Gadgets: Auraglow Remote Control Colour Changing LED Light Bulb
Decorating is a pain. It's expensive, messy, dusty and downright inconvenient. The cheat's decorating tip, and one that my lovely white walls currently benefit from, is the art of good lighting. A well-positioned mood light or a cunningly disguised spot can immediately transform the boring into the beautiful. I reviewed the Philips LivingColours Mood Lamp a few months ago; a bowling ball-sized kaleidoscope creator that worked well, but cost over 100. The Auraglow Remote Control Colour Changing LED Light Bulb is considerably more tempting at the all-together more reasonable price of 22.99.
It looks like a light bulb, it screws in like a light bulb and it works like a light bulb, so what exactly are we getting for an extra 20? Something you don't normally get with a light bulb - a mini-remote control. This features a spectrum of 16 different coloured buttons along with two dimmer buttons and four mode buttons - flash, strobe, fade and smooth. Once I'd screwed the Auraglow into my living room lampshade, I pressed the light switch expecting to have my senses overwhelmed by a rainbow of colour - but there was nothing. A quick fiddle later and I noticed the On and Off buttons on the remote - I now had a dimmable light-bulb. While I'd recommend sticking to static colours rather than the gaudy mode functions, the Auraglow produced a pleasing array of hues on demand, my favourites being sunlight orange and saucy pink. The LED technology will last for at least 40,000 hours and it runs off an eco-friendly 4w, but gives out light equivalent to a 40w bulb. It produces a subtle wash of colour rather than full-room illumination, but If mood's your mission, it's definitely worth a shot.
This article first appeared in The Scotsman Magazine, Saturday 29 January, 2011