Show HN: Complete offline control of any lighting device without the internet
I am working on a wireless lighting network that will never require an internet connection, pairing, phone app, subscription, planned obsolescence, or a bad user interface. ever. I have been developing a hardware interface to control any type of lighting device that operates entirely offline. I use one way radio signals to communicate patterns directly from a remote to a light module. The light modules are constantly listening for pattern instructions from the remotes via the radio. The remotes have a set of DIP switches on the back that let you control a subset of lights with the same DIP switch address as the remote. This system has robust brightness and basic color controls along with several advanced patterns. As I make new remotes and light modules, they will support new patterns, but the lights currently have built-in verification to reject commands it doesn’t support and display something similar. I want this system to work until the PCBs disintegrate.

I am a sophomore at UC Berkeley studying nuclear engineering and I've been working on this system for almost 10 months now. This is not a smart lighting system. It is designed to have zero effort set up and simplify the interface required to control your lights. My decision to not build an app for this system is because I want to go directly against the trend of technification of even the simplest of devices. You should not need your stupid phone to change the color of your lights. It does not need to be that difficult, it can be done in a simpler way.

Since the lights simply wait for color commands, it is the remotes that make this system special. They can be integrated into practically any form factor and I might add internet connectivity at some point, but it would NEVER be required for everyday use. The only feature the internet would be used for is to gather time and weather data, that way the lights can automatically optimize the color based on the time of day and temperature. For example, every remote can have a primary interface action such as a single button press. It could be programmed so that throughout the day, the function of that button changes. If you use it to turn on the lights from 7am to 11am, it would tell the lights to display an energizing blue. If it is between 10pm and 5am, the same button would tell the lights to display a deep orange capped at 30% brightness. All of this would have to be set up once, likely through a local web interface. But this is what I envision the system will become. Current lighting systems like philips hue and the vast array of other iot lights complicate things much more than necessary. Because of this, my system is first shipping with offline Knob remotes only to demonstrate the pattern complexity possible despite interface simplicity. I believe that there is no reason for your lights to need to be connected to the internet, and my system proves that advanced patterns, granular light control, and dead simple setup can be achieved completely offline.

This is a hardware interface that can be integrated into any lighting device and controlled from a highly customizable hardware interface all while keeping setup dead simple, completely offline, and no account requirement. My system has built-in support for RGB and white lights as well as monochromatic pod and linear strip devices and my system is able to control them now. No other system quite like this exists today.

I currently have completely functional prototypes and pre-orders are open for the first product, shipping to customers next week. Send me a dm on twitter @bonrad_ to get the pre-order link. We call ourselves again because we like to iterate upon our ideas and because we design for them to be used again, and again, and again.