Right, open standards. I think there's an XKCD comic about this... There's no "open standard for wireless control of a light", because there's not one standard

Right, open standards. I think there's an XKCD comic about this... There's no "open standard for wireless control of a light", because there's not one standard way to do it. For a dollar in parts, I can build a wireless light switch that uses 433 MHz, just like your wireless doorbell. Oh, you wanted a network of addressable lights? Well now it's a dollar fifty. We'll move to 900 MHz and switch to a ZigBee radio. Oh, you wanted to address them through WiFi? Well, here's the problem. Light bulb's don't have keyboards to enter your AP+Key. You could try and use WPS with a fixed pin code, but there's another issue. Putting an embedded Linux device that handles POST requests in a lightbulb is rather silly. We'll keep the ZigBee radios, and build a crossover "base station" that has a RESTful XML based JSON buzzword complaint interface. Did I mention my ZigBee radio only talks with my brand of ZigBee radios? The problem in making a standard comes down to the radios in the lightbulb. That interface will likely always be proprietary. Even if you get a standardized web interface, no one will be able to make a universal base station for all "smart" electronics. Wink is trying to do that, best of luck to them. I don't see it happening. http://thegadgetflow.com/blog/wink-wants-new-standard-smart-home-devices/ http://thegadgetflow.com/blog/wink-wants-new-standard-smart-...