I started in lighting at 23, loading containers in Foshan, China—sourcing parts from dozens of suppliers, learning the hard way that hardware is a different level. International manufacturing, supply chains, customs, quality control at scale. I built a company from that. We designed lamps that were exhibited at the Museum of Architecture and Design in New York and the Vitra Design Museum. We sold to Bijenkorf, Rinascente, Printemps in Paris.
But I was always frustrated with smart lighting. The idea that you need an app to turn off your lights is absurd. So we built a wireless pebble-shaped dimmer to compete with Philips Hue—beautiful, intuitive, no phone required. It cost us €100k and eventually sunk the company. A few years later, IKEA released a cheap version of essentially the same thing.
After that, I started a contracting company and we began assembling custom LED armatures. One day I wired up a light strip in my own home with no controls at all—just on/off—but programmed it to follow the sun. Cool and bright in the morning, warm and dim in the evening. It changed color temperature and intensity naturally throughout the day.
That was the eureka moment. This is nothing more and nothing less than what light should do. Biomimicry. Follow the sun. No app, no scenes, no schedules to program. And if you need extra light temporarily—a button press gives you a boost, then it settles back.
The result is something that's simultaneously dead simple and deeply sophisticated. Healthy light, zero effort. Fifteen years of frustration and obsession, distilled into something you forget is there.
Now I'm looking for a few people who want the same thing.
— Fernando Arias van Oordt, Amsterdam