POLL: RGBW vs CCT

[Eric_Inovelli]

@Chrisml

What about Par-20 bulbs? I am surprised there’s little in the way of bulbs in this size. Every recessed light in my house has a full can behind it so I can choose to change out to a regular bulb or smart bulb depending on needs. I was just amazed I couldn’t find CCW bulbs in PAR20

@Capeland

I’m wondering if going more specialized is the way to go. Be that odd shapes like PAR20/PAR38/MR16 or maybe doing RGBALC (red, green, blue, amber, lime, cyan) or RGB+365nm or a wide range 10,000K-1200K white? How about frosted T185 or T30 bulbs? Those are all form factors where you just can’t get a Zigbee or ZW bulb.

Yeah these are excellent points and questions – definitely something I’ve thought about and wonder what the market size is for these.

There are a couple of reasons I’m hesitant and @MRobi hit on the major one:

• Does the risk outweigh the reward? I’m not sure and unfortunately I don’t have an marketing insights department that can give me some quantitative data that shows the market size and opportunity. And as he mentioned, it’s very difficult to recover from a failed product (our light strip for example is a good case-study)
  • While light strips were sort of mainstream at the time, there were no Z-Wave options and no “ready to market” options that had built in animations nor the customization you could do with ours – we thought we had a winner
  • Unfortunately, what I believe happened was that we were priced way too high (you could argue that Hue was priced the same, if not more, but they also have brand recognition and a ton of other lighting products to choose from) and no one outside of enthusiasts care about Z-Wave so they couldn’t justify the high price. In addition, while the research showed that people loved all the animations and cool colors, I still think it was a novelty for most people and again, hard to justify the price on that.
• The next point that gives me caution is also what @MRobi mentioned that I’ll take a step further – there are no other companies out there doing this, so there’s some sort of reason. This isn’t new technology like mmWave, so it’s not a matter of them not knowing about this opportunity, so that leads me to believe the opportunity size may not be there (although, the counterargument would be that it may not be enough for a large company, but enough small opportunities for a smaller company add up - which is what I’d like to quantify)
• Finally, our strategy has always been (aside from the mmWave switch) to take something that exists currently (and has a strong demand for) and make it the best there is - spend enough time on it that it will be hard to replicate and stay up-to-date with firmware/community feedback that we’re always on the cutting edge

NET: I definitely have thought about this as well, but without the qualitative data and internal capital, it’s hard to justify it. Whereas with A19/BR30, those are products that are currently in market (and have a high demand for) and we believe there are still some opportunities to explore that haven’t been developed by the competition yet.

In other words, the reason for this pole was to understand where we should start – RGBW or CCT. The actual bulb itself that we create is going to be different than all other bulbs out there, this won’t be your generic RGBW/CCT A19/BR30. I just don’t want to share the idea yet as I know the competition stalks these threads.

@Capeland

Just musing out loud… Does Inovelli see a niche for A19/BR30 RGBW or CCT bulbs? They seem to be the thing that the market already has met.

@Capeland

Just seems like like RGBW A19 is a market that is just too well met right now. Competing with IKEA isn’t easy.

Excellent point and pushback - and generally I would agree. There’s no way we can compete with just a basic A19/BR30. Even with some firmware tweaks, it would be hard to compete from multiple 4P (where are my marketing guys out there lol?) perspectives (pricing and product).

From a price standpoint, we’ll never be low enough to compete with IKEA nor the other random Chinese companies that have decent enough Zigbee/Matter bulbs. So, we can’t count on pricing to sell for us – which is fine as I’ve come to that realization a while back when I tried to have a less expensive Z-Wave switch (Black Series).

Where we shine is typically from a product standpoint – As mentioned, we try to make the best product there is and are priced accordingly. There’s only so much you can do with a light bulb. We can certainly add in some firmware features that aren’t currently in market, but even with those, I bet we’d still be at a $10-15 difference depending on how hard we lean in on CRI/Lumens, etc. Speaking of hardware, there is a definite need for a high CRI/Lumen option – but still, these are so niche that I don’t think mass market really cares.

So we have to come out with something that really justifies that price premium and I believe we have the answer

Just needed to understand where to start from a color standpoint because if we only have one shot, I don’t want to blow it.

@Capeland

I’m kind of surprised that modular bulbs aren’t a thing.

Me too

@danielandor

Could we also perhaps vote on the importance of CRI?

Yeah certainly and this is something that admittedly I don’t know as much as many others in this thread do, but I’d like to learn more.

When it comes to our brand and marketing our products, we try to aim for the best product we can come up with even when it may cost more as we’re not targeting the customer who wants the lowest priced products. Part of that best product is obviously the hardware which, as I’m learning quickly entails the details like CRI/RA, etc.

So what I’d like to do when we move this project forward is get some of you on the beta team who can give us some input in the hardware. In fact, I’d probably see if some of you can help me with briefing the manufacturer so they know what to come back with from an estimate standpoint.

[Capeland]

I guess the uncertainty would lead me to think that a modular approach would be smart. If you think your company’s value is in firmware development and maintenance, that’s exactly what you need to make modular bulbs work.

There’s a cost of engineering the modularity, but once you have that, you can add or discontinue modules to meet demand.

So you start by selling E26 and GU10 bases in ZW and Zigbee. 4 products, 2 pair are mechanically the same, 2 pair are electronically the same. If there’s demand, add WiFI or E12 or whatever.

Then sell the LED modules+optics separately. I would NOT make these separately, as optical designs might not be compatible with LED layout/sizes. So you’d sell say, RGB+WW in A19 and PAR20. The LED chips would be identical, but the circuit board layout and optics would be different, but at least you’d have “matching” colors and better order quantities of the LEDs. Later, as you see demand, make a new LED circuit board that

This would let a customer buy a Z-wave GU10 base and a RGB+WW PAR20 LED module and snap them together to make the exact bulb they need right now. In a couple years if they want to change to high CRI CCT, you can sell them that LED module, and they do the swap and your firmware handles that with an update. If they decide they want to change from PAR20 to PAR38, same thing. If they decide to change from Z-wave GU10 to Zigbee E26, no problem.

Point is, you as a manufacturer and us as consumers only have to worry about the product modules being there, we don’t need them combined. So maybe demand for Z-wave wanes, that won’t affect your investment in inventory of the LED modules. Or maybe as a consumer I’m not sure if I need to spend the money on a high CRI bulb, but I know I can upgrade it later if I want and I won’t have to add a new device to my smarthome, and I won’t have to spend the full price/waste of replacement.

Maybe the risk of making, say, a T185 bulbs goes down if you know you don’t have to build in the cost of the Z-wave chip, transformer, capacitors, etc… And the risk for consumers goes down because that $120 T185 bulb is at least partially reusable if we change out the light fixture it goes into.

I’m aware that I have no idea what that engineering cost is, so maybe this is all nuts. But I would really like to not have to worry about finding the perfect bulb, and I also would really like to not have to have anxiety about buying the wrong bulb or one that I have to toss out in 2 years because my needs changed.

[MRobi]

If I understand correctly, you’re talking an E26 base with essentially click together tops for the different shapes?

Would this even work? The base is typically for power, like a plug, and I’m picturing for this to work you’d also have to cram in all the chips and radios inside the base of the bulb. Then develop a completely idiot-proof way to connect this miniature hardware to a clip on bulb shape containing the LED’s. I say idiot proof because that connection needs to be made regardless of how the top is clipped on.

And all of this starting from nothing, inventing technology that the massive companies have not looked at, possibly developing new miniature chips… The startup cost would be huge to compete in a saturated space. To the end user, the ability to convert a BR30 to an A19 bulb at some point in the future wouldn’t really be a selling point since they can just buy that A19 bulb from Ikea for $8.99.

[Capeland]

@MRobi

Would this even work? The base is typically for power, like a plug, and I’m picturing for this to work you’d also have to cram in all the chips and radios inside the base of the bulb.

That’s how they’re done now anyway. I’ve seen zigbee bulbs in MR16 size. I think there would have to be a conceit that the optical components would have to be compact. You can’t have a parabolic or multifaced reflector, but (edit: surface mount) LEDs are directional lights and they’re usually small, so can have small lenses on them.

So if you’re starting from an MR16 as the minimum base size, expect ~80% of the volume of the assembled bulb to be “base” electronics. Only the front 20% of the volume would be LED’s and optics. But those electronics behind an A19 shape would be only ~30% of the volume. If you had an E26 base, you’d expect that you’d need 1-3 cm of extension beyond the socket, but most bulb shapes would be fine with that. Maybe A15 or R14 are too small, maybe not. But A19, PAR20, R30, T10, those should be easy to partially encapsulate part of the base.

Electrical pins or spring pads are not new technology, especially for something that only needs to handle a few dozen cycles. And these are all low voltage, low current connections. Likewise, clip on plastic connectors or twist on connectors are commonplace. That’s not the hard part. The hard part would be settling on a design that gives you enough flexibility. Too small, and you have heat issues, too large, and it won’t fit all light fixtures.

[Gtaz19]

Almost every room in my house has HUE/WIZ/LIFX bulbs. Two of my bathrooms don’t have a smart color bulb and some of the closets. The kids rooms and the playroom get the most use, but I also have scenes set up in the master bedroom, which I use quite often. It really sets a relaxing mood if you do it right and its not like a lounge or club feel which would not be nice. I have scenes setup in most areas that give a nice comfy feel or a little ambiance. In the movie area downstairs I have scenes for movies with some red lighting away from the seating area so if you get up you can see what you’re doing. I’d like to use the new MM switches to maybe turn up lights and pause the TV if a seated person stands up, that seems like a cool use case. OK, don’t feel like rereading what I wrote just now, hope the brain vomit made some sense…

[slojim]

answering late, but the poll request is still up, so…I have mostly dumb bulbs. Of the smart ones, I bought color changing for the gadget factor for 2 fixtures in different rooms. I use them occasionally, but they are about my limit. My use case for them was as notifications with different colors - like a leak detector or a weather alert. Even on the white bulbs, we rarely change the color - just the level. I don’t regret the color bulbs, but I don’t need them everywhere.