GE to Produce Color-Changing LED Light Bulbs for HomeKit

 

Featuring its Align technology, GE's smart bulbs will work with Apple's HomeKit smart home platform. The lighting can be automated based on sleep cycles, with brighter bluer tones in the morning and an amber light in the evening.
Around this time last year, Apple announced HomeKit, the company’s entry into whole-house home automation. However, it wasn’t really until this year that we started to see companies pushing HomeKit-compatible products. The latest is coming from GE.

 

The company announced plans to produce color-changing LED light bulbs that will work with Apple’s smart home platform. However, it’s not just the pretty colors or the connectivity that make these smart bulbs… well, smart.

These smart LED light bulbs will also come packing GE Align technology. Because lighting has such an effect on sleep, the company created this perk to produce a more natural sleep cycle. Integrating this tech into these bulbs will allow users to automate lighting based on the body’s natural sleep circadian rhythm. That basically means in the morning, the light will have a brighter, bluer tone. In the evening, it will produce an amber light, similar to a campfire of candlelit dinner.

Of course, homeowners can also tweak the bulbs to their liking using HomeKit. Having Apple’s smart home platform as part of the setup will allow them to control bulbs individually or in groups, as well as link the bulbs to other connected home devices. And like everything else in the HomeKit ecosystem, they should be able to control the bulbs by speaking commands to Siri.

Related: More on Lighting

“As we continue to grow our infrastructure business by connecting our brilliant industrial machines to the Internet, it is important that consumers experience connected things in easy-to-use, everyday ways. Lighting is how many first experiment with the idea of a smart home, and our insights show that consumers want the ability to control lighting from anywhere, automate lighting and pair lighting with other devices—like sensors, thermostats and door locks,” says Beth Comstock, president and CEO of GE Business Innovations. “We’re excited to announce our support for HomeKit as it will bring a seamless, intuitive user experience using Siri and superior quality of light from America’s most trusted lighting brand for more than a century.”

No specifics have been announced about the bulbs just yet. That said, GE plans to introduce the Homekit-enabled LED light bulbs later this year.

Citation : http://www.cepro.com/article/ge_to_produce_color-changing_led_light_bulbs_for_homekit/K22