smart bulbs are all the rage these days but the idea of making an intelligent light bulb
is actually a lot older than you might think here I have three of the first ever smart bulbs
introduced by Philips in 1994 and they can do more useful things than just glow in different
colors they were sold under the name IQ Lighting it was based on a development by Beacon Technology
the Chicago Tribune wrote about these bulbs in their May 29th, 1994 issue with the headline
smart lighting they said that Philips IQ lighting bulbs were sold at Sears and other
large grocery and home center stores and they cost about four to five dollars each
they had several different varieties of these more than just the three I
have here this one is a dimmer bulb the light that works like a dimmer switch
here it says welcome to the IQ lighting series from Philips the dimmer has a microchip built
into the base of the bulb which allows you to select four light levels in any socket you
can choose the perfect amount of light for any task or mode without having to install special
wiring or fancy fixtures and they also last twice as long as standard incandescent bulbs
the directions are simply place into any regular lamp or wall fixture when first
turned on the highest light level will appear to change to lower levels simply
turn the light switch off and on again if the bulb stays unlit for any 10 minute period the
microchip will automatically reset itself to the highest level and here it mentions that
the technology in this bulb was developed by Beacon Light Products for its brand of
computerized light controller components inside this product and they list two patent numbers
the first patent was filed on April 28th, 1989 the inventor was Samuel A. Johnson of Eagle, Idaho
"you are all weirdos!"
and it shows the schematic of the circuitry inside the light bulb notice it mentions a
microprocessor and yes indeed if we look in the text it says the device is a single chip 4-bit
microcontroller being readily commercially available having internal random access
memory RAM read-only memory ROM and input/output drivers the many possible operating modes of the
complete power controller and the controller responses to momentary interruptions in the
applied AC voltage are determined by the computer program resident in internal ROM
and if we look at the second pattern also filed by Samuel A. Johnson of Beacon Light Products
in 1990 it shows how they were able to fit that microchip and the rest of the circuitry into the
base of the light bulb right in the bottom where it screws into the socket and in the diagram here
we can see number 11 is the microchip so yes these light bulbs have a built-in microchip
right here in the base which is basically a computer it has RAM and ROM and input and
output and it runs a computer program telling the light bulb what to do
and this may look like an odd shape for a light bulb but Philips was no stranger to
making odd shaped light bulbs for example in the 1980s they had square light bulbs
"time to change your light bulb Philips
longer life square bulbs last 33% longer than ordinary round bulbs"
but this diamond shaped design wasn't their own idea it was actually GTE Sylvania who
came up with that idea in the early 1980s and they called these the Capsylite bulbs
I have a few of those halogen Capsylite so that was Sylvania's idea which Phillips copied
so let's try out this IQ lighting dimmer bulb with
the built-in computer chip in the base I'm going to put it into this desk lamp here
and turn it on which is the maximum brightness
my watt meter is showing 103 Watts now if I turn it off and turn it back on
it dims down to around 83 Watts it said 70 Watts so that's a little bit higher than what they said
then we should get the next step of dimming if we turn it off and on again
and that is around 65 Watts which they said should be 40 Watts then once again turn it off
turn it on again and this should be the final stage of dimming which I'm reading 45 Watts which
they said should be 20 watts so we're not quite matching the wattages claimed on the packaging
so now if I turn it off and back on again we're back to full brightness and 103
Watts so it does work as intended it just doesn't quite match the advertised wattages
next we have the IQ lighting six hour timer bulb turns itself on and off each day perfect
for home security it's a 60 watt bulb and I'll show you at the top of the bulb here
says timer six hour Philips 60 watt 120 volt and there's that computer chip built
into the base it says Beacon the company that invented it 6H stands for six hour timer bulb
this one says the timer has a built-in microchip that will automatically turn the bulb on at
the desired time and off after six hours ideal for post lanterns porches garages living rooms
bedrooms and other suitable locations where you desire security and safety directions are turn
the light on at the time you would like it to go on every day it will automatically shut off six
hours later and will repeat the function each day until you reset it one minute prior to shutting
off the light will blink if you like to turn it off before six hours simply turn off the switch
and then back onto the on position the bulb is controlled by the microchip not by the switch
so it will remain off until the preset time the following day you can also turn on the light at
any time without having to reset it simply turn the switch off and then on the light will remain
on for two hours or until you turn it off to reset the starting time turn off then on at desired time
so this one's a little bit more complicated than its operation is kind of limited by the
fact that the only way to control this is by turning it off and back on again that's the
only way you can control that microchip I'm not going to make you wait six hours
to watch this bulb turn off so I set up a time lapse so let's take a look at that now
and the time lapse was too fast to catch it but a minute before it turned off it did blink twice
and as advertised on the carton the six hour timer bulb turned itself back on exactly 24 hours later
Philips also sold a 30 minute timer IQ lighting bulb which is the same idea as the six hour
timer version I demonstrated except obviously it shuts off after 30 minutes and one thing you may
notice about these bulbs is how they slowly increase in brightness when you turn them on
that's how they were able to get these to last twice as long as a regular incandescent light
bulb because I'm sure we've all seen many light bulbs that just give you
a bright flash when you first turn them on and they burn out instantly that's because
of the high amount of inrush current going into the bulb's filament when it starts to
get weak that's a common cause of it burning out so by slowly increasing the brightness
it helps to avoid that and that's how these are able to last a lot longer
and this one claims 60 watts it's drawing 64 Watts so that's pretty close and the final IQ
lighting bulb I have to demonstrate here is the NightLight Plus bulb dims to a night light over
20 minutes they say the night light plus operates like an ordinary 60 watt light bulb however it can
dim down to a night light level with a flick of a switch and the directions say simply turn
the light on and you will have a standard 60 watt light turn the light off and on again and
it will dim down to a night light level over 20 minutes to bypass the dimming process turn
the light off and on for a third time and it will immediately turn into a night light
and this one has by far the slowest fade up of brightness when you first turn it on
takes a couple seconds but there it is at full brightness 63.5 Watts
and as the instructions said you turn it off and turn it back on and now it's going to slowly fade
down to a night light over 20 minutes but immediately it's already dimmer at 44 Watts
and then once again you can turn it off turn it back on and now it's in the night light mode which
is not a very energy efficient night light because it's pulling about 18 watts and you can see it's
pretty dim I have my camera on manual exposure and if you want it to return the full brightness you
can just turn it off and turn it back on again and once again it slowly fades up to full brightness
so once again instead of having you wait for 20 minutes to see it dim down I'll use the time lapse
I'm sure people today are programming their smart bulbs to slowly fade down to a night
light level when they're getting ready to go to bed but Philips was doing it here in 1994
one disadvantage of these bulbs that's mentioned on the packaging it says the electronic module in
the night light or any of these bulbs may contribute to minor AM radio interference
and I can demonstrate that here turn on my AM radio to a weak station and turn on the light
as for why these pioneering smart bulbs didn't catch on I can think of several reasons first
was simply their high price people weren't willing to spend four dollars for a single
light bulb when it can get a pack of four regular light bulbs for less than that price also because
the only way you have to control this bulb is by turning the power on and off in a certain
sequence that means their functionality is not immediately apparent to anyone who is not
familiar with the light bulb and may cause undesired results such as the light bulb
unexpectedly dimming down or turning itself off when the person operating it did not intend it to
and although these claimed to last twice as long as a regular incandescent light bulb it's
still eventually going to burn out when you might rather just have that computer chip on
its own to insert into a light bulb socket they could put any regular light bulb into
and have the same functionality and at this same time in 1994 that's exactly what you
could get the same technology from Beacon was also licensed by the Angelo Brothers Company
better known as Abco and instead of making it into a complete light bulb they designed it
as an insert to put underneath a regular light bulb to turn it into a smart bulb
they called it the Bulb Boss it's described here in this Tampa Bay Times article as a
microprocessor computer chip module that attaches to the base of an existing incandescent bulb and
they mentioned the same functions as the Philips IQ lighting bulbs such as the night light the
four-way dimmer and the automatic shutoff function they said no tools or wiring are
required you attach the bulb boss to the base of the bulb and screw the bulb into your standard
base socket the bulb performs normally until you activate its bulb boss function by turning
the switch off and on they said the modules will last about 10 years and will make bulbs
last twice as long and they cost about nine dollars at hardware stores and home centers
so that's been a look at the first ever Smart bulbs introduced by Philips in
1994 the IQ lighting series with a built-in computer chip a very
advanced technology for its time but the market just wasn't ready for it yet
"oh the magic's gone the minute the lights go out you fall asleep"