It’s not always easy to sell someone on the idea of smart lights – they are expensive and all of the smarter bits require a bit of work on your end. The folks at Stack Lighting think they have figured out the missing link with the Alba light. This smart LED bulb was designed around a learning system that can adjust itself based on your behavior.
There are a few obvious ways that adjustable LED bulbs can improve your life. You’ll find no shortage of research to back the notion that different color temperatures are important for different tasks, and anyone who has converted their existing home to support Philips Hue (or some other brand of smart lights) will tell you that those seemingly subtle differences really do matter. The disconnect comes in choosing when and where to change certain kinds of lights throughout your house. For the most part, these lights can be adjusted to support scripted behaviors and schedules, but there’s no real way to have these lights learn as you go just yet.
The Alba lights aren’t cheap, even by smart bulb standards. The basic Starter Kit includes a hub and two bulbs for $170, and the added Beacon for proximity detection will run you an extra $20.
Stack Lighting plans to add support for A19 bulbs and special fixtures are expected for the first half of 2015, with the existing kits expecting to be ready a couple of months before that. It’ll be interesting to see how well the Alba bulbs can actually apply context based on behavior in situations where you are growing your lighting setup one bulb at a time instead of having the entire house setup all at once, but if the Alba bulbs can deliver it will be a huge shift in how smart bulbs are perceived.