[Duhck]

I started a company to pursue circadian lighting (called Twist) and sadly pivoted away from it as a core value proposition because of weak reception from the market.

I feel we were 20 years too early (we shut down about 5 years ago).

Our tech enabled smart circadian lighting (we called it adaptive lighting) without configuration, an app, or wifi. The lightbulbs worked without any smart gadgetry necessary.

Every time the switch turned on the light made a 20 ms computation based on the time it stored (via a low power clock and a super cap) and turned to the right brightness and color temperature automatically. This was protected by a patent but also could not find a buyer for the tech despite how differentiated it was

Now I have an entire home with hue downlights + bulbs that does circadian lighting (with HASS as well) and while its not nearly as elegant of a solution as Twist (aforementioned startup), it is pretty great and a huge life changer to me and my fiancè.

Edit: for context we use Philips Hue downlight retrofits + bulbs in other fixtures, all white ambiance, and Lutron Aurora dimmers, connected to HASS on a RBPI, running adaptive lighting from HACS

[drc500free]

In all honesty, I’ve found it healthier to have fixed color temperature in different rooms, and change what room I’m in throughout the day. I’m only in my bedroom when warm lighting makes sense, I’m only in my office when cool lighting makes sense. That helps establish other healthy habits than just sleep, and keeping the bedroom dedicated to sex and sleep is a good practice anyway to combat insomnia.

[TremendousJudge]

That sounds great, but many people (especially those living in cities) don't have that many rooms in their home, so other solutions are needed.

[argondonor]

In the past I have put up a curtain around my bed (although originally for other reasons.) Like a homemade canopy bed!

[shapefrog]

> although originally for other reasons

I dont want to get into too much speculation, but the answer obiviously is building a fort?

[liotier]

> keeping the bedroom dedicated to sex and sleep

Yes. No computer of any sort, the alarm clock's only advanced technology is radio-synchronization and I don't even let a book enter the bedroom - that is for the living-room couch. Does wonder for sanctuarizing the late evening !

[ghostpepper]

So you don't charge your phone in your bedroom?

[OrsonSmelles]

If they won't even let a book in, the phone is definitely in exile - between eye strain, work emails, and the entire internet, phones are pretty terrible sleep hygiene offenders.

[hunter2_]

I've heard this often enough that I'd repeat it as general advice, but personally I find that reading on my phone until it's falling out of my hand expedites falling asleep better than anything else, as long as it's not something that compels me to reply / take notes / data flow into the phone (a "two steps back" event). A long-ish article, not doomscrolling.

And definitely use f.lux or equivalent, which is built in these days (at least the phones I've had recently).

[tempestn]

Me too. And my phone automatically goes on do-not-disturb prior to bedtime, so no concern of seeing a notification that gets my brain going.

The other nice thing about reading on my phone rather than reading a physical book before bed as I used to do is that I don't need a light. I have the phone brightness turned way down, and obviously use light text on black background. Helps with falling asleep and doesn't disturb my wife if she's going to sleep before me.

[ghostpepper]

I guess some people worry about being unreachable by family in an emergency

[saiya-jin]

That might be a valid corner case, but most folks in this category are simply mildly addicted to screens the kick the usage gives them.

Drug addicts have been vilified for many decades yet most western population falls into some addict category, be it screens, various fetishes, sugary products/chocolate, tobacco products, alcohol, prescription drugs and so on just from legal state-approved sphere.

Just look at average teens these days. Try taking them their gadgets if you want to see some proper hate in their eyes.

[reitanqild]

I think most modern phones let you select a list of people that will be able to reach you in an emergency.

Mine also has a setting to allow the phone if people call twice within 3 minutes or something.

[tiborsaas]

I used to oversleep but it's completely fixed by leaving my phone in the living room so I must get out of the bed and shut the alarm off.

[runjake]

I do this, but also have different lighting options in certain rooms, like the office.

In my office, the ceiling light is a daylight bulb, but i also have a couple lamps with warmer lights. During the day, I run the ceiling light, and after sunset, turn the ceiling light off and turn the lamps on.

Perhaps a bit Luddite, but less fuss and cost.

[goodbecause1]

Did you try punching in your folk wisdom into clinicaltrials.gov?

Here's "blue light sleep":

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=blue+light+sleep...

Do you see any affect of blue light on sleep? Or do you see conclusive evidence that blue light does not affect sleep?

[lolinder]

This reply comes off as needlessly condescending. If you have a point to make, make it, don't assign homework and ask leading questions.

[drc500free]

I was curious where you were coming from, since I thought I had read research on this and my own experience is that changing light temperature is incredibly helpful.

The first one I clicked on showed blue-blocking lenses measurably improve sleep. I don't find the need to confirm more research at this point, given that it clearly helps me.

[scarby2]

Blue blocking never helped me but dimming and warming the lights close to bedtime makes me sleep so much better

[Duhck]

Adding our failed Series A pitch deck because I think its interesting for this crowd:

https://docsend.com/view/bm5za5w

[dmix]

That sounds amazing (insert Fry throwing money meme).

It's too bad it didn't work out. I wonder if there's been any success stories where an idea failed but then later the founder tried again?

I'm guessing usually the first experience burns them out they probably dont bother again.

[pedalpete]

That's a seriously great deck. Did you do a public post-mortem of why you think you were unable to raise?

[Duhck]

No and candidly I mishandled the entire shutdown. As a solo founder, my company going insolvent really put me in a dark place.

I’m happy to talk about it now though.

I think the problem was twofold. We were trying to raise during a tumultuous time for consumer hardware — when VCs were really skeptical of hardware without subscription revenue streams. And our unit economics story was really challenging. COGs grew considerably to get to shipping and that compressed our margins in a way that made the growth story seem capitally intensive. I was convinced we could reduce costs and increase AOV / LTV but VCs really wanted subscriptions

[MichaelZuo]

What kind of subscriptions were being considered, if you can still recall?

[Duhck]

We didnt consider any, hence the friction towards getting more capital

[MichaelZuo]

Was there a reason for not considering it?

[maximilianroos]

Impressive deck!

Why didn't the raise succeed?

[ilyt]

That sounds like something you want as a feature in bigger system, not something you'd want to buy a specific bulb just for that.

> Every time the switch turned on the light made a 20 ms computation based on the time it stored (via a low power clock and a super cap) and turned to the right brightness and color temperature automatically.

Where it got the time sync from ? You said it didn't need configuration or an app ?

[SamBam]

It sounded like it was a real-time-clock chip, powered by the capacitor. So it's self-contained.

[ilyt]

Right but that cap ain't gonna hold power for few months on the shelf. Supercap self-discharge rate is high enough that it will be down to zero in weeks to months from my experience.

[ghostpepper]

I guess it could get it from GPS if each bulb contained a radio but this sounds incredibly inefficient

[hatware]

How did these Twist bulbs account for differences in time zone? If I have some of these lights and I move hundreds of miles to a new time zone, plug the same lights into the new home, how do they lights know?

[Duhck]

Yea great question. The bulbs were provisioned via an iOS app and there was a Wifi bulb sold that had a speaker in it (part of our pivot towards more marketable products)

The bulbs could have been updated either by A) having a wifi bulb that then synchronized each other node via a low power mesh network, or B) by opening the app and connecting to the network.

We effectively used the BLE radio to make a mesh network and a BLE device (phone) could connect and send and receive over the mesh.

[bboygravity]

This is exactly a product idea I had and a product I have been desperate to find and buy. Included the "no cloud connection or hub needed" being a desired feature.

Instead I now have a crappy overly complex setup that involves a bunch of lifx bulbs, a flic hub and buttons and a synology NAS running some python scripts from task scheduler every few minutes to set the desired temperature at certain time ranges (hard coded).

That Twist idea sound(ed) perfect. What a bummer that it didnt work out.

[ilyt]

I kinda wish industry would converge on one standard for the devices themselves and compete on "IOT cloud/hub controller" instead of trying to build tiny closed ecosystems around eachother.

MQTT + some schema for typical devices would be a dream. Maybe have some of those devices be able to act as hub themselves with option to connect to "bigger" controller (whether cloud or on premise) but still be able to handle basic functions when say internet is down

[striking]

That kind of already exists with Home Assistant. Granted, it often feels like a thin wrapper around lots of tiny closed ecosystems, but the fact that most things interoperate well enough means I can recommend it.

Matter/Thread exist as well, and some smart device makers claim to already have adopted it, so we'll see how that all goes.

[ilyt]

I used it few years ago and it had problem of occasionally disconnecting from MQ (I was using external one) and just... not reconnecting.

> Matter/Thread exist as well, and some smart device makers claim to already have adopted it, so we'll see how that all goes.

I'm kinda worried it will be the usual bloated standard by comitee result; tho I guess even if that happens it would still be better to have to implement one bloated standard instead of dozen incompatible ones.

Also at least wikipedia page says its "Proprietary, by certification" so eh, I'm worried

[asveikau]

You're kind of describing home assistant. It integrates with all the various non interoperable standards and gives them the same interface. (In the ui sense, but also in the sense that you can write scripts that cross manufacturer boundaries.)

[ilyt]

I know, but I'd prefer if it came that way from manufacturer instead of hacking at it away.

Like, I converted one of (sadly out of production) mpower pro power strips (it was great, cheap 6 socket with power measurement per socket) to talk to it but it wasn't exactly great experience.

The config of IoT devices should be just "start an app, point it to your (or cloud) controller, done", not "browse compatibility list and hope HASS supports it and the manufacturer won't break that support on update".

[__turbobrew__]

I wonder how much it would cost to put an gps receiver in every lightbulb? If you can get a gps signal you can get a rough guesstimate of the bulbs location and time and therefore adjust to fit the local circadian rhythm.

Or maybe you could sync to a local radio time station?

[throw827474737]

Too much still, also usually no GNSS reception in the usual bulb locations, except maybe for those wooden cardboard houses everywhere in the US (:

Those radio time services over AM/FM better and cheaper for thst.

[Duhck]

both GPS and radio time receivers are very expensive. LED bulbs are a commodity product and thus have little room for margin.

Our low power clock + super cap added $1.25 of BOM which translates to $2.50-$3 of cost to the user.

Led bulbs at Home Depot are $3-5 on the low end.

[bboygravity]

I would easily pay 30+ USD per bulb if it had time-sync and NO internet connection (LAN optional and not a must-have).

Actually I already did. LIFX day night bulbs cost more than that and don't have the functionality that you had in your product out of the box.

Actually personally I would pay as much as 50 USD per bulb for standalone bulbs that just follow a cycle pre-set by myself over BLE or wifi or even a freaking USB port :p

Maybe they exist but I haven't been able to find them.

[ilyt]

$2-3 but GPS antenna is pretty bulky so forget it.

Local radio time is generally iffy if you can't afford bigger antenna. Syncing my watch is basically impossible indoors, althought you might be able to get a bit bigger antenna in a bulb... but they will also be in much worse locations (near walls and inside metal enclosures)

[yeutterg]

We've worked on similar circadian products, and I have a similar setup at home. IMO, we're getting closer to the time the market is ready. The main learning is to release MVPs and continue to gather feedback from/build a relationship with the core early adopter market. The market is small, probably in the tens of millions of dollars annually, but the right solution is going to be easy to setup/use with a good UI, and priced at a slight premium over other lighting (but not exorbitantly).

[Duhck]

If you ask me I dont think average users will ever pay for a solution to this problem.

People are simply not aware that their blue-heavy LED lights either cause harm to their sleep schedule or simply feel clinical at night.

I live in a very affluent mountain town now, one thats very aware of light pollution and is a general haven for health nuts, and yet 75% of the houses I see with lights on at night have blue-white lights. Especially in their kitchens. This makes sense as they are working areas

[rootusrootus]

> If you ask me I dont think average users will ever pay for a solution to this problem.

I tend to agree. I'm inclined to appreciate the technology, yet at the same time I don't think I like it well enough to blow $60/each to replace all my can lights with Hues. I just run 2700K bulbs for almost every light in the house (excepting the garage & my workshop), and in some areas I make it very bright in lieu of going towards the blue end of the spectrum.

[yeutterg]

To be clear, I don't think companies should be focused on average users. At least not for a while (until there is sufficient education and agreement that this is a problem, if that ever happens). The market is all about early adopters for the foreseeable future.

[beebeepka]

Have you noticed the median age of those with white lights? I'd assume it's mostly old people. Personally, I'd stay in the dark before subjecting myself to that sort of unnatural light

[joshspankit]

In my experience (as someone who has advocated for f.lux and natural lighting since the early days) even when people are directly exposed to the benefits (such as leaving a shift at 11pm and being able to sleep restfully when they get home) it’s still difficult for them to change habits. The work/life autopilot just does not seem to have room for it.

It’s truly heartbreaking, and doubly so when we lose out on companies like Twist.

[carlmr]

Oh man, this sounds exactly like what I'm looking for. I find all these smart setups too involved and finnicky. On-off timers are too coarse though. I want slow rising sun.

[naikrovek]

open the curtains/blinds, when the sun comes up, sunlight gets in.

even if you want to control the time of day this happens, surely you realize that your body evolved according to the sun's timetable, and benefits from that timetable.

if you're not a day shift worker I understand completely.

[carlmr]

Um I can open the curtains all I want, there's little sun in German winters out there.

The automatic part is also important since I need it to get up from bed.

[vageli]

Would you mind sharing the patent number? It sounds like an interesting technology to read more about.

[Duhck]

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9784417B1/en?oq=9784417

A lot of the claims surrounded how we designed and manufactured a light bulb that was modular.

We could support speakers, cameras, and sensors in the same form factor without any material mechanical or electrical changes.

[marze]

I use orange led bulbs in a parallel system to the white lights. Some in lamps plugged into a power strip with a switch.

Simple and cheap, but requires extra lamps.

[scarby2]

The cost of a lamp a tunable bulb and a fraction of an rpi is almost certainly lower than the cost of 2 lamps and 2 bulbs.

[marze]

Two things, I set this up long ago before tunable bulbs were cheap, and the single tunable bulb I checked out subsequently didn't emit just orange, it had some blue.

[m4jor]

Have you ever thought about just releasing the patent for everyone to use? Patents stifle innovation iirc.

[hobo_mark]

Not to sound like the infamous Dropbox comment, but would the patent prevent you from doing? Changing light temperature and colour over the course of the day? I've been doing that for years with a cronjob. Doing so without a microcontroller? Those cost pennies nowadays.

[Duhck]

The patent was handed over to our debt financing company (WTI) and sits idle.

The actual patent covered the method for tracking time without power and for synchronizing clocks over a low power mesh network

[0xdeadbeefbabe]

> we shut down about 5 years ago