The Best Lightbulb Ever Built

If the LIFX meets expectations, it could be the best light bulb ever built. The app-controlled wunderbulb that received an avalanche of Kickstarter support — 13 times its initial goal of $100,000 — is now slated to make its debut in March 2013. I’m as sick of Kickstarter videos as the next guy, but inventor/designer/kickstarter cash monger Phil Bosua makes a good point in this one:

It’s weird that the light bulbs we use today remain almost entirely un-innovated from Edison’s original design.

Sure, we’ve got compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs), light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and a wide array of differently-hued ol’ incandescents. But none of the above has fundamentally changed the function of how we light our homes, or our relationship to using that light. So, LIFX.

The so-called “wifi light” is an LED bulb that responds to commands from your smart phone, eliminating the need for those cumbersome trips to the light switch. As the video illustrates, it comes with a bevy of other features that managed to get the Kickstarter crowd frothing over a light bulb: from home security lighting to goofy light show options to the grouped control settings. And that’s my favorite thing about the fancy new bulb — even though 95% of those neat features will probably go largely unused, they hold the potential to speed adoption.

The incandescent light bulb, like, say, the coal-fired power plant or the internal combustion engine, is an age-old invention that we humanfolk haven’t really got around to seriously overhauling. Most still only convert 5% of the energy used into visible light, and account for 50% of the bulbs in American homes (hence recent, but vocally opposed, government efforts to mandate more efficient bulbs). These things are over 100 years old, and they’re still foundational to our society. We’ve got to switch to cleaner power, to alternate engines (and alternate modes of transit altogether), and, indeed, to more efficient light bulbs. CFL and standard-market LEDs have tried valiantly to take some market share from the mighty incandescents, but few people like the cold, clammy CFL light, and most find LEDs too expensive. And there’s been a strong, if a little weird, opposition to policies banning inefficient bulbs.

So now there’s a reason to switch to a better bulb. One that all those bulb-changing “consumers” seem to love. It’s still expensive, but more folks may justify the price tag if they’re going to get some bells and whistles — and added convenience — from the deal, and not just hard-to-discern marginal energy savings over the bulb’s lifespan. Even if, in reality, those savings are formidable. If these Aussie inventors can get LIFX to mass market, it’s going to be a game-changer.