The smart bulb that gave light a new purpose

YIANNI AND HIS TEAM REALISED THEY WERE ON TO SOMETHING WHEN MANY TESTERS REFUSED TO GIVE THE BULBS BACK. ONE HAD SET THE HUE TO BLINK PINK WHENEVER SHE RECEIVED AN EMAIL FROM FACEBOOK.

- BRENT ROSE

BEING ABLE TO CHANGE THE ENTIRE LOOK and feel of a room with the press of a button or a quick voice command is one of those rare things that makes you feel like you're living in the future. Colour-changing lights have existed for years, but never in a form that was useful. They were typically big, clunky fixtures that you had to plug into a wall, took up valuable shelf space, and required a remote to control. They certainly weren't elegant - mere novelty items at best.

Plain white LED bulbs had an equally rocky start. By the end of the 2000s, you could replace a standard incandescent bulb with one, but they were still generally ugly, with bizarre fins around the bases, and they often cast an unpleasant shade of light. That left room for the development of LED bulbs that weren't eyesores and produced light that was more pleasing and useful. In 2011, a team at Philips had the idea of a bulb that could address several of those issues while providing some health benefits. But they ended up with something far more versatile, creating color-changing lighting that didn't require a specialised gadget.

'When we started the design of Philips Hue, we were going for tunable whites,' says George Yianni, head of tech for Philips Hue and the person who originally conceived the project. We were aiming for something that could go from warm whites to cold whites.' The benefits they were after ranged from boosting concentration and making reading more comfortable to helping you wind down for sleep.