2013/10/23 Samsung Close to Releasing its Own Rival to Philips’ Hue

By: Greg Potter

Samsung’s Smart Bulb, announced earlier this year at LIGHTFAIR International, finally made it through the FCC for approval this month. Although it was originally slated for a Q3 release, it’s unclear at this time whether Samsung will release the bulbs in the US in time for the holidays or wait until next year.

Figure 1.     Samsung Smart Bulb

Source: FCC

The bulbs will communicate wirelessly using the ZigBee Home Automation standard to an Internet-connected hub, similarly to the Philips Hue. One notable difference from the Hue is a lack of color-changing ability for the system.

The Hue system allows consumers to set lighting in any color they want, anything from basic daylight to hot pink. The bulbs from Samsung will simply have the ability to dim and to turn on and off, which should make them much cheaper.

There have been numerous announcements of connected light bulbs targeting consumers, but few have made it to market so far other than Philips’ Hue. GreenWave Reality has a competing connected lighting system as well, but it is only being distributed through its utility partners at this time. Manufacturers of other home automation systems, like Lowe’s Iris, systems offered through cable providers, and systems offered by security vendors prefer to utilize connected switches to control lighting instead of connected bulbs.

MRG Analysis:   

Those other home automation systems concentrating on offering connected switches to control lighting instead of connected light bulbs do so with good reason. Using a connected light bulb requires that the light switch controlling that bulb is always in the “on” position in order to use the bulb as intended. A connected light switch, on the other hand, does not need to be in that “on” position. That’s not to say that connected light bulbs do not have their place, they clearly do, as Philips’ Hue has shown. Apartment dwellers and renters, for instance, obviously won’t be installing new light switches in their homes, but connected light bulbs can bridge the gap and still provide entry-level lighting automation for those consumers.

Since Samsung is already a manufacturer of LED light bulbs and most likely a good deal of the silicon going into this system, they are in a unique position to be able to win out on pricing if the need arises in the future. In fact, the new connected lighting system, because of the lack of color-changing ability, should be much cheaper than the Philips Hue. The new platform also enables Samsung to begin to lock consumers to their home automation platform and future devices.

Samsung is an interesting entrant into this particular market. Being such a huge manufacturer of a multitude of products, from smartphones to dishwashers and fridges, puts Samsung in a unique position in the home automation market. They already have some home automation products, like connected door locks, intercoms, and some appliances, but lack their own control platform. It would not be surprising to see Samsung begin to offer other home automation devices directly to do-it-yourself consumers, such as connected electrical outlet strips, motion sensors, or thermostats in the near future.