Everything you need to know about friendship lamps

The idea sounds incredible. Doesn’t it? How a touch here, can light up another lamp in a different country?

Well it does. Using the same technology with which you send messages over a phone, there are currently above 1,00,000 active friendship lamps currently working in the USA only. With a beautiful combination of technology and craft, Telepathy lamp is a beautiful way to stay connected with your loves ones. As they are connected with internet, distance does not matter. You can stay connected with anyone, anywhere in the world. Here is an image showing active Telepathy lamps on world map.

Each color in a friendship lamp is made out of a combination of red, green and blue. Just like school, when you mix the three colors in different proportions, you get different colors.

With 1024 steps in each channel of a Telepathy lamp, theoretically, there are 1024x1024x1024 = Over 1 billion possible color values that can be sent over a Telepathy lamp. But practically on the naked eye, you can see over a 100 different shades. Here is a video showing a Telepathy lamp in color change mode

Imagine a little birdie waiting at your window watching your lamp. Whenever you touch, the birdie flies super quickly, like thousands of miles in a second and reaches your mom’s house.  And amidst her regular day, lightens up a lamp. A signal she knows which only you could send. And Voila! Countries apart, but you could make your mother smile with a simple touch.

What gives wings to that little birdie is the technology behind all of this.

1. The Telepathy network, where both your lamps are connected.
2. The coded micro-controller which resides in every lamp and speaks to this network.
3. And the touch sensors which wait always for your touch to bring a smile there.

Think about the reach of your phone. If you travel to a different country, would you be able to send a message over Whatsapp or write an email?  

The answer would be yes, if the phone has access to internet. Similarly, if the Telepathy lamps have an access to internet, they will connect anywhere in the world. They just need to be connected to your Wi Fi once and they will stay connected with the other lamp always. No matter the distance between them. Currently, we have active Telepathy lamps users from following countries using them across very long physical distances. India, USA, China, Japan, Australia, Canada, UAE, Ukraine, Russia, Netherland, Spain, England, France & Poland.

Telepathy lamps can now be connected with using the Telepathy Lamps mobile app. It is the simplest way to have your lamp connected. In less than 5 minutes, the app guides you step by step to connect your lamp with the internet and the other lamp. There is a common shared identifier which has to be put the same between all connected lamps to have them communicating with each other.

Don’t want to download an app?

You can follow the steps here over any mobile phone/desktop and have your Telepathy friendship lamps connected without the app.

Do I need to constantly reconnect with my Wi Fi?

No. Even if plugged out and plugged in after months, the friendship lamp remembers your Wi Fi credentials and tries to connect with it.

How do I know if my Wi Fi is connected?

Whenever you plug in the lamp, the lamp will go through its start up color pattern:

1. Blinks of Blue – Connecting to Internet
2. Blinks of Red – Connecting to the Telepathy network
3. Blinks of Green – Connected. You can send a message by touching the sensors now.

Here is a video recording of connecting the Telepathy lamps without the mobile app.

The Telepathy lamps do not come with a battery inside. But they do come with a USB cable. So you can power it with a power bank for mobile usage.

Why does it not have a battery?

Typically, these friendship lamps are expected to remain powered in 24 hours. The core idea of the lamps is to stay connected with the other user. And taking them off the power could mean losing color messages from them. So for a constant power in, the battery charge-discharge cycles won’t make sense.

Yes. You just need to redo the Wi Fi connection once. Telepathy lamps give you the liberty to change your connected Wi Fi details and shared key as many times as you wish. So even if your Wi Fi provider has changed, you just need to redo the first steps and your lamp will be connected to the new connection

With the evolution of idea, there are many friendship lamps available in the market. Every brand has their fair share of pros and cons. Telepathy lamps have the following advantages over other friendship lamps in the market:

1. Ease of connection – Telepathy lamp’s interface for wifi connection is very simple. Unlike the competition, you can even connect your lamps without the app. Reconnecting to a different Wi Fi is also very simple.
2. Wide range of designs. Telepathy lamps come in 9 beautiful forms. So you can choose the one you like the most.
3. Cost – Currently, a set of two Telepathy lamps start at around $79 price point in the USA. This is much lesser than the $150+ average price point for a set of two friendship lamps

Friendship lamps are costly. Period!

Why?

Comparing to any other conventional table lamp, following are the elements which make any friendship lamp’s product cost high:

The physical technology

With a smart micro-controller onboard, every friendship lamp has a chip that connects to the internet. This is not required even in the most fancy table lamp.

The cloud costs

With every message you send across a lamp, data gets transferred across the cloud. The recurring storage space and maintenance costs get added to the product cost.

It is at least a set of two lamps

A single friendship lamp won’t make sense unless you are adding it to an existing group. Hence the price comparison is of a set of two lamps against a single fancy table lamp.

After sales service

As the Telepathy lamps involves tech, the after sales service is also higher compared to any other table lamp. The need of software development, OTA (over the air updates) and human cost involved in the maintenance of current servers add up.

Yes. Telepathy friendship lamps work across the globe. We have many users who are actively connected with each other between different countries. 

Yes. With Telepathy lamps you can connect as many lamps as you want in a connected group. It can be of any design, you can add any number of lamps to an existing old group. Here is a video showing over 20 connected Telepathy lamps.

The Wi Fi details that you enter in your Telepathy lamps are local. It gets stored only in your lamp. The wifi credentials are not shared / stored even in our records. This is the reason when you manually connect (without the app), it may show that “Telepathy Lamp Portal does not have access to the internet.” That network is local just to feed your internet details with the lamp. This eradicates any security threat to your devices/internet. No one other than the physical lamp has your Wi Fi details. And that lamp is in the premise of your home.

Other than this, communication over the lamp involves the color value that you have stored. No essential data is transferred over the web.

We get this question a lot of times – What is the need of a friendship –Telepathy lamp when we have phones?

To answer this, let us go back from where we evolved. How does a new born communicate? He does not understand any language. But still, he is able to communicate to his mom. Gestures and touch are the most primitive ways of how we communicate. When you communicate without words, it is the most beautiful expression. This is where Telepathy lamps come in. With them, you can express your love without the necessity of words.

There are so many times when you cannot call or message. You basically have nothing to say. But you still want the other person to know that you love them. A simple touch on your Telepathy lamp does this job for you. And when this simple touch lights up the face of your loved one with a smile, it’s beautiful. Here is a commercial showing the use of Telepathy lamps between a father and his daughter staying away for studies.

Yes. Telepathy lamps come with a one year software warranty. You can read it in details here.

Telepathy lamps come in nine different designs. Here are they listed below:

Under One Tree – Celebrating the idea of connection, the design showcases every one that matters under a tree. A graphic showing the family of elephants, a couple, a group of friends and siblings having fun – all connected under a tree.

Raining Diamonds – Ultra modern abstract design showing a uniform rain of sharp triangles is this design.

Ideal for usage in modern interiors.

Personalized Captions – Four scenes depicting love under a tree of red hearts portray this design. Personalized captions below make it unique for you and your love. Ideal design for long distance couples.

Flora & Fauna – The interdependence of nature’s elements relived in a lamp.

Crystal – Simplistic, neat and clean lights. No design other than the brilliance of light.

Photo Telepathy – What could be better than having a memory light up every time you touch your lamp? The design comes with four insertion frames. You can add pictures of you with loved ones in it. Whenever they touch, your lamp will light up with that photo.

Christmas – A design that celebrates all elements of 25^th December in night and day form is this one.

Love Birds – Specially made for long distance couples – cute little love birds who are always connected.

Toddlers – Emphasizing the beauty of gestures, toddlers are a manifestation of a human. One smiling and the other winking, the toddlers exemplify the happy spirit Telepathy lamps have at offer

• Expressing without the need of words.
• Ability to let your touch give a smile to someone sitting thousands of miles away
• Attaching unique meanings to each color and communicating with a language of your own light signals
• A private communication channel between you and your loved one, where no one else can disturb.

Lesser than any text message you send/receive over Whatsapp. The lamp only communicates a color value and consumes a very insignificant amount of data.

You can keep the lamp plugged in all day to make sure there are no messages missed from your loved one. Telepathy lamps come with a button switch which you can use to turn off the color message. Also the lamps have an inbuilt power saver – lamps turn off after 45 minutes of receiving a color message. When no one is around, power is saved. Moreover the lights are frugal on power usage. They do not consume a lot of power.

There are hundreds of unique use case scenarios where Telepathy lamps have found a fit place. Following are some of the examples:

So a kid, who lives away reminding his grandpa of medicine time, is now just a touch away.

At home, a mom can now just place her palm on Telepathy; working at office, her son would know that its lunch time.

In a courtship period a couple could use Telepathy to communicate how much they want to be together.

Here is a funny use case we noted in product reviews:

“We bought these to share with our neighbor. Our dogs do not like each other and we worked with the family to alternate whose dogs were going out. We used our porch lights to signal each other at night but it was difficult during the day and the kids would accidentally let them out at the same time. My husband found these lamps and thought we’d give them a try. It’s brilliant, they communicate perfectly. We use red and orange to signal the dogs are out. If it’s any other color, then the backyard is open. It’s really helped the kids too. These were easy to set up and a great price.”

Telepathy friendship lamps have been used to connect with sisters, brothers, cousins, friends, parents and grandparents alike.

Yes. If you do not have a Wi Fi available, you can use your mobile data + personal hot spot as an internet connection source for your Telepathy lamp.

Yes. Telepathy is India’s first friendship lamp which connects you to people away. You can buy friendship lamps here

Saved color is the color which all connected lamps light up to when you touch your lamp. You can change your saved color any time and any number of times. All you have to do is long touch the sensors on your lamp. It will go into the color change mode and start showing you different colors it has. Whenever the color of your choice appears, short touch again. This will save that color in your lamp. Now, every time you touch, this is the color you will see on all connected lamps. Here is a video of how you do it.

Friendship lamps work on the same technology any modern day messenger uses. The touch sends a color message to the network. The only difference is that instead of a notification, it lights up a lamp connected to this network with same shared key.

Yes. Telepathy lamp has this special feature. There is a push button switch given on every Telepathy lamp. Click once will light up a yellow light in the lamp. This makes it useful as a standard night lamp. And whenever a message comes, the lamp will change itself to the color message. This is a unique feature which only Telepathy lamps have amongst all other friendship lamps.

Sure you can. With the new USB power cable, the lamps have become portable. You can carry them in cars or buses. Power them in with your power bank and connect to your mobile hot spot. Telepathy toddlers is a lamp with a small form factor, making it very easy to carry in a bag as well.

Customer reviews speak for us here

Any message received on a lamp remains for around 45 minutes. After this interval to save power, the light turns off if there is no interaction on any side.

There are two designs in personalized Telepathy lamps. One is the perfect gift for long distance couples with an option to personalize captions on four sides of the lamp. The other is photo Telepathy, where you can insert four photos on each side of the lamp.

You can insert your picture prints in this design of Telepathy friendship lamp. There are four picture frames where you can easily insert and take out a photo print. So every time you receive a message, a memory of yours light up. Attached is an image below.

You need two things for using a friendship lamp

1) A power supply giving 5 V – a phone charger, portable charger or laptop USB slot can be used.

2) A Wi Fi to connect the lamps with. Or use mobile data + personal hotspot to connect lamps with internet.

• Telepathy friendship lamps have a rugged built quality. The outer body of each lamp is made of acrylic. This is the same material which is used in all out door signage. It is water proof, rust free and has almost zero maintenance. Not made of glass, they are not vulnerable to any physical damage. You can clean it with a wet wipe.
• The internal circuit is fabricated and well tested before it passes our QC. Telepathy does not use a capacitive touch. The touch only happens when you touch both samples and this rules out any touch based issues in future.
• The lamps have the functionality of OTA. This means whenever a new version of firmware is ready, we can update every lamp’s software over the air. This gives great strength for cleaning out any software related bugs.

This can be done. Please send the design selected and the two addresses to – telepathy@zocivoci.com. Our team will get back with the total cost including the two courier charges.

Yes. You can reconnect your Telepathy lamp with your new Wi Fi following the same steps you did the first time. And it will be connected again.

Simply touch the two sensors on the lamp and this will send a color message to your other connected lamps.