These Smart Light Bulbs Play Music, Boost Your Wi-Fi Signal, and More

As you probably know, LED bulbs are one of history’s greatest high-tech success stories. They use around 90 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs, yet last 25 years or more. They turn on to full brightness instantly. They remain cool to the touch. They’re hard to break, and safety-coated if they do.

They also contain electronics — which has sent clever inventors into overdrive. Since the circuitry in an LED bulb can be made very tiny, that leaves a lot of space inside to add chips that connect these bulbs to your phone and your home network.

The smart-bulb revolution began a few years back, when companies started making bulbs that you can control with a phone app — turning on and off, dimming them, and even changing the color.

In the last few months, though, some even brighter ideas in light bulbs have heated up. Here’s what you have to look forward (or upward) to.

Light bulbs for power outages

The first SmartCharge LED bulb was a Kickstarter success story. And its technology is so amazing, you may not believe it.

At its heart, the SmartCharge 2.0 is a battery-backup bulb designed to work when your power goes out. It’s the size of a normal bulb, so you can screw it into any lamp or fixture. Compared with other smart bulbs, it’s refreshingly simple: There’s no Internet connection, app, control box, remote control, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or new wiring needed.

If the power ever goes out, the backup battery kicks in automatically; the bulb behaves exactly as it always has, for a total of 3.5 more hours of light. (The battery recharges whenever the power isn’t out.) Install a few of these, and you’ve performed your last frantic hunt in the dark for a working flashlight.

But here’s where your mind will fall apart. Read this slowly: You can still turn this bulb on and off from the wall switch, even when the power is out.

Light bulbs for music

The best idea ever: Build Bluetooth speakers into your light bulbs!

Now, the sound source is out in the middle of the room instead of cowering in a corner. You never have to charge the thing. There’s not a single new wire trailing anywhere — in fact, there’s no new clutter of any kind. It’s hilarious to see visitors to your house secretly peeking around to see where the sound is coming from.

The Sengled Pulse costs $150 a pair and sound pretty darned good — not as good as, say, an Amazon Echo, a Sonos, or a real sound system, but about like other good Bluetooth speakers. The Pulse plays whatever your phone (or computer) is playing, in stereo. You can rig your house with as many as eight of these bulbs, all controlled by a phone app.

Light bulbs as Wi-Fi extenders

Oh man, why hasn’t anyone else thought of this?

Millions of us complain about the Wi-Fi coverage in our homes. It’s great if you’re near the router, but once you’re through a few walls, forget it.

There is such a thing as a Wi-Fi repeater or extender, which grabs the fading signal and rebroadcasts it, giving it a boost. But those things are ugly, they spew even uglier wires, they require a power outlet, and they have to sit out in plain view.

But if you built that circuitry into a light bulb? Genius!

You can now put the repeater anywhere. Nobody will see it, and it gets all its power from the light socket.

This is the genius of the Sengled Boost bulb ($50).

Now, as with Sengled’s music bulbs, turning off the light switch cuts power to the whole thing — you lose both light and Wi-Fi. You can keep the Wi-Fi signal going without the light, but only if you use your app to turn off the light. That requirement may be annoying, or it may be a complete deal-killer.

The Boost works, but not fantastically; it stretches the Wi-Fi signal another 100 feet under the best of circumstances (no obstructions). And it doesn’t take advantage of the latest high-speed Wi-Fi technology, 802.11ac, which operates at 5.0 gigahertz; it only works with 2.4 gigahertz networks.

The beauty of it, though, is that you could get two, three, or four of these things, and daisy-chain their boosted signal to thread your Wi-Fi signal into exactly the rooms where you need it.

Fine print: Brightness: 550 lumens, color temperature: 3000K (warm white). Dimmable using the app, not using wall switches.

The future looks bright

The SmartCharge bulbs, BeOn security bulbs, and Pulse speakerbulbs are all useful, ingenious gizmos that will make you happy. The Pulse Solo and Boost bulbs aren’t such home runs.

But remember: We’re still living at the very dawn of the smart bulb. These bulbs may be a prime example of what people mean by “Internet of Things,” but on the bigger timeline of progress, they’ve only just begun to shine.