Cold
LG Electronics has announced that it will be entering the Smart LED lightbulb market, one dominated by Signify (LIGHT.NL), aka the former LED lighting division of Philips (PHG). There are many other brands, especially in the US, such as EcoSmart, a private label brand of Home Depot (HD), and Feit Electric (pvt), but even at this early stage , despite it fitting into the ‘smart home’ concept that all CE companies must ascribe to, it seems one that is ripe for competition from regions where assembly is cheap and one easily dragged into the trade issues that all CE brands are hoping to stay out of. Again, few details have been released, but the hook is that the bulbs are compatible with Android 4.3 and iOS 4.0/6.0 and can blink in sync with the music on your device or to let you know your phone is ringing.
While some of the LED bulb systems we have seen have similar capabilities, they need external devices to ;sense’ the music, and some of the color changing smart bulbs require a hub (a device that aggregates the command signals and communicates with each bulb or the entire set at once). The color-changing bulbs are the ‘premium’ segment and sell for between $13 and $50 each, depending on characteristics, and (here’s the attractive part) cost between $10 & $15 to produce, but those are a small subset of the larger ‘smart’ LED bulb market, which is a sub-set of the overall generic LED light bulb market.
It seems a bit of a wonder why LG might want to build out the manufacturing or manufacturing commitments, infrastructure, and advertising for this sub-set market, knowing it will be facing an entrenched competitor who owns the market. Having a single ‘special’ feature to differentiate your product from others in such a niche market leaves us cold.
While some of the LED bulb systems we have seen have similar capabilities, they need external devices to ;sense’ the music, and some of the color changing smart bulbs require a hub (a device that aggregates the command signals and communicates with each bulb or the entire set at once). The color-changing bulbs are the ‘premium’ segment and sell for between $13 and $50 each, depending on characteristics, and (here’s the attractive part) cost between $10 & $15 to produce, but those are a small subset of the larger ‘smart’ LED bulb market, which is a sub-set of the overall generic LED light bulb market.
It seems a bit of a wonder why LG might want to build out the manufacturing or manufacturing commitments, infrastructure, and advertising for this sub-set market, knowing it will be facing an entrenched competitor who owns the market. Having a single ‘special’ feature to differentiate your product from others in such a niche market leaves us cold.
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