Much the same could be said of most electronics. Toys gadgets gizmos. This is hacker news so I wonder how this sentiment belongs here.

Nevertheless, there is a conceptual barrier here that is difficult to cross, and it has to do with the expectation here that a gadget or product should hold our attention, or in other words, to be a distraction, in order to be worth our time and money. The light however is not exactly the same sort of thing as a game console- it's aiming for a different kind of niche, the niche of ambient computing. A kind of gadget that you /don't/ notice, that doesn't hold your attention. A gadget you buy expecting to forget that it is there- because it is just quietly doing what it is supposed to: ambiently communicating. A mood, a temperature, a status. It's simple as that. As geeks we can hack on it and overcomplicate things, but the essence of this is simply: connect a light to the cloud.

Unlike many gadgets people buy, I don't think this is one you would easily forget or put in a drawer. People use indoor lighting every evening, and this is much more than any old light. You just need to place it somewhere central, and decide what triggers (other than manual control) will change its illuminance/colours/patterns. Oh, and many basic decorator lamps at a lighting store are more expensive than this.