Cube26 launches smart bulb to tap home automation market in India

Indian start-up Cube26 has launched a smart bulb which can be controlled using a mobile phone application. Priced at Rs 1,499, the smart bulb ‘IOTA Lite’ has a lifespan of 15,000 hours and offers users the choice of 16 million colours. It is rated at 7W and offers 500 lumens of brightness. “The IOTA Lite marks our entry into the IoT segment in India and we believe lighting is integral to the smart home concept.

With the launch of IOTA Lite, we intend to transform the lighting experience of Indian smartphone users,” Cube26 co-founder and CEO Saurav Kumar said. IoT is a network of inter-connected devices like smartphones, tablets, connected vehicles and appliances and harnesses relevant information from massive amounts of data collected from these devices.

For instance, with IoT, street lights will automatically switch off when they sense no traffic on the roads and consequently save power. The Tiger Global-backed company will sell the smart bulb through eCommerce firm Flipkart from today. “The home automation segment is growing and is estimated to grow to $40 billion by 2020.

Smart lighting, as part of this, is expected to be about $10 billion, which in itself is a huge opportunity,” Flipkart Head of Consumer Electronics Adarsh Menon said. Flipkart sees a huge opportunity in the home automation space and are bringing in interesting products for consumers, he added.

One of the interesting feature of the bulb is a call/SMS alert. “The IOTA Lite blinks in a certain color for an incoming call. This feature is beneficial when the user is around high noise area or when the smartphone is on silent mode,” Kumar said.

Cube26, whose software is installed on more than five million smartphones with features like Blink to Capture and Look Away to Pause, has raised Rs 50 crore in seed funding from Tiger Global and Flipkart.