LightingScience Bluetooth bulbs claim to conquer jetlag; ease early starts

Remote control lights like Philips hue may allow you to change the color of your environment, but LightingScience claims its bulbs actually improve the quality of it. A Bluetooth-enabled downlighter, the Rhythm Downlight cuts out the frequency of blue light that tells the body to "wake up" and runs the user through a smartphone questionnaire to learn their living routines and automatically adjust what frequencies are emitted.

The app asks questions about routine, hobbies, and habits, and cooks up a lighting scheme accordingly. To the human eyes there'll be no visible difference – it just cuts out some of the blue light that dissuades the body from producing melatonin – but LightingScience claims it'll help people get to sleep compared to standard bulbs.

Meanwhile, there's also the company's Good Night bulb and Awake & Alert lights, that lack Bluetooth but also promise to be more considerate to the body's rhythms. The Good Night bulb cuts out the blue frequencies, like the Rhythm Downlighter, for easing the body into sleep while you're reading in bed.

The Awake & Alert bulb tackles the other end of the spectrum, ramping up the blue spectrum to encourage the body to get energized in the morning.

It's easy to discount speciality lighting as a gimmick or a smart home luxury, but LightingScience says it has the, well, scientific backup to prove that its lamps actually do make a difference. They're on sale now, priced from $69.99.