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Earth Day 2013: 5 gadgets that help make going green easy

5. Philips Hue LED light bulbs

Philips Hue
The Phlips Hue LED light bulbs can be adjusted to different colors and mood lighting.

  • By Steph Solis

One way to save energy is to turn off the lights in a room once you walk out the door, but you can also save energy while you’re in the room with the lights on.

Philips Hue Personal Wireless Lighting lets you set your lights electronically so you can make them turn on or off at a certain time or brighten gradually throughout the evening, according to the company website.

Philips Hue offers wireless lighting with its eco-friendly light bulbs. Multiple light bulbs can be controlled remotely with the Hue “bridge,” which communicates with a smart-phone app. (Side note, the app is free. You just have to sign up and switch on the network after the bridge is connected.)

To set up the bridge, power it up and then connect it to the back of your wireless router, using the network cables provided. The blue lights will turn on.

The light bulb has the benefit of being able to change colors, from a warm yellow white to vibrant blue white, according to the website. Hue’s light bulbs can also recreate any color in the spectrum.

Diane Caldwell of the New York Times’ Bits blog describes the LEDs as potentially “the beginning of the long-promised connected home.”

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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