The BeON bulb, which just landed on Kickstarter this week, is a smart lighting solution that doubles as a home security system. That might not sound particularly groundbreaking, but BeON’s innovative features take it beyond simple environmental monitoring — it’s also designed to be a deterrent to intruders.
Under the hood, the bulb is equipped with Bluetooth LE connectivity, a built-in processor, and a microphone — as well as a set of 800-lumen soft white LEDs. All this tech allows the bulb to capture and memorize your family’s lighting patterns — when they turn on, when they turn off, the order in which they’re turned on, what rooms are lit during certain times of the day, and so on. Using this information, BeON can begin to replicate your behavior while you’re away and make it seem like your home is always occupied.
The bulbs can also use their embedded microphones to “listen” for the sound of your doorbell. If the system hears somebody at your doorstep while you’re away, it can turn on your lights in sequence to give the illusion that somebody is home. BeON can even detect the sound of your smoke or carbon monoxide alarms, pushing an alert to your phone if you’re away, and switching on to light your exit if you’re home.
While they’re not on the market quite yet, BeON will eventually sell its bulbs in three, six, and nine bulb packages. The company’s Kickstarter campaign, which launched just days ago, offers these packages to early birds at $199, $399, and $599 respectively for standard bulbs, with recessed bulbs priced at a small premium. The project has already making strong progress toward its $100K goal, and if all goes well, BeON expects to ship the first units to backers in April of 2015.
