The first ever smart bulbs 💡 Philips IQ Lighting 

AWESOME, memories. I worked at the fab in Meridian, Idaho making these. Was the first job I got after getting out of the Army. I worked many stations in the production process, but I remember the Fuji 4 head pick and place machine, we had a couple imported custom die attach machines, wire bonders, custom electrical test, solder paste application, solder reflow, visual inspections, epoxy fill, additional function test and encapsulation. Was a great job and a great company until the lights and employment were extinguished.

The 6 hour one is quite a clever idea since once it's set up, you don't need to worry about it again. The others are quite gimmicky but for 1994, impressive.

I had a Scruff McGruff "Beacon" light bulb which would turn into a flashing bulb if you flicked it off and on twice quickly. The idea is you'd put it in your front porch and you could use it to alert your neighbors that there was trouble in your house.

Despite their limitations, these were way ahead of their time. I didn’t even know these were a thing. They’d definitely pair nicely with a GE Super Switch.

My parents put the "Nitelite" lightbulb in my bedroom when I was growing up... It didn't last very long. Not because it failed, but because it was a pain in the butt to use and didn't really give much of a benefit. If I remember correctly, we bought it at a garage sale; The original owner probably had the same issue.

Thanks for being able to show the whole collection! I have five examples of the "Back-Up" bulb, the only one to not actually be electronically controlled. Mine were made before the introduction of the IQ Lighting brand, and are thus called the "Watchman" bulb.

VWestlife, collecting and discussing the most boring tech out there so I don’t have to. And I can’t enough of it, this channel is brilliant.

Maybe your wattmeter isn't reading the wattage correctly because of the strange current waveform of what's most likely a triac dimmer (power factor). The bulbs are mostly gimmicky but at least didn't require a smart device to perform their function. Also this shape looks quite neat!

Philips still makes similar 3 way dimmable led lightbulbs that they market under the name “sceneswitch”, I love them. Not only do they reduce the wattage progressively, but they also change the color temperature. Check them out. Great video!

That music choice for the first time laps is just right up my alley lol

I bought my first light bulb in years today. I never really thought about them until I had to track down the exact type of bulb to match the remaining bulbs in the light fixture. This led to a little research into LED bulbs. The engineering behind them is quite fascinating.

Oh nice I missed good old lightbulb videos from you ! What a early gift for xmas thanks Kevin

12:23 wow a backup filament. Now that's fancy

Switching the power on and off is still used as an input for computer chips in modern smartbulbs. For example, Phillips WiZ lights (powered by the ESP32 platform) use it to switch between lighting modes without a controller and to enter setup mode. Would be interesting to know how exacly the chips register switch inputs. Modern bulbs do have a small ammount of non-volatile storage in them in form of flash memory to store the last state, but what did the older ones like these IQ ones use ? Perhaps a capacitor to keep the computer chip powered for a short while after AC is switched off ?

That dimming bulb would have been great to have 30 years ago for my kid sister as she was scared of the dark. Great work on the video; I never thought I'd be this interested in light bulbs and oddly enough at 44 years old I've never seen theses bulbs. I never seen them in the stores or at anyone's house. Thanks again for the video buddy! Greetings from Canada.

We had those exact bulbs in our house back in the day. We had them in the living room, and bedrooms. after a while you got used to flipping the light on and off to get the right setting. I never gave it much thought. but they were ahead of their time for sure.

I love the idea of these (especially incandescent), all of them are really cool ideas, I really like the night-light one

Growing up, my mom put one of the 30 minute timer bulbs in my bedroom because she thought I was wasting too much energy by accidentally leaving the lights on. The one I had worked slightly differently than the 6 hour bulb you showed. The 30 minute bulb didn't have any sort of memory; it simply turned off after 30 minutes (after a one minute warning flash). If you turned the switch off and on again immediately after turning on the bulb, it would disable the timer until you turned it off manually.

I love your videos and your dry, camp delivery. You should consider doing stand-up! Good job!

We also had the X10 protocol for controlling electronic devices and lamps remotely. It supported addressing 256 devices directly over the power line. Though I had to stop using mine in the early 2000's when my PCs started coming with input filtering capacitors, which kill the X10 signal for quite a good wire distance from the PC itself. And now near everything that receives or transmits a signal and runs on DC has them. This is also why powerline networking adapters are so terrible -- input filtering caps everywhere attenuating the signal. Thanks for digging up some old tech that I actually used! I had one in my bedroom back then. I thought it was neat, then it eventually died and my spare was also dead. Can't believe you have 3 working ones in 2022, when I couldn't even keep one spare alive, untouched in a closet, for 3 years.

Cool. I don't remember these bulbs when they came out, but they should've made a module that just slow-powers on the filament to extend a bulb's life. I think more people would've appreciated that feature more than the dimmer or timer ones. I know I would've, because that's what I hated the most about incandescent bulbs: having to change them every few months, and having them suddenly burn out on you when turned on, especially at night (I can't tell you how many times that happened to me back in the day). Actually, by 1994 I was buying compact fluorescent bulbs.

First time being early on a video, just wanted to say I really appreciate you making all this content it's always interesting and you teach me allot, wish you all the best💜

I have a Wiz WiFi bulb which has the switch controlled dimmer function too - including a 30 fade to off function. It's quite useful, and once programmed the lamp remembers how it's set up, and doesn't need WiFi anymore.

opening a vwestlife video and seeing linus just pop up like that was an interesting jump scare experience

I really like the slow fade to full brightness with these bulbs. That’s how I prefer it with my LEDs. It’s much less jarring.

The function operation by switching the light off and on is still a thing today with some lightbulb products, in the past I had a Philips CFL bulb that had two sodium-yellow LEDs inside to act as a nightlight (wasn't nice) that to switch between the modes required you to turn it on and off again, same for a later non-Philips CFL (cold white LEDs this time) I had, and finally the same for a "GroLight" interstitial device between bulb and socket which is intended for use as nightlighting for a baby's bedroom (though again, cold white LEDs), but in my case I modded it with warm white LEDs and use it on the landing at the top of the stairs, and is handy for low-energy light, aswell as for the night time pee runs... :P

I've seen some recent bulbs (LED, of course) that can do that trick of just flicking the switch to change something. Philips/Signify sells some that change brightness and I have a random one that changes color temperature. The timer bulbs remind me of a Raid mosquito repellent that I have, that you can set it to turn on for 8 or 12 hours (or always on). It counts the hours from the moment you plug it in. Only problem is if the power goes out

Regarding the measured power consumption not matching what the box says, you need to very carefully read what it says on the box. It says *Lumen equivalent to* which is not the same as the _actual_ power drawn in watts. It's because a dimmed incandescent lamp is less efficient and needs more watts for the same light output.

Love all this oddware

Thanks for the enlightening video!

I think my dad has a couple of those. Never used, of course. Pretty sure he found them on a closeout somewhere, and with the enticing features and enticing price, he bought. He also has one of those Abco discs that you put in the socket with a regular bulb. But those are not Abco brand. There were two varieties that I remember. One simply acted as a resistor, and dimmed the bulb slightly, which claimed to offer much longer bulb life. The other one is a flasher, ON-OFF-ON-OFF-ON and the light starts flashing. These also fade the light up to full brightness to avoid inrush current.

Another fine video, sir 😊

Thank you for the upload! :)

The dimable light is still sold as a led version. We use one in a light fixture.

Thank you, for sharing

These are amazing! I'd love to get my hands on a dozen or so.

Hmm, more like Phillips IQue! Had no ideas these existed, thanks for posting.

11:00 Better plot and more suspense than the Star wars sequel trilogy

Fascinating devices.

wasn't expecting tiny canadian man who drops things to be the first thing in this video

I had the Philips IQ “auto off” bulb; I asked my mom to get it for me when I was 11 or so. I used it as a bedroom light bulb for a few months before I got sick of having to turn the switch off and on every thirty f***ing minutes! This would have been around 1995 or so, when the thought of a light bulb with a built in timer was incredibly futuristic! I think SpatsBear did a video of a CRT bulb that was briefly produced a few years back as an energy saving bulb that competed with LED and Fluourescent bulbs.

these are brilliant!

The schematics show that these are thyristor controlled bulbs. Thyristors are used in typical dimmer switches. So they basically integrated a thyristor inside these bulbs with a microchip which is using PWM to set the brightness levels by applying phase angle control, essentially adjusting the average voltage across the filament, this is the same technique which is used today to control Industrial DC motor Speed/Current control.

Impressive thanks for sharing

Very interesting, I didn't know these existed!

These are friggin' sweet!

Very interesting 👍

Thank you for the good video

to be honest the "after 10 minutes off the bulb will reset to the highest brightness" is a feature smart bulbs nowadays need, i hate when i set my lamp to lowest brightness then turn if off in the morning only to find out the lamp is set to the lowest brightness when i turn it back on and i had to fiddle on the IOT app to set it to the correct brightness i want, these crucial times is important when i just need a max brightness in an instant for example while in an emergency

I think the word "equivalent" is doing a lot of work on the dimmer bulb packaging. Light levels on dimmed settings are probably comparable to a lower wattage bulb but whatever is happening to divert power away from the filament causes efficiency loss.

God I love early 90s packaging asthetics.

These are pretty clever. If i knew of these back in the day i would've probably bought some.

Very brilliant and interesting

Excellent video, I'd not seen these before, very innovative and now our lighting is super long life LED maybe they should do a new release. Horrifying to see how many watts it used to take to make lumens in incandescent days!

I still have my smart bulbs since 1996

The adapters are a better, (and cheaper), way to go. Great choice of music for the timelapse clips. :) Very clever for the day.

Impressive how hot that little component must get.

Pretty impressive for the era

Man, this is quite smart. Lightbulbs really did that.

The 6 hour timing bulb is absolutely fascinating. I wonder if the microcontroller has time drift after a few weeks.

This was light entertainment!

I remember that commercial.... wow!

I'm from Brazil, I remember having one like the first one when I was a kid

So good! Want some now. Lol.

I'd say they are quite impressive for their day especially considering they are basically using 80's computer technology. Hell the internet wasn't even a thing yet.I love old innovative things. It's that sort of creativity we need today. Well done I say.

I actually have a bulb that has a 30 min timer. If you turn it off and on, it expends it to 2h. And this also flashes before turning off. I haven't powered it in SO long and it's stored in a plastic bin in storage. I also remember purchasing those inserts for fairly cheap.

Great ending !!

I saw the box for one of these at Goodwill, but sadly the bulb inside was not matched.

I can actually remember similar bulbs being sold here in Australia, I think I first read about them in 1995 or so, they were made by Ringgrip, I believe they were called Smart Glo bulbs. It's possible they may have been using the same core technology as these Philips bulbs. I remember our local Mire 10 hardware store selling them in 1997. I wanted some, but Mum said if I wanted them I'd have to pay for them because of course they cost more money than a regular bulb. You know, you really could design modern lightbulbs that operate in the exact same way without needing Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or a smart phone. Given how commonplace Internet connected smart bulbs are now, I don't know how much market there is for bulbs like this now. I do believe Nanoleaf made a dimmable bulb that didn't require a smartphone to operate.

That's pretty cool for 1994! Pretty sure X10 predates these devices with similar functions.

We had some of these, or similar! I remember being mesmerised! I thought we were living in the future! 😂

I sold both the IQ Lighting products and the Bulb Boss in the hardware store where I worked in the mid-nineties. Or rather, didn't sell them. The kind of "smart home" technology that we are used to nowadays was viewed as more a novelty than a necessity back then. Even programmable thermostats were a hard sell when people were used to just getting up and adjusting a dial if they were hot or cold. Folks on the whole were also a lot skinnier back then. Coincidence?

That’s very interesting technology of its time. Thanks for putting this video together 👍 I would guess the wattage difference your meter is registering is the bulb output plus the components of the microprocessor.

seeing the proto versions of current wireless technology made me incredibly astonished as to how much our lives currently revolve around Bluetooth. I remembered as a child back in the early 2000's seeing the Bluetooth logo and thinking, "Man, what does this weird blue thing even do?" and get disappointed seeing how little it does when I found a device with Bluetooth functionality. Now every home or travel tech that I use heavily depends on Bluetooth for it to properly function (except for most stuff for my computer. Bluetooth latency is a pain in my butt when it comes to the use of Mouse and Keyboard). From my smart bulbs to my wireless travel headphones, everything needs it.

Alternative comment: (Well someone had to do it!): Sounds like a bright idea to me!!💡💡

My dad got a light blub flasher module from where he worked and as a joke stuck it in his porch light and then told us kids "There's something wrong with it!" as we would laugh and watch it flash.

cool!👍

i love the 90s serif font on the packaging. it reminds me of font from Microsoft packaging from the 90s

Just before you mentioned it in the video, I got to thinking of those little in-socket flasher discs or diode-based bulb lifetime extenders...and that this idea might have made more sense in that embodiment. I am curious if the Abco implementation was any more successful. When one of the finally fails, it might be interesting to see the internals. I am also curious as to whose microcontroller they might have used, and if they might have even come up with a way to program the bulb after it was assembled.

My dad got me a similar "self dimming" LED bulb a few years ago in Lidl or Kaufland, I don't recall. I still use it daily.

Neat. I remember seeing these in a store years ago, but never had the chance to buy or see them in operation. I agree that the stand-alone controllers that you could use with ordinary bulbs were a better idea, but I never knew about or saw those. I've read from a source I trust that soft-starting non-halogen incandescent bulbs only improves life by (at best) a few percent. Once the filament gets to the point that starting will cause it to fail, it's already in pretty bad shape and won't survive steady-state operation much longer either. To get double the life, it's likely something else was going on in addition, probably the triac dimming circuitry in the chip reducing voltage slightly at full brightness as they generally do. Even a slight reduction in input voltage is enough to dramatically extend the lifespan of a tungsten filament, at the expense of luminous efficacy. (A common example is those “long-life” bulbs made with 130-volt filaments but intended to actually be run at 120 volts.)

You should show the first ever screw base LED light bulbs.

I hope Big Clive gets one of those, I would love to see the insides and the reverse-engineered schematics.

Top demais

This should be an enlighten video...

I wish there were glass led replacements that were the same shape and size as these!

More reasons why turning the computer off and on again works? Just a thought!💡

Grand parents had one of these in a pantry cupboard. It was the shortest "timer" bulb. It would have been a 240v rather than 120v version.

Granted for the first (dimmer) bulb, it says "lumen *equivalent* to", not that it is the listed wattage.

Interesting. I don't recall seeing these in stores back in the day, but then again, how often does one shop for light bulbs? Also, did not expect Sam the Eagle!

I remember these.

Since we're on the topic of lights... (slightly unrelated) but the other day I bought those "Rice" Christmas tree garlands (x140 bulbs)... Anyway, one of the wire strands fell out the housing, so I had to open it and re-solder the wire... and the most bizarre thing happened was that... instead of the typical COB (chip on board - a.k.a. the black blob on a PCB) with a couple of resistors and [sometimes] with 4 diodes for smoothing... All I saw was a bloody LED and 3 micro resistors (surface mount) - THAT'S IT! ... And I was mystified as to how that is. After some brainstorming, I realized that to evidently make it cheaper -- and heck the board was half the size than those lights that I bought back like 20 years ago -- I in fact deduced that what they've done is, is they've used an LED housing and incorporated the IC chip inside of it instead (basically it's a "pseudo-LED"). It still has the same 8 programs (they've existed since infinitum hah.) It's just amazing what an interesting design layout this is. I've never seen anything build this way - it was rather bizarre indeed.

Wow I am curious to know if that bulb boss would work with dimmable led bulbs today. These were pretty neat contraptions for the day thats for sure.

Wow it's incredibly hot for the chip. And how'd they use a relay in there?? And what power supply

This is a very interesting product with quite a clever design (especially for the time) but I can absolutely see why it failed in the market. Maybe it’s just me but that nightlight one seems absolutely pointless. IMO they should of just stuck to selling it as a 3-way “for any fixture”, instead of the timers, as people understood the functionality of that. With LED, the price with inflation of $10 is OK but back then for an incandescent bulb (even if it does last “twice as long”) I can see it being a hard sell. Having said that, I’m amazed they were able to hit the price point they did in 1994.

You should review the world first smart computerized ceiling fan by Emerson made in 1984

Idaho gang AWAKEN.

I'd love an LED version of the auto-dimming bulb for a small hallway I have.

I imagine if these bulbs burned out you can take the little PCB thing out of the base and wire it into a socket adapter or something (or a wire adapter if using on lamps) and convert any bulb (within the origina spec) to a smart bulb. :D

I have one similar to this but it comes on and off automatically between dusk and dawn. I remember those square shaped light bulbs, had them back in the day.