Originally Published: June 2012

Lumine is a range of four wi-fi, contemporary and colour changing lights, designed for my startup, Nine Studios. I designed these during my last year studying Product Design and Manufacture at the University of Nottingham. The range includes a pendant, wall, floor and table light designed with a common dome aesthetic and matching chrome plated finishes. The products can all be controlled by usual ways, either your existing wired switches for the pendant and wall light or the built in switches on the floor and table light. However they can join your existing wi-fi network and can then allow a whole host of new features:

• Control all aspects of the lights from your smart phone, tablet or computer.
• Apply one change and all the lights in a room or even the whole house can change at the same time.
• Control includes:
• On/off
• Brightness
• Colour
• Moving patterns (e.g. Switching colours over time, pulsating etc.)
• Set up automated features which are controlled and processed by cloud computing (on remote servers across the internet):
• To change depending on the time of day (could turn on in the evening, gradually get brighter throughout the day etc.)
• Be less bright when turned on late at night (especially useful if going to the bathroom at night)
• Learn about you:
• Your daily lighting routines can be recorded so that if you go on holiday you can set the lights to turn on and off as if you were at home.
• Saves your commonly used colours, moods and theme settings for easy recollection.
• New features are available instantly over the internet

The products utilise an RGB LED screw fit bulb which offers long life and low energy usage. The products work normally as soon as they are plugged in or wired. To connect them to the network you have to install the relevant app for the smartphone, tablet or computer or you could just visit the specified IP address in any internet browser on the network. Within the app it can scan for available devices and assign them to the specific rooms. If there are problems the lights can be reset and disconnected from the network by locating and holding down the reset switch, found on each light, for 5 seconds, this will then cause the lights to flash.

One of the main benefits of the products is that they still work on their own or more can be added to the network to greatly improve the experience.

System of Integration

Further concepts in the product offering which were briefly developed include a touch screen control panel, a SMART hub and a wi-fi RGB LED bulb.

Control Panel

The control panel can be retro fit instead of the existing wall switches and offers all the functions as the control app but from the convenience of where your existing switches were. It includes several physical switches for intuitive on/off control. Especially for guests. The inclusion of a proximity sensor means the screen only turns on when something is moving close to it. The control panel also has a camera and microphone which can be used to add further automated features to the system:

• Turn on/off the lights with movement around the house.
• Control through voice
• Could change colours and moods in reaction to sounds or movement.

SMART Hub

The SMART hub can act as it’s own wi-fi router of join an existing network. It can then do all the processing instead of the could computing. Resulting in automated features even if the internet is offline. It also has a built in hard drive for backing up computers wirelessly.

RGB wifi LED Bulb

The RGB wifi LED bulb allows you to connect your existing lights to the network. Just use this bulb instead, set it up though the app and all the SMART features are available. This bulb would be very expensive and due to the need to replace bulbs, even though LED’s last a long time, it is not as sustainable a solution as the connectivity being in the fixings.

The Wider Context

The technology used in the lights could be licensed to other designers and manufacturers in order to create more affordable lights in many different styles. The fittings themselves could be sold to use with existing shades or wi-fi power adapters could be plugged into existing lights to add connectivity.

Being wi-fi connected lights these products have the potential of communicating with other SMART devices around the home. These includes:

• Linking with a SMART TV in order to react to certain events (e.g. Become dimmer when a film is playing)
• Connect with a music system (e.g. When playing music through iTunes the lights could react and pulsate to the type of music if you want.)
• Connect to the doorbell. This could have huge benefits for deaf people as the lights could flash when the doorbell rings. Also if speakers are connected to the same system they could fade down the music and play the doorbell sound.
• React to the fire alarm. The lights could flash if the alarm goes off.
• Separate sensor units could be purchased to place throughout the house as desired and be utilised by the lights to turn on before someone enters a room and to automatically turn off where no one is.

Related Product Ideas for the Company

• Standard fittings for other manufactures to easily utilise in their designs.
• Standard fittings for consumers to connect existing lighting.
• Wi-fi power adapters/sockets.
• Further lighting ranges.
• Connected speakers, fire alarms, doorbells, TV’s, security cameras, blinds, kitchen appliances and utility management.
• Sensor units for the home, to give data to the appliances.