phil Boshua set out to reinvent the light bulb, and what he created is pretty amazing. He calls it LIFX (pronounced life ex).
When Boshua began thinking about the modern lightbulb, he realized that there are really to options for consumers to choose between today. There's the classic incandescent bulbs that use lots of power and don't last very long, or the curly fluorescent bulbs that emit an unpleasant white light. Beyond that issue, Boshua felt that the concept of a light switch was seriously outdated.
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"So i started thinking, with all the technology we've got these days surely there must be a better way," Boshua says in promotional video on Kickstarter. "For starters, we don't get up to change the TV channel anymore, so why do we do that with our lights?"
Six months and over a dozen prototypes later, Boshua and his team had deveoped LIFX, a 'smart,' WiFi enabled LED lightbulb, wich he boasts is also the "most energy efficient light bulb" in the world, lasting up to 25 years. Each lightbulb is multicolored, meaning the owner to change the lighting color in a room by using their smartphone.
LIFX bulbs work with a free app for iPhones and Android phones, letting you control the brightness and color of each individual bulb or the entire room as a whole. You can also use it in a number of quirky ways, including setting your light bulb to flash a different color whenever you receive a new notification on your smartphone. There's even a "visualizer" setting where you can pick a song and watch your light bulbs change to match the music.
LIFX launched on Kickstarter, a popular crowd-funding website, just two days ago, and has already far exceeded it's goal of $100,000 in donations. As of September 17, 3,752 backers have pledged over $500,000 to Boshua's design. In return they'll receive their own their own LIFX bulbs (one for $69). LIFX will continue to recieve donations through November 14 so there's plenty of time to get in on this amazing new product.
