Bright idea: Lights with speakers
MusicLites wirelessly sends tunes to bulbs in regular sockets
How many music fans does it take to screw in a light bulb? That may sound like a cheesy opening to a lame joke. But the wireless MusicLites electronics system that I’ve been testing is, as its name suggests, all about pumping favorite tunes through an ordinary light socket. (click below to read more)
MusicLites results from a
partnership between the Artison high-end audio firm and Osram Sylvania, a
leading lighting company. Their pitch: entry-level doit-yourself home
automation
without complicated wiring.
The MusicLites system consists of an
LED light that you screw into a standard socket, as with any ordinary
bulb. Inside the bulb is a hidden high-fidelity loudspeaker. A separate
transmitter connects to a stereo receiver, computer, smartphone, digital
audio player or TV and communicates wirelessly with the light and
speaker.
A remote control lets you brighten
or dim the lights, adjust the audio volume and choose which of up to
five “zones” in your house you want to hear music raining down from the
ceiling. Each zone can be outfitted with up to 12
speaker-lights and operated independently or in tandem with the other zones.
The light socket supplies the power
for the lights and the music. You control what’s playing from the source
of your music. Versions of the transmitters connect to the various
devices via USB, Toslink cable or the 30-pin connector on the iPod,
iPhone or iPad. The transmitter and speaker communicate through the
2.4-gigahertz frequency band and have a typical range of 30 to 90 feet.
None of this comes cheaply. A
starter kit with a transmitter and single light-speaker costs about
$350. But you’ll need at least two speaker-lights for stereo, and extras
cost $250 each.
Bulbs are 5¾ inches in height and 3¾
inches in diameter and can be screwed into 4-, 5- or 6-inch
recessed-lighting canisters. Inside is a 2¾-inch high-fidelity speaker.
Amazon.com
, for one, is selling transmitters for about $120 each. (The Apple
dock pin connector version wasn’t available in time for testing.) You can get by with a single
transmitter unless you plan to pipe music from different audio sources.
MusicLites are advertised as “a
symphony of light and sound,” but don’t expect to turn your living room
into a disco. While you can dim or brighten lights via the remote
control, the lights don’t gyrate to the beat of the music.
Each 10-watt LED provides the output
equivalent of a 65-watt reflector bulb. MusicLites carry a three-year
warranty, though the bulbs themselves
are projected to last 25,000 hours,
or about five years of normal use. The lights are water-resistant, too,
so you can use them outdoors, perhaps, under a covered porch.
Getting it to work
So returning to the question at
hand, how many music fans does it take to screw in a MusicLites bulb?
Just one. But I did have to summon help from the company to get the
system to behave. After screwing in a bulb, the light came on about a
second after I flipped the standard light switch on my wall, not quite
instantly. But I couldn’t get the music to play, even after I plugged
the Music-Lites USB transmitter into a Mac and fired up iTunes. I didn’t
fare any better
on a Windows PC.
I suspected the problem might have something to do with improper
house codes. Such codes are set up
to prevent a neighbor’s MusicLites transmitters from messing up your
network. Before screwing a bulb into a socket, you must make sure the
house-code-settings dial on the bulbs, transmitter and remote control
are each identical. If not, you can change the settings by turning the
dial with a screwdriver.
All my factory settings were in the correct position, so I called my contacts
at the company for assistance. They
steered me to System Preferences on my Mac, from which I tweaked audio
settings so that music was outputted to “USB Headphones.” From then on
the sound came through MusicLites loud and, for the most part, clear.
You can flip a switch on the
bulb-speaker to determine whether the left or right audio channels
should play, or (as would be the case if you have just one bulb) both
channels at the same time.
The audio quality was generally very good, but the speakers are no substitute for a true high-end audio system. I
wanted better bass response. (For
those who pay attention to the specs, the speakers have a frequency
response between 100 Hz and 20 kHz, and plus or minus 3 decibels.
MusicLites is planning to unveil a subwoofer in the coming weeks.)
I was pleased with the sound in my
basement, the same room where my computer and the MusicLites transmitter
were located. But when I screwed a bulb into a bedroom, two stories
above, there was a great deal of distortion. Obstructions or metal
structures can reduce range.
Still, there’s something cool about
blaring music from your ceiling, and the folks at Artisan and Osram
Sylvania do make it relatively easy to see the light — and hear it, too.
That’s not meant to be a punchline.
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