Can A Lightbulb Make For A Great Multi-Room Wireless Speaker? Meet The Whome Bulb

Wi-Fi LED lightbulbs are cool — I’m currently enamoured with a pair of LIFX bulbs I’m testing for an upcoming smart home post, along with those from competitor Philips. But you know what might be even cooler? Lightbulbs that double as wireless multi-room and music-reacting speakers. That’s the premise of Whome Bulb from London/Shanghai-based WaveBomb, which is currently pitching its wares on Kickstarter.

Now, of course, sound quality might be the kicker here, but speaker technology — to my ears, anyway — has come a long way in recent years. It’s not uncommon to have very decent sound emanating from something quite small.

Specifically, the Whome Bulb claims an 80Hz~20KHz sound range, including decent bass, and has been engineered to solve the overheating problem that comes with doubling up as a bulb and being relatively small. The Whome speaker cavity uses part aluminum and part heat-resistant material that the company states will function in temperatures up to 100C. The speaker also comes with a rising vibration basin to reduce the “horn effect.”

And while I wouldn’t want to necessarily replace my current music setup with a bunch of lightbulbs-cum-speakers, I totally want to put one of these things in my bathroom. However, with multi-room support — the iOS and Android apps support the ability to wirelessly stream music to multiple Whome Bulbs — you can install these all over your house if you were so inclined.

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In terms of lighting tricks, the Whome Bulb sports a 16m full color gamut, just like the LIFX and Philips Hue. It will also sync with the music playing — like the rather slick-looking Ion — and there’s a social network of sorts to share music, photo and lighting “recipes.”

The Kickstarter campaign is chugging along nicely, and it definitely looks like the Whome Bulb will get funded. Pricing starts at £60 plus taxes for those who get in really early.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wavebombwhome/sync-music-photos-and-color-with-whome