I spent some time a few months ago researching integrated smart technologies like this. (I've commented before on similar topics)[1]
I very skeptical it's possible to deliver these at those price points.
Just consider as a hacker the master bulb;
They gloss over how you actually connect it to your home wifi network; it either has to interface with your laptop or phone via a cable for the initial setup, or it has to be able to create it's own wireless network you can hook onto, to then in turn tell it which is your home network, so it can hook onto that, and then relay to all other bulbs. That's a hell of a lot of technology to pack inside a groundbreaking lightbulb that's going to be running at high temperatures, at a $70 price point.
The 'smart bulb' stuff aside, a decent plain white LED bulb sets you back around $30. Have you ever tried those colour-change LED light sets you get for garden decking or under the kitchen units? Even those cost more per unit that this, and they light they put out is harsh and well bellow 10 watts; hence why they're just used for ambient highlights.
In my opinion the companies best positioned to deliver these kind of technologies are the likes of NEST[2]. They already have a constantly powered, integrated master device, it has a zigbee chip (which makes much more sense than wifi), an API, large processing power, and lots of data on the household. All they need to do is update their firmware (which they can do automatically already) and publish an API. Then any licensed 3rd party vendor from China can now deliver 'slave bulbs' using whatever technology and price points they desire. A ground up solution proposed here is short sighted, and realistically in the long run more expensive.
Insteon is shipping $30 smart bulbs. They integrate with insteon's control stuff though, so the cost of using 1 of them is a minimum of ~$70-$80 (that's a bulb plus ~$45 for a simple switch pad).
They don't seem to have much interest in pushing for wide adoption (at least, they seem to want to sell $400 controllers, not $50 controllers).
I very skeptical it's possible to deliver these at those price points.
Just consider as a hacker the master bulb;
They gloss over how you actually connect it to your home wifi network; it either has to interface with your laptop or phone via a cable for the initial setup, or it has to be able to create it's own wireless network you can hook onto, to then in turn tell it which is your home network, so it can hook onto that, and then relay to all other bulbs. That's a hell of a lot of technology to pack inside a groundbreaking lightbulb that's going to be running at high temperatures, at a $70 price point.
The 'smart bulb' stuff aside, a decent plain white LED bulb sets you back around $30. Have you ever tried those colour-change LED light sets you get for garden decking or under the kitchen units? Even those cost more per unit that this, and they light they put out is harsh and well bellow 10 watts; hence why they're just used for ambient highlights.
In my opinion the companies best positioned to deliver these kind of technologies are the likes of NEST[2]. They already have a constantly powered, integrated master device, it has a zigbee chip (which makes much more sense than wifi), an API, large processing power, and lots of data on the household. All they need to do is update their firmware (which they can do automatically already) and publish an API. Then any licensed 3rd party vendor from China can now deliver 'slave bulbs' using whatever technology and price points they desire. A ground up solution proposed here is short sighted, and realistically in the long run more expensive.
[1]http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3558304
[2]http://www.nest.com/