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It’s all in the hands: smartphone-powered UpLamp responds to your gestures

Bruce Brown
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UpLamp, The very first lampless lamp!
Some products are conceived from business plans, some from mere whimsy, and others are inspired by necessity. In the case of UpLamp, it was the necessity for marital harmony that prompted its inventor Naty Moskovich to come up with the gesture-controlled device. UpLamp has launched a Kickstarter campaign from which Moskovich hopes to get feedback from others to shape the lamp’s UpLamp’s future direction. In the meantime, however, the first win is he’s no longer annoying his wife, or at least that’s Naty’s side of the story as told to Digital Trends.

The backstory is that Moskovich was in the habit of going to bed later than his wife. It often turned out that he was turning in just when she was falling asleep. So he’d come in, turn on the lights, put on his pajamas, get into bed, and be confronted with a not-so-happy bedmate. So that’s the origin of UpLamp. Necessity indeed.

Referred to as “the first lamp-less lamp,” the UpLamp shell is made from resin. By itself it has no light source. There’s an indentation with a charging connector on the front of the lamp, into which you place your smartphone. The original version of the UpLamp will come with connectors to work with the iPhone 5/5S/5SE/6/6S and the Samsung Galaxy 5/6/6 Edge/7/7 Edge phones.

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Your phone stands in the UpLamp with the screen facing out. The camera flash on the camera’s backside is the source of the light that’s diffused by the resin shell. And that’s basically it for the hardware, other than speaker amplification to enhance your phone’s audio. The smartphone app uses several of your smartphone’s features to control the lamp.

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So really the lamp is a phone charger with a plastic shell, but it’s also designed to be so much more. Your phone provides the light, and the UpLamp app gives you control over it. With UpLamp you can clap your hands to turn the light on and off, or to snooze the alarm. You can dim or brighten the light by waving a hand. If the app doesn’t detect movement for a period of time (which you can set in the app), the light will turn off — no more waking up in the middle of the night with a bright light shining. You can also pair the lamp’s functions with your phone’s alarms or timers to turn it on or off.

Moskovich intends to update UpLamp functionality over time. Since the physical lamp won’t change, it will be relatively easy to change or add features through software updates. In the meantime, Naty’s wife sleeps uninterrupted and all is happy in the Moskovich household.

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Bruce Brown
Bruce Brown
Contributing Editor
Digital Trends Contributing Editor Bruce Brown is a member of the Smart Homes and Commerce teams. Bruce uses smart devices…
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