Digital is not always smart. Even smart is not always smart: The running gag of the energy industry are digital electricity meters that have to be flashed with a flashlight in order to read out meter readings. But even in the Smart Home, you can tussle your hair in the meantime.
Smart light bulbs and a user experience from Hell: The lights from the manufacturer General Electric can currently only be reset to factory settings with a complicated switch-on and switch-off sequence. The developers of the “C by GE Smart Bulbs” must have been Morse fans. There is probably no other explanation for the fact that a time-consuming switch-on and switch-off must be carried out to reset the light bulbs.
A total of 40 seconds with a total of 13 switch actuations are required to reset the luminaires to their factory settings.
Smart light bulbs with unique reset function
Since nobody can remember the sequence ON 8 sec, OFF 2 sec, ON 2 sec, OFF 2 sec, ON 2 sec, OFF 2 sec, ON 2 sec, OFF 2 sec, ON 8 sec, OFF 2 sec, ON 8 sec, ON 8 sec, OFF 2 sec and then ON again, GE also offers a Youtube video on the net.
So the troubled users stand with the smartphone in their hand at the light switch and try to keep to the sequence of seconds exactly. But please don’t miscount. You might start pulling your hair shortly.
And beware, GE also points this out in his video: In a newer firmware version it is two steps less. If you don’t want to spend half the day at the light switch trying to reset your bulbs back to their delivery state, you should therefore first find out which firmware version the respective smart light bulb is using.
The reader comments below the video then turn out to be correspondingly spiteful:
The only hope is that you will never want to sell your own bulbs or use them in any other way plus that you have only used two of them in the whole house. Otherwise the resetting of the lights can become a rather time-consuming and nerve-racking story.
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