AirBulb smooshes audio and light into bluetooth LED bulb

Where there is light, there is music, says AirBulb’s creators. They’re making what must surely be the world’s first LED bluetooth lightbulb with built-in speakers.

Controlled via an Android or iOS smartphone, the AirBulb is an incredibly simple idea, but a genius gadget that will help streamline our lives. As well as playing music, one can also control the bulb’s colour and light-levels. AirBulb can even output “natural sounds”, which are built in to the bulb.

The gadget also works as a notification system,  blinking to warn of incoming calls (although flickering lights are a function that will assuredly produce headaches), and can be used as a timer or alarm.

There’s even talk of a colour RGB version that will produce “disco lighting”. Imagine that waking you up in the morning — it would ensure a lot of smashed AirBulbs. Installation will be as simple as screwing in the bulb, installing the app and pairing the AirBulb with a compatible phone.

Here’s what we like: there are no wires. The entire process is controlled by the bluetooth connection, and up to two devices can control one AirBulb. Imagine having a speaker that’s always ready and never requires charging. Best of all, it’s completely disguised in the home or work environment. The speaker is a “full range acoustic driver”, which drives a 3W Class D amp (this just means that the device can be switched on or off with zero down time).

Hong Kong-based Avantconcept, creators of AirBulb, aren’t looking to change the world but simply to make it a more habitable place. The KickStarter campaign begins today.

Based on the campaign info, AirBulb will cost US$59 and will ship May 2014 if all goes well. The campaign isn’t live yet, but when it kicks off Avantconcept says it needs US$100 000 to seed the project to completion. As soon as the project is live, we’ll update with a video and link to the Kickstarter site.