I just want some lights that expose a simple API and are easy to talk to. I want smart lights that will work when the internet is down and doesn't need an app to connect to.
It is the bridge that provides the REST API, not the bulbs.
Having a REST API means the complete setup is easier to tinker with through a defined protocol and not having to resort to hack with the bulbs or any zigbee/low-level things.
I used this to play a bed time indication sequence on multiple bulbs in the living room from MIDI notes.
There's another problem with many these smart lights, IMHO.
A lightbulb should be a long-lasting, easily replaceable thing. Putting in all sorts of doodads into the base of lightbulb just strikes me as wasteful and a recipe for a brittle configuration. It's bad enough putting in a power converter, now we're talking about RF transceivers, computers, webservers, and REST API's. All this packed into a tiny very hot space packed in with silicone goop and made, often times, by disinterested bottom-of-the-barrel manufacturers.
It's much better, I think, to have the light bulbs be just that, LIGHTBULBS. Of course, they can be LED's, DC powered and have multiple colors but the control and power source should be in a box away from the lights, somewhere convenient. You can then put all the internet-of-things jazz into THAT BOX and not in each light.
This would ultimately give interior designers a better palette of light sources to work with and give consumers a less annoying churn of bad choices for technology.
> You can then put all the internet-of-things jazz into THAT BOX and not in each light.
How do you propose to do this in a lamp or a can light with a standard light socket? Should I rip open my ceiling and add control wires to every can that's in there?
These bulbs don't have the smarts in them just because nobody thought of doing otherwise. The world is mostly made of legacy infrastructure. Hue will sell you lamps that don't use E26 bulbs, but you're not going to be changing the lights out later if you want to use something else.
So now there are two standards that are mutually exclusive--"works in every light made in the last hundred years" and "the other one".
I sense great commercial success here, telling people to run LV to every HV can light. And how about--you know--a lamp? Like the one standing on my floor right now, with nowhere to place an external box? Should we redesign them all for this new standard that doesn't address actual pain points? How do we power the control boxed? Does every lamp now have a chaining 120V and you need to hang an AC adapter off it, then weasel control wires into the lamp shade? Or do we expect them to output 12V in case you want to run them with automated controls? Or do we expect them to just pick a vendor, build in their control box and you throw out the lamp if the software sucks? In a lamp?
This solves a problem people don't have through the time-tested strategy of making people think more, do more work, and be more annoyed. I think I'm seeing why it doesn't exist.
I am talking about permanent fixtures here. And anyway, there ARE 12VDC lights without a bunch of electronics junk inside them. They're readily available for folks and designers who want _really_ _nice_ lighting.
The MagicLight app works pretty well, doesn't require cloud (though they will try and get you to sign up) and you can automate through home assistant or look at the API yourself.
