From phones to cars and much of the technology in between, just about everything we use these days has had the prefix 'smart-' slapped on it, so why not our domestic lighting fittings as well?
To that end, Panasonic Japan has just introduced a new kind of room light that includes a sensor for detecting the ambient lighting levels in the room.
Light fantastic
The ¥35,000 (£268) 'Auto-eco Light-control Twin Pa' (really) uses that information to decide how much of its own light to put out to achieve optimum brightness.
The lamp's sensor polls a 3m-diameter area below itself once a second and then slowly reduces (or raises) brightness if it detects other light sources, such as daylight in the room.
Naturally, part of the reason for this is to reduce power consumption. Panasonic says its tests show the new light cuts electricity use by up to 60 per cent, which is a Good Thing.