Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

This. Is. Featurebloat.

Seriously, color changing? Dimming? Make a simple natural light bulb, a smartphone app and a wifi wall switch. Latter is far far more important than an ability to drown my kitchen in a shade of green. Keep it useful, damn it. Not a single home automation company gets this. Usability is a key to adoption.



Belkin's Wemo[1] line does pretty much what you're suggesting. I've got a few of their units, and I've been pretty happy with them.

[1] http://www.belkin.com/wemo/


For a good portion of the video, I was thinking the same exact thing. I can't see the average person either needing or even /wanting/ most of those features. From a work perspective, I want to turn my lights on. And I want to turn them off. That's it.

I think the part of the video that really demonstrated where money will be made was when he spent 5 seconds saying "Lifx has commercial applications as well." Now there I can see all these features being useful. (But I suppose tailoring a Kickstarter video towards restaurant/club/bar owners wouldn't net as much capital. :P)


The popularity of dimmer switches suggests that your tastes are far from universal. Also, Ikea has a range of color-adjustable LED lights, and they seem to fly off the shelves.


I agree on the featurebloat. And the video is to long imo. Make your sale and get out of dodge.

In any case this product, while cool, reminds me a little of what Steve Blank calls a "novelty" effect (I was at SM with Steve at the time of that product).

http://steveblank.com/2009/05/11/supermac-war-story-x-the-vi...


Well, I love it and think it's very useful.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: