14 DAY TRIAL // Having a romantic dinner or watching a film in a quiet, twilight atmosphere can work wonders for interpersonal relationships, and lighting can help a lot, which is why Ube made the Wi-Fi Smart Dimmer.
This is a commodity product that only those better than normally well off will have any interest in buying, and even then they might not.
It is all contingent on whether or not they have “intelligent” home lighting systems.
Every apartment or house has on-off light switches, but some residences get more advanced things, like adjustable light bulbs and the like.
Taking advantage of this “light dimming” technology usually needs someone to get off the couch or bed and spin a dial on the wall. Some homes have voice-activated functions, but those are few and far between.
To give people easier control over the atmosphere of their homes, Ube (pronounced “yoo- bee”) has revealed the Wi-Fi Smart Dimmer (Kickstarter project here).
Meant to replace standard wall switches, it has multi-touch functionality and can act alone or in concert with others of its kind.
The real asset is that smartphones can download a special app that will allow people to remotely send commands, even when they aren't home, provided a Wi-Fi connection is available.
Another feature, though it won't be included in the first batch of dimmers (because the patent hasn't been granted yet), is that the Wi-Fi Smart Dimmer will be allowed to control other smart devices in a house.
Inputting “W” can turn on sprinklers, using “A” and an upward swipe will turn on an alarm, a descending swipe will disable it, etc.
That said, Ube's Wi-Fi Smart Dimmer uses an ARM CPU and runs the Android operating system. The Kickstarter project needs $280,000 / 215,235 Euro, and has 24 days to raise the sum. Right now, the pledges amount to just over $155,000 / 119,148 Euro.
