Historical Case

First announced in 2013, the Good Night Lamp's goal was to bring the connectivity of technology to people with low technology literacy. The creator, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, chose to have limited functionality (with a few easter eggs provided on Github) and "just nail it."

The primary “home”-owner would purchase a home and accompanying little home(s). The little home(s) would be distributed to friends and or family. The “home”-owner would then press a button on top of the primary large lamp to light it up, along with the accompanying lamps.

The single action of lighting up the main lamp, with the smaller lamps following, provided little meaning but allowed a plethora of added meaning - just left work, available to talk, off to bed, etc.

Alex made the device very easy to use, you plugged in the devices and through GSM (an early cellular technology, the large house was found and connected with the nearby houses. The simplicity is made more admirable considering the difficulty of connecting devices with no interface even in 2022.

Alex sought to bring function to the home, not just create a device. This inspired the use of wood and plastic as warmer home products - "think Ikea rather than Apple."

The Good Night Lamp lived 6 years as a consumer product, eventually being discontinued (partially due to the dependence on GSM, which lost its role with the proliferation of 4G). However, the Good Night Lamp's design contribution lives on and the lamp itself can still be found in design museums.

What is known?

• Mature products similar to the lamp

• Archived documents and case studies

• Multiple DIY resources

What is unknown / to be discovered?

• Connectivity: how were additional lamps added? Was it truly just a text message or did it use a cloud?

• Technology related to additional features we may add