What’s more daunting than your technology being overtaken with messages from the other side? Maybe a psychotic alien clown appearing on your LIFX Tile.
This Halloween we’ve tasked three clever developers with tinkering with the LIFX Tile API to create a Halloween inspired integration. The objective? It needs to be as spooky as possible, and, we think they’ve killed it (but really, be prepared for blood).
Developer 1: Tyler.
If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?
Creative, Curious, Tinkerer
When you’re not making ad hoc API magic, what do you do for a living?
Ad hoc API magic! My job involves tinkering with the latest tech to figure out how it can be useful for our clients.
Developing requires technical skills mixed with creativity. How/when did you start developing?
When I was 7 years old making websites for my Neopets shops. Though I didn’t really start properly developing until 3 years ago.
Tell us a little about your Halloween creation. What was the inspiration?
The scariest effects are the ones that slowly appear. And what’s scarier than a mutant alien clown?
What do you think about the creative potential for LIFX with our open API?
Love that I have an easy way to hack my house. Would love to see the API paired with Smart Switches, and scheduling scenes next!
Developer 2: Andrew.
If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?
Problem-Solution middleman :D
When you’re not making ad hoc API magic, what do you do for a living?
Creative technologist (which is synonymous to jack of all trades, master of none)
Developing requires technical skills mixed with creativity. How/when did you start developing?
As a kid back in the early 90s, when the ability to make pranks using DOS commands or create simple programs on BASIC made you look like super-hacker.
Tell us a little about your Halloween creation. What was the inspiration?
“Overflowing blood” is just such a classic visual device that is used in many movies, so I was curious whether it could be translated to Tiles.
With high contrast white/red color combo and slow transition — it actually looks quite impressive in reality, especially when red takes over completely and creates this ominous glow.
“Run Away!” — I was originally playing with the idea of “Stranger Things” lights wall to communicate messages, but everything was looking just way too soothing and nice for a Halloween idea.
So this was simplified and dialed back to basics with tiles turned into a marquee device that’s impossible to miss (and ability to code any message dynamically).
What do you think about the creative potential for LIFX with our open API?
Definitely one of the best-connected products out there to express your creativity with. And using the real-time data as a source to inform display effects could turn these devices into functional communication tools rather than just great-looking lighting appliances.
Developer 3: James.
If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?
Inquisitive. Conscientious. Determined.
When you’re not making ad hoc API magic, what do you do for a living?
I’m a remote creative/designer/developer (i.e. a unicorn) based in Sydney Australia, working predominantly in PHP/Node.
Developing requires technical skills mixed with creativity. How/when did you start developing?
I’ve always loved the intersection of art and technology — my earliest programming memory was painstakingly crafting turtle graphics animations in Logo on our family computer during the late 80s.
Tell us a little about your Halloween creation. What was the inspiration?
During the lead up to Halloween, it’s tradition for us to watch horror/slasher films and spooky tv shows, so I designed my LIFX Tile effects to compliment a selection of my favourite creepy cinematic scenes and musical themes (for references, see the Effects section of my repository on GitHub).
What do you think about the creative potential for LIFX with our open API?
The barrier to entry is so low with the HTTP API that anyone can start programatically flexing their creative LIFX muscles with ease. And with the advent of more and more open source LIFX LAN Protocol libraries — created by our peers to provide simple interfaces to update your bulbs at low latency — what you can imagine implementing over the LAN Protocol is super exciting!
