Living "Smart" at Stately Matt Manor

30 December 2018

#IoT  •  #UserExperience  •  #StarWars  •  #ProductOwnership

Over the holidays I started fiddling with Philips' Hue smart lights and that's led to a sort of revolution in Matt Manor. I had no idea I really needed 16 million lighting color options at my disposal until I plugged in that first bulb. It was a transformative experience. So much so, I quickly went from two lamps and two bulbs to five light installations and nine bulbs. (It didn't hurt there was also a 20% off sale for Christmas.)

I'm a little disappointed in myself for not having latched onto them sooner. The lights have been on the market for a while, going back to 2012 (as an Apple exclusive); the current, third generation bulbs were released in 2016 and are compatible across the major platforms (Apple, Google, Amazon).

My nightstand now serves as a microcosm of the Internet of Things (IoT) and it's also a reminder of how quickly IoT has taken hold, largely as an improvement to the quality of life (in some respects, addressing the most cosmetic of First World issues).

So, let's dissect this photo of my Nightstand of Things.

1. Candle — smart scents; a little aromatherapy and a stylish candle cover make for some nifty atmospherics
2. Buddha from my days in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) — smart karma
3. Buddha from my days in Shanghai — more smart karma
4. Coaster from Lisbon — a smart move to protect the nightstand's "unfinished" surface
5. A French fry-shaped piece of soap. Okay. Nothing particularly "smart" about this, other than it's a smart time to take a photo of it. After all, there aren't many photo opps for such a thing. (It's a souvenir from a recent trip to New Orleans; a woman outside a boutique soap shop in the French Quarter gave it to me as an enticement — and, yes, she did warn me to not eat it). On a more serious note, I'll put on my pretentious artist's cap and say, ostentasiously, its inclusion here is a damning indictment of society's mores, stererotypes and biases in regard to bachelors and their levels of cleanliness and interior decorating sophistication.
6. iPhone (in a rugged, Moleskine-like case from Pad & Quill) — the smart device behind the Hue lights, R2, Echo Show and my (smart) TV — and it even makes the occasional phone call
7. R2-D2 — I went under the hood of this little R2 unit from Sphero
8. Amazon Echo Show — Alexa's news story summaries are pretty weak and offer little more information than the request-baiting headlines, but it's a nice, interactive evolution of the ol' alarm clock. I was one of the first to get an Amazon Echo. Heck, I can confirm it on Amazon.com — the order (by invitation only, at the time) was placed on 6 January 2015. Nearly four years later, it's still in use — and the family's expanded to include this Echo Show and three Echo Dots (a long story; they've become popular gifts).
9. Lamp with a Philips Hue color bulb — smart lighting
10. Nightstand — a kit from Target; I had to use my own smarts to put it together (well, okay, it's a dumbed-down kit; all I had to do, basically, was attach the legs)
11. My Pillow — no, really, it's actually a "My Pillow," as seen on TV; I took the bait on a Black Friday deal and, so far, I have been sleeping smarter. Note the cozy flannel pillow case for winter slumber.

Fashion and function. Matt Manor exudes a style all its own.

Here are a few details about Hue.

Setup is a breeze. Plug in the Hue hub and connect it to your wireless router, download the app and, of course, put the bulbs in the lamps or other lighting fixtures. That's it.

Creating rooms and assigning lights to them is a breeze. A dashboard provides easy access to any given room.

The time-consuming part is also the fun part: playing with the lights and exploring all the possibilities for mood, environment, effects, etc. The days of bulbs and lamps with three brightness options and the old-school dimmer knob are all blissfully put in the past.

Lighting color (and, by association, the intensity) can be controlled through a color wheel. Just push the marker around and watch the light change instantly.

There are also some preset scenes to create a certain mood or environmental effect. It tickled me to try "Arctic aurora" on a set of three track lights. The end bulbs had a darker color while the middle bulb was lighter. Nice.

Of course, there are also options to set the lights on timers and there are cool options that can be downloaded for themes like a Christmas tree-like lighting effects.

At this point, I'm all-in. There's no going back to standard bulbs. When it comes to something like lighting — previously written off as a limited options sort of necessity — life is better with the power of Hue.

Gratuitous photo of the two Buddhas, coaster and French fry-shaped soap

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