Feit Electric has bought troubled smart lighting brand LIFX - The Verge

After its parent company went into receivership, LIFX’s future looked dim. But lighting manufacturer Feit Electric has snapped up this startup and promises new LIFX lights are on their way.

A few years back, there were two big names in the high-end smart bulb game — Philips Hue, which worked with a proprietary Zigbee bridge, and LIFX, which worked over Wi-Fi, no extra white plastic box required. (We all know how much people hate hubs and bridges cluttering up their smart homes.) Yet, the Zigbee-based Hue went on to become the Kleenex of smart lighting, whereas LIFX went into receivership earlier this year.

However, there’s good news for LIFX customers and for the smart home in general. California-based Feit Electric has stepped in and snapped up LIFX from its bankrupt Australian owner Buddy Technologies and says it will keep LIFX alive.

“Feit Electric will offer the current suite of LIFX products and plans to expand the line with innovations,” Feit’s senior director of global marketing, Dana Knight, told The Verge in an email. She also confirmed that the full line of LIFX products would continue to be manufactured and that Feit will maintain and build on the LIFX app and cloud platform. Additionally, the LIFX Downlight will still be released this year, and there are new products planned for 2023.

Initially a promising smart home Kickstarter success story, LIFX made its name selling high-quality, super-bright, color-changing light bulbs that connect directly to Wi-Fi and are compatible with Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Apple HomeKit. Founded in 2012, the same year Philips Hue started life, the company was full of ideas and expanded rapidly into various light bulb shapes and light strip offerings, even developing a Nanoleaf light panels competitor.

But by 2020, LIFX was sorely lacking in execution. Barely any of the products LIFX announced at CES that year made it to market, the light panels disappeared, and we’ve seen nothing from them since. But with this purchase, we now know that new LIFX lights are on their way.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/5/23292476/lifx-smart-lighting-feit-electric-new-products

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