Misfit Bolt – The Connected Smart Bulb that Changes Colours!
Misfit Bolt joins the bandwagon of colour-changing LEDs that one can control wirelessly with a mobile gadget. Misfit, a company which is known to make successful wearable devices, has developed Bolt that allows users to turn lights on or off directly from the wrist. It is a light bulb whose brightness can be controlled through a smartphone and even with Misfit’s own set of activity trackers. One can even sync Bolt up with multiple sleep patterns and program it to wake up just like sunrise, slowly and gradually. Bolt can work with Misfit’s other wearables as a support system, and might turn out to be a great bulb to go with the Beddit sleep monitor.
“Misfit” Design and features
The Misfit Bolt stands strong because of its unique, distinctive design. It has a heavy metallic black base which weighs about half a pound. The light is bright enough, although it is non-omnidirectional. Bolt casts light upward rather than downward which means that if you want to read a book under it you cannot do that.
The default setting is lower than the light which is acceptable which is 600 lumens. One has to raise it to 800-lumen light output by logging into the app, which is actually quite annoying for anyone.
Here are some of its external attributes:
- It’s slick and colourful with a number of colour-changing presets that work well to create an ambience. For example, its forest-like green tones and volcano-like red and orange tones are particularly outstanding.
- One can notice a dynamic parallax effect to the entire colour range once moving down the presets.
- Misfit puts all colours front and center and pitches the advantage as its primary use case. It does help in selecting the specific moods with colours.
- Misfit allows control on several hues with the colour mode where varied spectrums are placed. Drag the bulb icon over the right colour of your choice and the bulb will change its light to the same colour.
Dialling in the exact shade can be a hassle since you cannot actually the exact colour when placing a finger on it. Beyond the preset colour cycles, one can pick a colour from gallery photos within your phone too.
Salient Differentiators
- Bolt is a connected light bulb which can be personalized to go with your home lighting
- It boasts of a powerful sunrise simulation once you rise up
- Transform your environment with multiple colour combinations with the help of a mobile app.
- Create different lightscapes including a million colours and hues.
- Enables 170-degree light dispersion evenly
- It is made up of an aluminium body that looks strikingly impressive
- Use Misfit Link if you do not have a smartphone to control brightness and light status.
- Bolt’s efficient LED technology will help you save on electricity costs
Bolt is compatible with all iPhones over iPhone 4s, iPod Touch, iPad 3/4/Air/Mini for the iOS platform while supporting the latest Samsung, HTC and some Android BLE devices.
Pricing and Relevance of Misfit Bolt
Misfit’s website is selling the Bolt for $43, and it is certainly better than its much pricier competitors. Lack of a hub is a major advantage too but some top bulbs have an edge over this one. Bolt isn’t as bright as the best in the market nor is it fully featured. There are no additional advantages of playing music, or control through third-party systems which makes it a decent bulb altogether. It has colour-changing functionality, which makes it a reasonably good connected light bulb for the market.
Nisarg is the Business Development Manager at Nimblechapps, a top mobile game development company and has been with the organisation since its inception in 2014. He likes to update his knowledge on changing trends in technology and marketing and pens his thoughts regarding the same on various blogs and LinkedIn.