Answers with Atif Noori

Answer 1

What is emberlight and when did you come up with the idea for it?

I came up with the idea around July 2013 when I was looking into smart lighting products for myself and wasn't satisfied with what was out there. So I came up with Emberlight, a plug and play adapter that turns any light into a smart light. It connects to your home WiFi network and enables you to control that light from anywhere in the world using our free mobile app. It also uses bluetooth proximity awareness, so it can even detect your presence by the phone in your pocket or by other wearable technologies.

For how long has the emberlight team been working on this product?

The initial idea originated around July 2013 and I started early prototyping then. But, I got more serious about it around Nov 2013. I recruited the team in the Feb-March 2014 timeframe and we've done many iterations on the prototype since then.

Everyone on your team has more than a decade of experience in the tech industry. Was it hard to quit your day jobs and run with your passion?

It took me a while to find the right people for the team. I was looking for people that I knew or had a connection with, and also had the passion for the product and company vision. Also, I had done some preliminary market and product validation before we jumped ship. So it was a somewhat calculated risk. I also saw this as an immense opportunity - and the team shares in that perspective. So it was with this viewpoint that we all kind of realized it would be riskier to not take the risk.

Just so that we get a sense of your team's qualifications... where did they work before joining emberlight?

Our team is really our core strength. We have experience at both top tech firms and startups including Google, Yahoo, Applied Materials, Autodesk, Raytheon, Booz Allen, Oracle, Dreamworks, Enphase, Intevac, Phone Halo, Breezy, Cisimple, Adify, Dynamic Signal, and more! So, we've seen a lot things and tackled a lot of issues. This will help us overcome challenges going forward.

What makes emberlight different from other "smart lights" out there?

The core difference is that we decouple the technology (the smarts) from the commodity (the light). That's really important for 3 key reasons:1) Big companies will continue to drive down lighting costs with scale and as a startup we won't add value to that game. For the user, they can choose whatever branded light they want.2) There are so many types of light bulbs. There are different technologies (LED, CFL, Incandescent and Halogen) as well as styles (normal, globe, floodlight, frosted, clear). The user has the option to choose and make it smart with emberlight.3) If a bulb breaks or burns out, why throw away a whole computer with it? With emberlight, you just throw away the bulb and keep the smarts. Other product design differentiators are that emberlight is plug and play (no install), and doesn't require an additional hub or monthly subscription.

You started a Kickstarter campaign and reached your goal of $50K in 5 days! Did you expect such a positive reaction?

We had done a lot of work leading up to the campaign to make sure we started off with a splash. From our outreach, we had accrued a large email list (thousands) and also had interest from top media outlets. So we're very happy that our efforts resulted in such a great start. We also have an awesome network of friends, family and Kickstarter backers that have been sharing with their networks to get the word out. I can't overemphasize the need to have a solid network and backer community to help get the word out.

What do you plan to do with the $50K?

That will go directly to fulfilling orders from our backers and towards manufacturing costs.

When will emberlight be available to the market?

We plan to ship our first products by Feb 2015.

Emberlight has many wonderful features, such as enabling "mood" presets, pretending to be home when you're not, and dimming lights to save energy. How did you determine that these were pain points emberlight could solve?

Good question. I started off with what I wanted in a product. Then I did customer interviews and surveys to get an understanding of what the market wanted and to validate my assumptions. Bluetooth proximity is something that I wanted to add since I believe it's the future of home automation. Controlling your lights from an app is cool, but using wearable technologies is even more convenient.

Do the emberlight plugins work with any light bulb?

Just like any dimmer switch, emberlight works with incandescents, halogens, dimmable CFLs and dimmable LEDs. We are limiting the wattage for incandescents to under 50W for now until we do long term reliability testing of the electronics at higher temperatures.

Do the emberlight plugins ever expire?

The great part about separating the brains (emberlight) from the light, is that when the light goes out, you don't have to get rid of the brains!

Do you plan on selling emberlight through retail stores, or just through your online website?

At first, we will do direct sales through Kickstarter and our website. We will pursue retail partnerships next year once we get our first products off the manufacturing line.

Most customers will probably want more than one emberlight, in order to cover a large portion of their home. On average, how many emberlight plugins do you expect a customer will buy?

One of our product design requirements was to make emberlight modular. Many home automation products require a large upfront investment just to get started. With emberlight, you can buy one and within seconds have an automated light. Then add on more as needed down the road. But, since we offer deep discounts for multipacks, customers may want to buy emberlights for the whole house or apartment at once. The great part is that the choice is yours.

For what operating systems will the emberlight app be available?

The emberlight app will be available for both iOS and Android.

What would you say is your main goal for emberlight?

Our mission at emberlight is reduce the burden of simple tasks at home so that you have more time to focus on what's important. The technology should be invisible and mold to your life... beginning with your lights.