The first ever smart bulbs 💡 Philips IQ Lighting

[@VidarStorm]

AWESOME, memories. I worked at the fab in Meridian, Idaho making these. Was the first job I got after getting out of the Army. I worked many stations in the production process, but I remember the Fuji 4 head pick and place machine, we had a couple imported custom die attach machines, wire bonders, custom electrical test, solder paste application, solder reflow, visual inspections, epoxy fill, additional function test and encapsulation. Was a great job and a great company until the lights and employment were extinguished.

[@lucasrem]

Criss Townend, Thanks, I'm investigating Philips TSMC etc. Idaho Lighting Solutions, they still exist today. This was the only company that did produce them for Philips, 120 volt only, never a big seller it was. But a great learning cycle for Philips HUE, that why they used them!

[@summerlaverdure]

what chips did these have inside of them? PICs?

[@VidarStorm]

@@summerlaverdure there was an ASIC internally designed, a triac, and a couple various surface mount caps and resistors. Beacon light paid an outside contract for the silicon wafer lithography and sawing, die attach and wire binding was done all in house.

[@summerlaverdure]

@@VidarStorm ah cool, thank you for explaining! i was about to fork out $20 to find out for myself and now i dont have to ^O^

[@VidarStorm]

@@summerlaverdure It would be totally destructive exploration. Everything is on a small ceramic substraight reflow soldered in a brass cup. Once the die attach is done with the triac and ASIC, it gets wire bonded. After electrical test, is the reflow solder of the micro ceramic board into the cup, then its carefully filled with resin not only to protect whats inside, but the bare wirebonding on the ASIC and Triac pads to the board. The resin ensures they cant short out causing premature failure. I will look to see if I have one in my way back time machine pile of stuff.

[@squeakers27]

The 6 hour one is quite a clever idea since once it's set up, you don't need to worry about it again. The others are quite gimmicky but for 1994, impressive.

[@Alexlfm]

That’s what I was thinking. Wall switch timers were still rather expensive then and cumbersome so value wise it seems like it would make the most sense… Unfortunately, I’d guess it’s also the one people would have had the hardest time understanding how to use, with timer bulbs being so new.

[@tty23]

the first once is still a feature with some led bulbs and fixtures, fliping the switch in short secession changes the color temperature.

[@25566]

The problem is if the power goes out you lose it completely and have to set it again, with a regular timer there's a battery that keps the time

[@okaro6595]

Especially the dimmer. The fact that it resets is not a good idea. One would think that if you want a dimmer you normally want it to be dim.

[@katrinabryce]

Well except that you would want it to go on at different times in summer and winter.

[@stereophonicstuff]

Despite their limitations, these were way ahead of their time. I didn’t even know these were a thing. They’d definitely pair nicely with a GE Super Switch.

[@wa27]

I had a Scruff McGruff "Beacon" light bulb which would turn into a flashing bulb if you flicked it off and on twice quickly. The idea is you'd put it in your front porch and you could use it to alert your neighbors that there was trouble in your house.

[@T0NYFERRELL1]

VWestlife, collecting and discussing the most boring tech out there so I don’t have to. And I can’t enough of it, this channel is brilliant.

[@megabojan1993]

10:45 Could someone tell me the name of the song playing in the timelapse please?

[@TheSeanUhTron]

My parents put the "Nitelite" lightbulb in my bedroom when I was growing up... It didn't last very long. Not because it failed, but because it was a pain in the butt to use and didn't really give much of a benefit. If I remember correctly, we bought it at a garage sale; The original owner probably had the same issue.

[@westelaudio943]

Maybe your wattmeter isn't reading the wattage correctly because of the strange current waveform of what's most likely a triac dimmer (power factor). The bulbs are mostly gimmicky but at least didn't require a smart device to perform their function. Also this shape looks quite neat!

[@Wyatt_James]

Actually, if you read closely on the package, it says "lumen equivalent to." Incandescent bulbs become less efficient the dimmer they're run, so at its "40 watt" setting that really consumes 65 watts is likely putting out about 400-450 lumens, like a standard 40 watt bulb.

[@westelaudio943]

@@Wyatt_James Indeed. An inefficiently running, under-volted bulb will also last longer. But unless it's cold outside, it will be a waste of power of course. I mostly run incandescent bulbs only in winter anyways. Ironically the infrared from those bulbs is quite efficient as heating even if it's not much.

[@jmi5969]

Current five-dollar chinese wattmeters are quite good with odd power factors. I don't have any triac regulators around to check it, but they appear to be spot on with bridge rectifier loads.

[@oscar_charlie]

@@Wyatt_James Good catch on the "lumen equivalent" fine print.

[@jeepsblackpowderandlights4305]

@@westelaudio943 . Ive gotten so used to leds these days.. when i refurbed my halogen 300w t3 flood.. i forgot about the crazy amount of instant warmth they put out

[@DriftingMunki]

Philips still makes similar 3 way dimmable led lightbulbs that they market under the name “sceneswitch”, I love them. Not only do they reduce the wattage progressively, but they also change the color temperature. Check them out. Great video!

[@applegal3058]

I bought my first light bulb in years today. I never really thought about them until I had to track down the exact type of bulb to match the remaining bulbs in the light fixture. This led to a little research into LED bulbs. The engineering behind them is quite fascinating.

[@MrDuncl]

You might be buying another sooner than you think. Many of the modern bulbs seem to be built down to a price rather than up to a longevity standard. Five out of six Philips LED bulbs failed within about four years. The first of their replacements failed a couple of months ago. I took it apart and the capacitor inside had overheated.

[@applegal3058]

@@MrDuncl oh, I believe it.

[@alexxbaudwhyn7572]

11:00 Better plot and more suspense than the Star wars sequel trilogy

[@themaritimegirl]

Thanks for being able to show the whole collection! I have five examples of the "Back-Up" bulb, the only one to not actually be electronically controlled. Mine were made before the introduction of the IQ Lighting brand, and are thus called the "Watchman" bulb.

[@Lachlant1984]

Would you please make a video about the bulbs you have?

[@themaritimegirl]

@@Lachlant1984 Absolutely; been in the plans for a few months now. Don't know when I'll get to it, but it will definitely be done.

[@HappyDiscoDeath]

A mash up of Canada and Idaho! me gusta.

[@Lachlant1984]

@@HappyDiscoDeath I don't understand your comment, would you explain that please?

[@HappyDiscoDeath]

@@Lachlant1984 The Maritime Girl is in Canada, and the chips in the light bulbs were invented and manufactured in Idaho.

[@michaeljohn9263]

That dimming bulb would have been great to have 30 years ago for my kid sister as she was scared of the dark. Great work on the video; I never thought I'd be this interested in light bulbs and oddly enough at 44 years old I've never seen theses bulbs. I never seen them in the stores or at anyone's house. Thanks again for the video buddy! Greetings from Canada.

[@AMDRADEONRUBY]

Oh nice I missed good old lightbulb videos from you ! What a early gift for xmas thanks Kevin

[@cxjeter]

I still have my smart bulbs since 1996

[@povilasstaniulis9484]

Switching the power on and off is still used as an input for computer chips in modern smartbulbs. For example, Phillips WiZ lights (powered by the ESP32 platform) use it to switch between lighting modes without a controller and to enter setup mode. Would be interesting to know how exacly the chips register switch inputs. Modern bulbs do have a small ammount of non-volatile storage in them in form of flash memory to store the last state, but what did the older ones like these IQ ones use ? Perhaps a capacitor to keep the computer chip powered for a short while after AC is switched off ?

[@tonygroenewoud-powell53]

I love your videos and your dry, camp delivery. You should consider doing stand-up! Good job!

[@no-damn-alias]

12:23 wow a backup filament. Now that's fancy

[@scottcol23]

We had those exact bulbs in our house back in the day. We had them in the living room, and bedrooms. after a while you got used to flipping the light on and off to get the right setting. I never gave it much thought. but they were ahead of their time for sure.

[@bjn714]

We also had the X10 protocol for controlling electronic devices and lamps remotely. It supported addressing 256 devices directly over the power line. Though I had to stop using mine in the early 2000's when my PCs started coming with input filtering capacitors, which kill the X10 signal for quite a good wire distance from the PC itself. And now near everything that receives or transmits a signal and runs on DC has them. This is also why powerline networking adapters are so terrible -- input filtering caps everywhere attenuating the signal. Thanks for digging up some old tech that I actually used! I had one in my bedroom back then. I thought it was neat, then it eventually died and my spare was also dead. Can't believe you have 3 working ones in 2022, when I couldn't even keep one spare alive, untouched in a closet, for 3 years.

[@proCaylak]

as a person who uses powerline adapter, you got me curious about that input filtering cap issue. The router on the receiving side gets cut off sometimes, can it happen because of the input filtering caps of the other devices nearby?

[@bjn714]

@@proCaylak could definitely be related. You can try unplugging unnecessary devices that are nearby on the same circuit and plug them back in one by one and see if any trigger it specifically. Most common devices to have input filtering would be anything that sends or receives a signal, so in addition to PC power supplies, TVs, audio and video receivers are the most likely to have the capacitive input filtering that is prone to causing issues with powerline networking.

[@equid0x]

It's just cheap Chinese switch mode power supplies. Use an AM radio to track down which device is creating a ton of interference and unplug it. In my case, it was a $20 Target DVD player. I still have X10 devices and they still work fine.

[@S41t4r4]

I, personally, can't verify the problem with power line. Modern power line adapters are designed around typical noise levels. The only problem they have or connections over multiple phases.

[@MrDuncl]

X10 sounds very similar to what Hornby were doing with their Zero 1 model railway controllers in the late 1970s. Interestingly I just read that that was based around TMS1000 four bit microcontrollers.

[@hardrivethrutown]

I love the idea of these (especially incandescent), all of them are really cool ideas, I really like the night-light one

[@angryshoebox]

Cool. I don't remember these bulbs when they came out, but they should've made a module that just slow-powers on the filament to extend a bulb's life. I think more people would've appreciated that feature more than the dimmer or timer ones. I know I would've, because that's what I hated the most about incandescent bulbs: having to change them every few months, and having them suddenly burn out on you when turned on, especially at night (I can't tell you how many times that happened to me back in the day). Actually, by 1994 I was buying compact fluorescent bulbs.

[@vwestlife]

In the '80s they did sell inserts to extend the life of light bulbs, at the cost of losing some brightness and causing the bulb to not fit as snugly in the socket. But when CFLs and longer-life halogen bulbs became commonly available, they were discontinued.

[@georgeyreynolds]

It isn't in the bulb manufacturers interest to sell you something once which means demand for bulbs will halve though!

[@martinweizenacker7129]

Regarding the measured power consumption not matching what the box says, you need to very carefully read what it says on the box. It says *Lumen equivalent to* which is not the same as the _actual_ power drawn in watts. It's because a dimmed incandescent lamp is less efficient and needs more watts for the same light output.

[@evefavretto]

I've seen some recent bulbs (LED, of course) that can do that trick of just flicking the switch to change something. Philips/Signify sells some that change brightness and I have a random one that changes color temperature. The timer bulbs remind me of a Raid mosquito repellent that I have, that you can set it to turn on for 8 or 12 hours (or always on). It counts the hours from the moment you plug it in. Only problem is if the power goes out

[@christianelzey9703]

I have some of those, SceneSwitch is the branding for them I think. They actually work pretty well, I like having cool white when the sun is up and warm when it's down, and these got me that in my ceiling fixtures without having to deal with any "smart" nonsense. Only issue is that one time one got out of sync with the others, probably due to a voltage dip or something...

[@bbishoppcm]

I had the Philips IQ “auto off” bulb; I asked my mom to get it for me when I was 11 or so. I used it as a bedroom light bulb for a few months before I got sick of having to turn the switch off and on every thirty f***ing minutes! This would have been around 1995 or so, when the thought of a light bulb with a built in timer was incredibly futuristic! I think SpatsBear did a video of a CRT bulb that was briefly produced a few years back as an energy saving bulb that competed with LED and Fluourescent bulbs.

[@Spheredalai]

to be honest the "after 10 minutes off the bulb will reset to the highest brightness" is a feature smart bulbs nowadays need, i hate when i set my lamp to lowest brightness then turn if off in the morning only to find out the lamp is set to the lowest brightness when i turn it back on and i had to fiddle on the IOT app to set it to the correct brightness i want, these crucial times is important when i just need a max brightness in an instant for example while in an emergency

[@RobinFPVflights]

First time being early on a video, just wanted to say I really appreciate you making all this content it's always interesting and you teach me allot, wish you all the best💜

[@SaberTail]

Growing up, my mom put one of the 30 minute timer bulbs in my bedroom because she thought I was wasting too much energy by accidentally leaving the lights on. The one I had worked slightly differently than the 6 hour bulb you showed. The 30 minute bulb didn't have any sort of memory; it simply turned off after 30 minutes (after a one minute warning flash). If you turned the switch off and on again immediately after turning on the bulb, it would disable the timer until you turned it off manually.

[@jaykay18]

I think my dad has a couple of those. Never used, of course. Pretty sure he found them on a closeout somewhere, and with the enticing features and enticing price, he bought. He also has one of those Abco discs that you put in the socket with a regular bulb. But those are not Abco brand. There were two varieties that I remember. One simply acted as a resistor, and dimmed the bulb slightly, which claimed to offer much longer bulb life. The other one is a flasher, ON-OFF-ON-OFF-ON and the light starts flashing. These also fade the light up to full brightness to avoid inrush current.

[@compu85]

I have a Wiz WiFi bulb which has the switch controlled dimmer function too - including a 30 fade to off function. It's quite useful, and once programmed the lamp remembers how it's set up, and doesn't need WiFi anymore.

[@veganguy74]

I really like the slow fade to full brightness with these bulbs. That’s how I prefer it with my LEDs. It’s much less jarring.

[@Wyatt_James]

I saw the box for one of these at Goodwill, but sadly the bulb inside was not matched.

[@vwestlife]

Yes, you have to watch out for that, especially when buying these bulbs on eBay. I tried to get one of the 30-minute Auto-Off IQ Lighting bulbs, but every one I saw had some generic bulb stuck in the package -- until just recently when a real one was listed, too late to make it into the video.

[@Wyatt_James]

Update: finally found one! It's a dimmer unit, seemingly unused, from a ReStor. Neat bulb! It cost me 50 cents. The most surprising thing to me is how robust the packaging is; it's much beefier paperboard than the usual light bulb packaging.

[@discocrisco]

I think the word "equivalent" is doing a lot of work on the dimmer bulb packaging. Light levels on dimmed settings are probably comparable to a lower wattage bulb but whatever is happening to divert power away from the filament causes efficiency loss.

[@ntsecrets]

I just commented the same thing!

[@katelyn6989]

7

[@uxwbill]

Just before you mentioned it in the video, I got to thinking of those little in-socket flasher discs or diode-based bulb lifetime extenders...and that this idea might have made more sense in that embodiment. I am curious if the Abco implementation was any more successful. When one of the finally fails, it might be interesting to see the internals. I am also curious as to whose microcontroller they might have used, and if they might have even come up with a way to program the bulb after it was assembled.

[@Leurak]

I'm interested in how they keep the state present for at least 10 minutes when the power is off, especially in such a small package before the era of ultra low power microcontrollers

[@MrDuncl]

@@Leurak In the 1980s I had a Casio calculator that would remember its memory contents for minutes if you took the battery out. What they are trying to do isn't much different from a digital watch and they run for years on a tiny battery.

[@SimplyElectronicsOfficial]

The schematics show that these are thyristor controlled bulbs. Thyristors are used in typical dimmer switches. So they basically integrated a thyristor inside these bulbs with a microchip which is using PWM to set the brightness levels by applying phase angle control, essentially adjusting the average voltage across the filament, this is the same technique which is used today to control Industrial DC motor Speed/Current control.

[@jamesadams2333]

I'd say they are quite impressive for their day especially considering they are basically using 80's computer technology. Hell the internet wasn't even a thing yet.I love old innovative things. It's that sort of creativity we need today. Well done I say.

[@andresbravo2003]

Man, this is quite smart. Lightbulbs really did that.

[@versedbridge4007]

Hmm, more like Phillips IQue! Had no ideas these existed, thanks for posting.

[@twocvbloke]

The function operation by switching the light off and on is still a thing today with some lightbulb products, in the past I had a Philips CFL bulb that had two sodium-yellow LEDs inside to act as a nightlight (wasn't nice) that to switch between the modes required you to turn it on and off again, same for a later non-Philips CFL (cold white LEDs this time) I had, and finally the same for a "GroLight" interstitial device between bulb and socket which is intended for use as nightlighting for a baby's bedroom (though again, cold white LEDs), but in my case I modded it with warm white LEDs and use it on the landing at the top of the stairs, and is handy for low-energy light, aswell as for the night time pee runs... :P

[@Unknown_Ooh]

Funny how prices for smart bulbs really haven't changed. I paid $5 for my smart led bulb that can change colors, dim, flash, etc from my Alexa or phone app. Same price just a little more features these days.

[@Riiludragon]

Smart enough to control the lightbulb, but dumb enough that hackers cant use it to mine bitcoin and DDOS. This is the perfect level of intelligence for a lightbulb. No wifi required.

[@theseob]

The dimable light is still sold as a led version. We use one in a light fixture.

[@herbcraven7146]

I sold both the IQ Lighting products and the Bulb Boss in the hardware store where I worked in the mid-nineties. Or rather, didn't sell them. The kind of "smart home" technology that we are used to nowadays was viewed as more a novelty than a necessity back then. Even programmable thermostats were a hard sell when people were used to just getting up and adjusting a dial if they were hot or cold. Folks on the whole were also a lot skinnier back then. Coincidence?

[@frankowalker4662]

The adapters are a better, (and cheaper), way to go. Great choice of music for the timelapse clips. :) Very clever for the day.

[@theminicooper]

I actually have a bulb that has a 30 min timer. If you turn it off and on, it expends it to 2h. And this also flashes before turning off. I haven't powered it in SO long and it's stored in a plastic bin in storage. I also remember purchasing those inserts for fairly cheap.

[@applecider]

opening a vwestlife video and seeing linus just pop up like that was an interesting jump scare experience

[@FordTransitvan]

Love all this oddware

[@joman66]

God I love early 90s packaging asthetics.

[@ksx4system]

What's that instrumental song around 7:00? :)

[@vwestlife]

Click on the card that pops up when it starts playing.

[@Beaula2]

Thank you for the good video

[@simonbeasley989]

Excellent video, I'd not seen these before, very innovative and now our lighting is super long life LED maybe they should do a new release. Horrifying to see how many watts it used to take to make lumens in incandescent days!

[@wolfietigerstripes3248]

True but in my experence, nothing dims like a halegeon or incandescent bulb, leds you can't quite get that nice low warm candle light glow a filament bulb provides when put on a dimmer switch.

[@chrisbailey7384]

@@wolfietigerstripes3248 Yup! That's because LED's don't produce light using blackbody radiation principle. White LED's are actually deep blue or UV chip with a phosphor covering it to convert it to white light, so it operates the same way as fluorescent bulb.

[@MrDuncl]

@@wolfietigerstripes3248 Technology Connections is a big fan of Philips "Warmglow" bulbs that mimic that using different colour LEDs.

[@eftalanquest]

wasn't expecting tiny canadian man who drops things to be the first thing in this video

[@vwestlife]

I wish he'd drop his beard and hat.

[@deeiks12]

These are pretty clever. If i knew of these back in the day i would've probably bought some.

[@zepplin839]

The 6 hour timing bulb is absolutely fascinating. I wonder if the microcontroller has time drift after a few weeks.

[@Mrshoujo]

My dad got a light blub flasher module from where he worked and as a joke stuck it in his porch light and then told us kids "There's something wrong with it!" as we would laugh and watch it flash.

[@caseyrevoir]

Impressive how hot that little component must get.

[@xylxylxylxyl]

What's the song at 6:56?

[@zach00001234]

The box was clearly marked saying it were the lumen equivalent of the listed wattages in a normal bulb, not that the bulb drew those wattages listed.

[@plan7a]

Alternative comment: (Well someone had to do it!): Sounds like a bright idea to me!!💡💡

[@Ale.K7]

Very interesting, I didn't know these existed!

[@Spyd77]

I hope Big Clive gets one of those, I would love to see the insides and the reverse-engineered schematics.

[@vwestlife]

The schematics are shown in the patent.

[@Spyd77]

@@vwestlife Yeah, but I want to know also how they managed the power supply for the electronics, and also I like how he explains the schematics and his opinions about how it's designed.

[@ntsecrets]

4:20 I wonder if they were doing "equivalent light output vs. consumption" in those stated wattage numbers. Maybe the lamp was a long life design that used more power but had less output lumen per watt, and maybe some loss in the dimming circuitry too (although that would be a LOT of loss!)

[@davidperry4013]

You should show the first ever screw base LED light bulbs.

[@BUMMY105]

seeing the proto versions of current wireless technology made me incredibly astonished as to how much our lives currently revolve around Bluetooth. I remembered as a child back in the early 2000's seeing the Bluetooth logo and thinking, "Man, what does this weird blue thing even do?" and get disappointed seeing how little it does when I found a device with Bluetooth functionality. Now every home or travel tech that I use heavily depends on Bluetooth for it to properly function (except for most stuff for my computer. Bluetooth latency is a pain in my butt when it comes to the use of Mouse and Keyboard). From my smart bulbs to my wireless travel headphones, everything needs it.

[@app0the]

It's interesting how also either the OBEX function which was a big deal for Bluetooth in mobiles kinda died off; or it's just modern compression techniques stuffing so much into such a slow protocol. You can stream spotify to your headphones via your watch in a decent enough quality, but try sending an actual file without using a WiFi backed thing (i.e. Airdrop) and welcome back to the dial-up paced part of your childhood you actually don't have nostalgia for.

[@mirelurk-fish7387]

You should review the world first smart computerized ceiling fan by Emerson made in 1984

[@Lachlant1984]

I can actually remember similar bulbs being sold here in Australia, I think I first read about them in 1995 or so, they were made by Ringgrip, I believe they were called Smart Glo bulbs. It's possible they may have been using the same core technology as these Philips bulbs. I remember our local Mire 10 hardware store selling them in 1997. I wanted some, but Mum said if I wanted them I'd have to pay for them because of course they cost more money than a regular bulb. You know, you really could design modern lightbulbs that operate in the exact same way without needing Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or a smart phone. Given how commonplace Internet connected smart bulbs are now, I don't know how much market there is for bulbs like this now. I do believe Nanoleaf made a dimmable bulb that didn't require a smartphone to operate.

[@simplygame5530]

There apparently is some market for similar bulbs here in india except now they are using leds. These are still selling well here. There is also another variant which has a lithium battery and they call it inverter bulb or something.

[@Lachlant1984]

@@simplygame5530 Ah, interesting. I know BigClive reviewed a bulb with a battery in it, the bulb was designed such that it would operate in a power outage and the standard wall switch would turn the bulb on and off even when operating in battery mode, he explained how that worked, but I couldn't understand it.

[@raymondmartin6737]

This was light entertainment!

[@AgentOffice]

Wow it's incredibly hot for the chip. And how'd they use a relay in there?? And what power supply

[@grimreboot]

Thank you for the upload! :)

[@dross1705]

Another fine video, sir 😊

[@BurnRoddy]

I remmeber OSRAM promoting new lightbulbs back in 1996 (thought it was 95 but I just checked) for Spanish TV. Not sure if it was smart lighting as I think only Phillips had that tech available att but I grew up in a small city in South America and we only began seeing smart lights back in 2005 which is almost 10 years after I first saw them on TV.

[@TradieTrev]

That's pretty cool for 1994! Pretty sure X10 predates these devices with similar functions.

[@the_kombinator]

These are amazing! I'd love to get my hands on a dozen or so.

[@Plasmacore_V]

Don't know if it's just me, but the Nightlite Plus seemed to have a faint but annoying whine at the night light level. ( 10:12 )

[@vwestlife]

Yes indeed, the NiteLite bulbs does make a whine when running at its lowest level. But I assume they didn't do that when new.

[@TheNightshadePrince]

No time lapse to see if the bulb boss actually lasts ten years?!? :)

[@masterargento90x]

7:07 Hey Kevin, what's the name of that song you're using? I can't find it anywhere.

[@vwestlife]

Click on the card that pops up when it starts playing.

[@masterargento90x]

@@vwestlife Thanks Kevin!

[@carltonleboss]

Fascinating devices.

[@LaytonKnightt]

Do you know if there are anything still like these still on the market? These seem very simple and you don’t have to connect it to your phone.

[@zacksstuff]

I have a Feit Electric LED bulb that does the same thing as that Dimmer bulb. It's got a 60w, a 30w, and a 6w equivalent mode. I use one on my stairs and one in my windowless bathroom, both on their low setting (which uses about 1.4w from the wall), and both running 24/7. And when I need more light it becomes a 60w equivalent bulb.

[@Warp2090]

windowless bathroom

[@zacksstuff]

@@Warp2090 I live in a townhouse, the bathroom isn't against an exterior wall.

[@Warp2090]

@@zacksstuff oh

[@DarkChewie]

I'm from Brazil, I remember having one like the first one when I was a kid

[@BigCar2]

Looks like there's a translation problem between the boffins who made it and the marketers at 2:18. "...of the complete power controller 10 and the controller...". I think the "10" should have been "IO".

[@vwestlife]

No, it's referring to number 10 in the illustration.

[@AttilaSVK]

My dad got me a similar "self dimming" LED bulb a few years ago in Lidl or Kaufland, I don't recall. I still use it daily.

[@homg85]

We had some of these, or similar! I remember being mesmerised! I thought we were living in the future! 😂

[@Shiro_Amada]

4:58 100, 80, 70, 40. Seems like the watts are correct just not the box.

[@douglasallen9428]

Thanks for the enlightening video!

[@TravisTev]

Neat. I remember seeing these in a store years ago, but never had the chance to buy or see them in operation. I agree that the stand-alone controllers that you could use with ordinary bulbs were a better idea, but I never knew about or saw those. I've read from a source I trust that soft-starting non-halogen incandescent bulbs only improves life by (at best) a few percent. Once the filament gets to the point that starting will cause it to fail, it's already in pretty bad shape and won't survive steady-state operation much longer either. To get double the life, it's likely something else was going on in addition, probably the triac dimming circuitry in the chip reducing voltage slightly at full brightness as they generally do. Even a slight reduction in input voltage is enough to dramatically extend the lifespan of a tungsten filament, at the expense of luminous efficacy. (A common example is those “long-life” bulbs made with 130-volt filaments but intended to actually be run at 120 volts.)

[@DimensionDude]

Interesting. I don't recall seeing these in stores back in the day, but then again, how often does one shop for light bulbs? Also, did not expect Sam the Eagle!

[@plan7a]

More reasons why turning the computer off and on again works? Just a thought!💡

[@tuylv.g.7976]

A question about The dimming bulb, does the color temperature increase when dimmed? Just like a normal dimmer or does it stay the same? Maybe there are different spirals inside for different dimming stages? If the last is the case I can see this to be very effective in lighting on film sets. Thanks

[@vwestlife]

The color temperature does get warmer (more yellowish) the more it dims.

[@Pillowcase]

Pretty impressive for the era

[@leozendo3500]

5:00 the reading errrors are mostly likly due to wave shaping and the watt meter not being true RMS. Try testing with a true RMS meter?

[@vwestlife]

The Kill-A-Watt is a true RMS meter. If you read the fine print on the bulb's package, it says the wattages it lists are "lumen equivalent" wattages.

[@DankRedditMemes]

Granted for the first (dimmer) bulb, it says "lumen *equivalent* to", not that it is the listed wattage.

[@jacknedry3925]

These are friggin' sweet!

[@justovision]

The power supply for the microcontroller at that time, in that space, is the most impressive thing to me. Is it a cheap capacitive dropper or a transformer?

[@justovision]

Wattage of light doesn't include losses in the cables and the dimming. It makes sense that the lower you go the less efficient it is.

[@MonoChorMe]

Since we're on the topic of lights... (slightly unrelated) but the other day I bought those "Rice" Christmas tree garlands (x140 bulbs)... Anyway, one of the wire strands fell out the housing, so I had to open it and re-solder the wire... and the most bizarre thing happened was that... instead of the typical COB (chip on board - a.k.a. the black blob on a PCB) with a couple of resistors and [sometimes] with 4 diodes for smoothing... All I saw was a bloody LED and 3 micro resistors (surface mount) - THAT'S IT! ... And I was mystified as to how that is. After some brainstorming, I realized that to evidently make it cheaper -- and heck the board was half the size than those lights that I bought back like 20 years ago -- I in fact deduced that what they've done is, is they've used an LED housing and incorporated the IC chip inside of it instead (basically it's a "pseudo-LED"). It still has the same 8 programs (they've existed since infinitum hah.) It's just amazing what an interesting design layout this is. I've never seen anything build this way - it was rather bizarre indeed.

[@chrisa2735-h3z]

I wish there were glass led replacements that were the same shape and size as these!

[@kassemir]

Phillips still have light bulbs that are controlled through the regular light switch, or at least I know they did about 2 years ago, last time I had to buy a new bulb. Mine changes from day light to a more yellow light with multiple clicks on the light switch.

[@MagnumForce51]

I imagine if these bulbs burned out you can take the little PCB thing out of the base and wire it into a socket adapter or something (or a wire adapter if using on lamps) and convert any bulb (within the origina spec) to a smart bulb. :D

[@coolelectronics1759]

Wow I am curious to know if that bulb boss would work with dimmable led bulbs today. These were pretty neat contraptions for the day thats for sure.

[@dylan.t180]

Impressive thanks for sharing