Review: PLAYBULB Bluetooth Speak and Bulb by MiPow
No the PLAYBULB isn't something you're likely to find at your local adult shop, but an innovative product by MiPow, a company known for putting products out there that are blue ocean.
The PLAYBULB is the start of a range of smart LED devices, this product has integrated a speaker into a smartbulb, giving a product that has a lot of potential in the right places.
To demonstrate the PLAYBULB, I was sent a bedside light to test it with, and that's its core market. I see the PLAYBULB in bedrooms, whether it be children's, students or adults who don't want the clutter of an extra speaker. Another area is by the bookcase, playing discreetly.
After all, most of us use our smartphones for alarms now, the days of bedside alarms are gone, and because PLAYBULB has Bluetooth Low Energy built into it, it won't gobble up your battery. And what better than a speaker to amplify that alarm and get you out of bed in the morning!
With an accompanying app, the PLAYBULB is controllable via Bluetooth, offering warm and cool white, at a range of brightness. The speaker is not the most powerful, and it does make the PLAYBULB larger than most, but power is not its aim. This is a personal speaker, much like the bluetooth speakers out there, but without the issue of having it plugged in. The bluetooth range is not vast, but the speaker volume means you wouldn't be moving too far from it anyway.
As you can tell, I like the PLAYBULB. It's not out to change the world and have high fidelity audio, but to fit a particular niche that it does extremely well.
The PLAYBULB range has already extended, with their latest project PLAYBULB Garden being marketed onKickstarter, and achieving 12x their target, showing they are designing products that appeal to people.
Through their approach, they are being very smart and using energy efficiency as one of their core features (and saving us from finding plugs for the 101 gadgets!).
PLAYBULB by MiPow Summary
An innovative approach that fills the niche it aims for very well, and consequently should find a place in a number of homes.
