Motion-controlled lights aren’t new. Walk down sidewalks in suburbia at night and chances are half will light up with security flood lamps just before the dogs start barking. But gesture-controlled lights? That’s something new.
The way Roome’s eponymous, gesture-sensitive Roome Smart Lamp works, you can have fun practicing your Jedi moves on your room lights, and maybe impress your friends too — at least the first time. Just launched on Kickstarter, the Roome Smart Lamp looks like a useful candidate for anywhere you need a small room light.
The Roome Smart Lamp is approximately 11 inches tall and almost 7 inches wide at the top. You can get it in white only. The dual LEDs can put out a maximum 800 lumens, the equivalent of a 60-watt incandescent bulb, if you still remember those. Roome is a smart lamp, so it has to communicate, and it does so via Wi-Fi and Zigbee. Zigbee is an IEEE 802.15.4 spec for personal area networks with low-power radio frequency devices, which means if you had a Zigbee-supported hub, you could control the Roome.
Gesture control is the way to have fun with the Roome Smart Lamp. It turns on when you enter the room, just like that garage door security light you got close to. However, when you’re next to the Roome light, moving your hand sideways over the top will turn the light off and back on. Even cooler, you can control the brightness by moving your hand up and down over the light. Raise your hand higher, the light brightens; lower your hand and the light dims. It might be worth inviting new people to your home just so you could show them your new light hand tricks.
Roome isn’t just about turning lights on and off. There are two USB ports on the lamp base so you can plug in a couple devices to charge, which is plenty handy. According to the Kickstarter campaign, the Roome Smart Lamp is scheduled to ship in August 2016. If you jump in now, the super early bird price is still just $59 each.
