Nanoleaf Debuts New HomeKit-Enabled Smarter Kit With Two Light Bulbs and a Hub

One of the biggest points about HomeKit is that it doesn't need a hub. Everything should be able to connect to wifi and work in that way.

That design looks vaguely familiar…

Hey HomeKit accessory manufacturers, we're all good on the plethora of lightbulb options. Would you please get around to other useful things like HomeKit enabled outlets, switches, security sensors, smoke detectors, garage door openers (looking at you Chamberlain), etc.

HomeKit is such a mess. I thought one of the big points with HomeKit-enabled devices was, as someone mentioned earlier, you weren't going to need to fill your house with hubs because the HomeKit-enabled devices would talk to the Apple TV over Wi-Fi instead. Meanwhile, Apple is releasing a brand new Apple TV this week and as far as I can recall, there was precisely zero mention of HomeKit in the keynote where the new Apple TV was introduced.

If Apple is going to play in the connected home space, they either need to get their act together and go all in or get out of the game entirely.

Edit: After reading Apple's HomeKit page, it appears that the Apple TV is only used to allow control of HomeKit devices with Siri when the user is not on the home network. I think Apple has totally missed the boat with the current implementation of HomeKit. So each of these brands of devices still needs their own hub, and if you have Apple TV, you can still control the devices with Siri when you're away from your house. It's just a kludgy setup.

Normally, Apple simplifies the things they decide to touch and in most cases, Apple makes those things better and more reliable in the process. In this case, however, Apple seems to have just added more clutter, confusion, and instability to an area that already had a tendency to suffer those shortcomings.

"These bulbs also have a unique design that lets them be used sans lampshade and with a range of decorative open-faced lamps. They're made from printed circuit boards embedded with LED chips and and folded into a dodecahedron shape."

Entire paragraph could have been shortened to: "These bulbs are butt ugly."

Why are bright whites and day lights so hard to find? I can't flipping see with soft whites.

Not willing to pay for Phillips Hue either.

I've invested a lot into the "smart light" concept in my home, mostly with Philips Hue, so I feel the need comment on some things below. :)

How are these the first dimmable bulbs? Do they know what first means? Have they heard of HUE? Who designed these things? They look terrible and the marketing makes it seem like this is a worlds FIRST!

They aren't the first dimmable LED bulb--some are dimmable via a dimmer switch, others are dimmable via software (e.g., Hue). This, however, is the first that is dimmable via either.* Obviously you won't be able to make them brighter via software than your dimmer switch is set to, but at least it allows you to still use them like regular bulbs in every way. So they are "first" in that sense.

*I think. I know they say it's like the Nanoleaf Bloom, which I think actually has a funny way of being dimmed with only a regular wall switch if you flick it on and off the right way. (Probably the first to dim without software or special hardware.) I'm not sure if it actually dims with regular dimmers.

Are there easy ways to hook up these types of HomeKit lights to a physical switch also? I can't imagine having to get out my phone every time I walk into a room and either open an app or talk to Siri. Or if I get home and my battery is dead and I have to feel my way to the charger and sit there in darkness until the phone boots up.

Yes, in multiple ways. You can always use your existing switches to turn the bulbs on and off, but you can also turn them on and off via software as long as the wall switch is kept on (obviously, otherwise the bulbs would have no power to turn on). Hue will also reset the bulbs to their default color and brightness if power is lost, which means you can just flip your switch off and on if you turned them off via software but don't have your phone and want to turn them on via hardware instead. You can also replace your existing switches with Z-Wave or similar switches and integrate them with Hue via SmartThings (or Vera, etc.--or not and just control them separately with a similar caveat to a regular power-off). As others have mentioned, Philips also makes a line of switches: Tap (set scenes or turn off lights with four buttons) and Dimmer (on/off and dimming control for at least the Hue White bulb, doesn't seem to be in stock at many places yet and I'm not sure it works with the "regular"/"White and color" bulbs).

One of the biggest points about HomeKit is that it doesn't need a hub. Everything should be able to connect to wifi and work in that way.

I think there are actually some advantages to making light bulbs work this way. First, for bulbs to work with WiFi, you'd need good enough signal at all your light fixtures. This may be unlikely on the fringes of your house. Hue (and probably this new Nanoleaf product if it's compatible) uses ZigBee, which is a mesh network, and bulbs can relay signals to other bulbs, sort of extending your range. It is also a much lower-power technology than WiFi, so standby power for Hue is, I think <0.5 W (I think WeMo devices [non-lights] were about 3x that when I measured last--but even they switched to a mesh network for their bulbs). LIFX uses WiFi and a mesh network--one of the bulbs connects via WiFi and has a sort of "built-in bridge," and the rest use the mesh network. The disadvantage is that, as each bulb needs to have this capability (even if unused), the cost per bulb seems to be higher, and historically their power consumption was also greater, though their newest bulb brought that down a bit.

Why are bright whites and day lights so hard to find? I can't flipping see with soft whites.

Not willing to pay for Phillips Hue either.

I have the opposite problem even 2700k is too cool... All the leds I have found are way too cool for around-the-house-wife-approval (I swear she would light the whole house with candle light)... The home depot here in Canada has the best in store selection I have found...

The last thing we need is another light bulb option. We already have a TON of them and they actually look good. How are these the first dimmable bulbs? Do they know what first means? Have they heard of HUE? Who designed these things? They look terrible and the marketing makes it seem like this is a worlds FIRST! Which it's not.

Ugh. Choice is cool but how about some other things. Sensors? A home kit enable door lock that actually ****ing works?

One of the biggest points about HomeKit is that it doesn't need a hub. Everything should be able to connect to wifi and work in that way.

No.

If all devices simply connect to wifi instead of the hub, then in the future there's never a need for a hub and never a need to replace the hub with a new one.

I would have thought when Phillips updated their hub to HomeKit, you no-hubbers would have finally got it. Without the hub yes, we wouldn't have had to replace it at a cost of about $30. Instead we would have had to replace all our bulbs at $60 each.

The bulbs are supposed to last 20 years (we'll see), but no WiFi standard will last that long, and certainly no Apple standard will last that long. Keep the bulbs as simple as they can possibly be, and let some cheap hub handle the communication with the complex stuff.