Saturday: E26 but not necessarily A19
Oct. 5th, 2024 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI did a lot of research into lighting not that long ago, and around the time I was feeling like I knew All the Lighting, I tripped over a bunch of really cool solar lights, and then I figured, okay, NOW I know All the Lighting. But nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.
There is always more lighting.
For future readers, a little backstory. Back before batteries were cheap, rechargeable, powerful and ubiquitous, small, powerful, battery operated lighting wasn’t that small or that powerful, and the batteries didn’t last very long, and they were called “flashlights” (or “torches”) and were somewhat rod-shaped, often made of metal. They were kind of expensive, altho obviously like everything else, the details evolved over time. We hit a really interesting point when you could make a super tiny, powerful light and put it on your keychain, and then Most of Us Stopped Using Keys. But that was fine, because everyone kind of started using their phone as their watch so it was natural to then start using your phone as your light as well. You knew you were well into this trend, when the butane portable lighter was replaced at arena rock concerts by cell phone flashlights for holding up and making lots of bright little lights in a dark stadium.
We also had the “puck” light, which was a hockey puck shaped plastic device with buttons that you could stick up on a wall or whatever somewhere you needed light but where wiring a light was inconvenient. Inside your dry-bar cabinet. Your kitchen drawer. Your closet. In roughly this same time frame, you also so proliferation of small solar panel + rechargeable battery + LED devices, aimed at campers, and for use in a power outage. Around this point, the flashlight kind of ceased to be a recognizable as such device.
And that’s the backstory.
Now, you can buy E26 (“normal” light bulb base) but not always A19 (“normal” light bulb shape) bulbs that have Extra Features. I ran across this today, but it’s NOT a new trend. GE sells bulbs in their GE+ range that do a variety of things. They have a speaker bulb that connects to an app or whatever, and you can link up to 10 of them and that lets you play music _through the bulb_. Is that weird? Sure. R. already knew about it.
You can buy GE+ backup, which you can screw in, and it works as a “normal” bulb, but if the power goes out, it’ll run for quite a while off the rechargeable battery. There are tons of variants on this themes from other brands that have a hook to hang it in your tent, a remote to remotely turn it on or off, color changing, dimming, you name it. Some of them screw into an E26 base, but don’t run power through it and you have to charge them through a USB-C port. These seem aimed at putting a “nice” lamp somewhere you don’t have power (maybe a sconce or on a high shelf or whatever).
There are dusk-to-dawn bulbs (turn themselves off when it’s light around them). There are motion sensor bulbs. There are timer bulbs. All of these build the smarts more or less completely into the bulb, vs. buying a “smart bulb” that you then program via an app.
It is absolutely wild what is out there. I’m trying to figure out whether I feel smart to focusing on lighting options that have E26 / A19 lighting element assumptions, or if this is one of those weirdo extinction bursts and in 10 years, no one will even know what a “normal” bulb means anymore.
ETA:
And yes, there are Amazon Basics, and all kind of list of letters brands out there with all of these product types as well. I mention the GE line, purely because it indicates that someone felt like the market was big enough to bother layering on the added cost of a Boomer familiar brand.
Also, just to be super clear, I haven’t bought any of these, I don’t plan to do so, I’m not recommending any of these, and there are absolutely some negative reviews out there about some of the products not behaving as advertised. So if you decide to explore this area for a large project, you might want to order one of each of a couple of the brands you are thinking of using to make sure you are able to get at least one that works as described. It also looks like anything that offers “linking” features will require you to use an app for that/those features, so maybe get the app before ordering the device or read reviews of the app before ordering the device. Some of this stuff seems to “just work”, but not all of it. Forewarned, etc.
There is always more lighting.
For future readers, a little backstory. Back before batteries were cheap, rechargeable, powerful and ubiquitous, small, powerful, battery operated lighting wasn’t that small or that powerful, and the batteries didn’t last very long, and they were called “flashlights” (or “torches”) and were somewhat rod-shaped, often made of metal. They were kind of expensive, altho obviously like everything else, the details evolved over time. We hit a really interesting point when you could make a super tiny, powerful light and put it on your keychain, and then Most of Us Stopped Using Keys. But that was fine, because everyone kind of started using their phone as their watch so it was natural to then start using your phone as your light as well. You knew you were well into this trend, when the butane portable lighter was replaced at arena rock concerts by cell phone flashlights for holding up and making lots of bright little lights in a dark stadium.
We also had the “puck” light, which was a hockey puck shaped plastic device with buttons that you could stick up on a wall or whatever somewhere you needed light but where wiring a light was inconvenient. Inside your dry-bar cabinet. Your kitchen drawer. Your closet. In roughly this same time frame, you also so proliferation of small solar panel + rechargeable battery + LED devices, aimed at campers, and for use in a power outage. Around this point, the flashlight kind of ceased to be a recognizable as such device.
And that’s the backstory.
Now, you can buy E26 (“normal” light bulb base) but not always A19 (“normal” light bulb shape) bulbs that have Extra Features. I ran across this today, but it’s NOT a new trend. GE sells bulbs in their GE+ range that do a variety of things. They have a speaker bulb that connects to an app or whatever, and you can link up to 10 of them and that lets you play music _through the bulb_. Is that weird? Sure. R. already knew about it.
You can buy GE+ backup, which you can screw in, and it works as a “normal” bulb, but if the power goes out, it’ll run for quite a while off the rechargeable battery. There are tons of variants on this themes from other brands that have a hook to hang it in your tent, a remote to remotely turn it on or off, color changing, dimming, you name it. Some of them screw into an E26 base, but don’t run power through it and you have to charge them through a USB-C port. These seem aimed at putting a “nice” lamp somewhere you don’t have power (maybe a sconce or on a high shelf or whatever).
There are dusk-to-dawn bulbs (turn themselves off when it’s light around them). There are motion sensor bulbs. There are timer bulbs. All of these build the smarts more or less completely into the bulb, vs. buying a “smart bulb” that you then program via an app.
It is absolutely wild what is out there. I’m trying to figure out whether I feel smart to focusing on lighting options that have E26 / A19 lighting element assumptions, or if this is one of those weirdo extinction bursts and in 10 years, no one will even know what a “normal” bulb means anymore.
ETA:
And yes, there are Amazon Basics, and all kind of list of letters brands out there with all of these product types as well. I mention the GE line, purely because it indicates that someone felt like the market was big enough to bother layering on the added cost of a Boomer familiar brand.
Also, just to be super clear, I haven’t bought any of these, I don’t plan to do so, I’m not recommending any of these, and there are absolutely some negative reviews out there about some of the products not behaving as advertised. So if you decide to explore this area for a large project, you might want to order one of each of a couple of the brands you are thinking of using to make sure you are able to get at least one that works as described. It also looks like anything that offers “linking” features will require you to use an app for that/those features, so maybe get the app before ordering the device or read reviews of the app before ordering the device. Some of this stuff seems to “just work”, but not all of it. Forewarned, etc.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-05 09:57 pm (UTC)