This thing is expensive — for now. Next year or two, with Chinese or Korean knockoffs, well under $10 for sure. Then, imagine the number of power plants we wouldn’t have to build if everyone switched to using them.
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Switching to LED won’t make that much of a difference, using air-conditioning systems consumes much more power and they tend to be used for longer periods that artificial lighting, however, the LEDs should last longer than a normal light bulb.
Genetic engineers are already hard at work designing a new race of mole people who can function normally in extremely low-light conditions. All this research to develop higher efficiency lighting is just a waste of time.
The new mole people can also write really bad sci-fi movie scripts in nearly total darkness 😉
Well, you seem to forget those genetically modified mice that glowed in the dark.
http://tinyurl.com/36m7v3
There’s no need for mole people when you are the source of your own lighting. 😉
LED lamps won’t make it big until the colour spectrum better matches that of the incandescent and CFL lamps.
I can guarantee that it will be a while before they get the color correct so it is not unpleasant. It will probably strobe too..ugh.
Problem too is the diminishing returns vs. CF. Even if this is more efficient, saving a few watts is not worth very much. The long life of LEDs might be useful, e.g., with high ceilings or large numbers of bulbs on relatively high ceilings.
I’d like to see it in one of those small-threaded nightlight style bulbs, where CFs are just too big.
So, don’t wait- go CFL.
http://www.onebillionbulbs.com/
And, there was an interesting piece on this on NPR yesterday- podcast is probably available…
having used LED fixtures in the showbiz sense, they are really cool. They are bright and snap right on and have no problem strobing. Any color correction can be easily applied as a filter to the globe around the LEDs and not have to be emitted by the LEDs themselves. I would use them.
Here is the link to the NPR program info from yesterday:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7279952
A couple of interesting quotes:
If Walmart is .were to meet its goal of selling 100 million CFL bulbs, the aggregate electric bill savings would be $3 billion, according to Rubin.
“If each family switched out one bulb, it would be the equivalent of taking one million cars off the road.”
Stross, author of The Wizard of Menlo Park, writes about how Americans clung to their gas lights at first, even though they were impressed with the quality of Thomas Edison’s electric lights.
====================
Of course, no matter what we say, or whatever benefits we list, there will always be those that will cling to their backwards ideas.
I purchased LED Xmas Lights this year and they strobe. That’s fine for fairy lights strung over foundation shrubs. No LED solution for the home can strobe and be viable. Every outlet in my home either as a CFL or a dimmer switch. The missus hates CFLs, but agrees on the trade-off we’re making.
#7, I see your diminishing returns argument, but there’s another concern that could help tip the balance away from CFL lighting. CFLs, like all fluorescent lights, contain trace amounts of mercury. At the moment, the industry cites favorable comparisons showing that when the extra electricity required for incandescent lights vs CFLs is generated at a coal-fired plant, there is actually more mercury released from that process than what is contained in CFL bulbs (not even considering proper recycling).
I don’t know what the environmental factors concerning LEDs are, but their much greater longevity certainly could weigh in their favor. With CFLs, I read one industry document that made me laugh. The cleanup procedure they recommended for broken bulbs can be summed up like this….. Clean it up quickly, but without going near it 😉
Ummm
You dont know of the problems do you???
LED lighting is VERY narrow light frequency.
To get a wide FRequency of light they are looking into a selction of LEDS that can run the spectrum, and make it easier on the eyes.
LEDs can take your night vison away…
Some people just can’t wait to stomp on any idea that might help keep us all from dying in the upcoming global destruction.
LEDs are better suited for situations where you look directly at the light source such as for signaling. CFL lighting is better suited for indirect lighting applications such as for area lighting. Why can’t both applications co-exist with their respective strengths?
Those LED lamps aren’t meant for indoor human use.
Great for outdoor lampposts, or for commercial sign lighting, where they need to work 365 days a year, and the cost of paying someone to go change, versus Neon Tubes, pays for itself.
The LED MR-10 replacements, they use 3 watts, run on 12v, and are bright & warm. Wholesale price is about 40$ per bulb.
They use them in stores with track lighting instead of the 25 watt MR-10’s. The LED versions give off less heat and don’t change the color the products, melamine, or paint.
The technology is still in its infancy, we are far from being able to predict the viability of solid-state lighting as it matures. How good were the first incandescents? The first flourescents?
I would like to see these become viable. CFL are great and all but certain people literally cant stand them. I know of people who trance out with fluorescents or go into full sensory overload (autistic).
We already use some LED lighting – specifically, “puck lights” (they vaguely resemble hockey pucks) that use five LEDs that run on three AAA batteries. They’re useful outside and they do last a very long time. One lights a set of stairs outside the house, for example – very effective, portable, low-power, simple. No discernible strobing. As #17 says, it’s still early days for this tech, but from our experience, it’s already useful.
my power company just offered flat rate power, not to be confused with equal payment plans that reconcile at year end.
flat rate, no matter what I use. so….. people might stop caring about saving power.
that could slow the transition to efficient bulbs
I dream of a world where the Thomas Alva Edison Museum is lit entirely by CFL and LED lighting (plus a few candles to make pedro feel at ease).
Some years from now, incandescent and fluorescent lighting will become the vacuum tubes of today.
I’ve been a huge fan of LEDs for area lighting for many years, and the prices on the diodes are rapidly dropping. Bulbs like this just accelerate that trend. Walmart is definitely on the right track, I wish more companies would take the lead on such ideas.
John…they can mix the individual LEDs in these arrays to get any color balance you prefer. It only takes a few blues, reds, and greens to get a warmer output. That will probably be common after they get more popular…just like whole spectrum fluorescents, etc.
308 lumens with a clear lens, but twice as many with a frosted lens? This doesn’t make sense. Frosting the lens should hardly change the light output.
Note that a 70-watt incandescent light bulb puts out over 1,000 lumens according to Wikipedia. This does not lend credibility to the people selling the thing.
By the looks of it, that bulb will overheat itself (unless there is a fan hidden inside – doubtful). That means that the light output will diminish as it heats up (over a few minutes) and that it will diminish quickly over time (tens or hundreds of hours) as the heat stresses the LEDs. If the power supply is inside of the light bulb, it will get so hot that it will die long before the LEDs go.
It’s a nice attempt, but that light bulb is not all they claim. Wait at least another year and some cool (real) LED lighting products will be available.
Try fitting this monstrosity into a standard lamp or light fixture. Not going to happen.
The easy solution to all of this is for us all to all go blind. Without sight we would no longer need any lighting. We would no longer be able to drive, thus, no cars, planes, boats etc. We wouldn’t give a damn about the clothes we wore, i.e., we’d wear clothes longer before replacing them and would wash them less often. Of course TVs and computers would essentially be useless. Our energy costs would zilch.
Let’s do this! Grab the nearest pencil, jab out the eyes of as many people as you can, and then when they finally arrest you, jab our your own!
Here’s a site where you can buy an incandescent led replacement bulb for $5.50. I don’t know how bright it is.
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=18-LED-CLR&cpc=RECOM
The problem I see is simply the amount of light they give. 380 lumens is not anywhere near enough to replace my 1200 lumens bulbs. I’d live in perpetual dusk. Not a chance.
However, as soon as they get the output up, I’m replacing all my bulbs. 80% of the energy we put into an incandescent is lost to heat, not light. I’d love to reduce my consumption by 85% and have the bulbs last for years and years without needed replacing. I’ve already made the move to LEDs for utility lighting and flashlights…just another year or two of development and I think we’ll all be moving away from incandescents.
I’m waiting for the development of solid-state air conditioning. Imagine an air conditioner that could generate electricity from heat, rather than squander it.
Considering that we’re still creating better ways to create and extract light from LEDs, we’ve still got a way to go.
28,
Exactly. Consider that just a few years ago, you wouldn’t have bought an LED flashlight on a bet.
23,
There are several movements to add to the number of colors currently used to reproduce the image. For example, adding yellow to the red, green, and blue currently used for a greater color gamut.
Right now I’m using screw-in fluors for some lights around the house and LED’s for battery backup lighting for the electric utility. I have extra fluor bulbs and extra LED flashlights that run on standard batteries for barter if it comes to that. It is nice to have sufficient available to share.
I’ve got enough supplies to build a house 12-volt grid that would run off a battery in the garage. It would be charged off the cars’ alternators or a plug-in charger whenever A.C. is available.
I became aware of how bad things can be when I went out on my Salvation Army canteen into the Mississippi gulf region after Katrina. Water, food, lighting, cleaning supplies, rebuilding tools,diapers, power supplies, underpants, etc., all were bought up & unavailable or were thought of and stockpiled ahead of time. Even then, that was just a regional problem and not a national problem.
LED lights do not strobe when properly designed and used for the application for which they are intended.
LED lights are a special form of diode, which only allows current to flow in one direction. If you apply a 60 Hz frequency to a diode, it will strobe 60 times per second, but if you apply a DC signal, it will not strobe at all, since the current is always on.
Light of ANY color temperature can be obtained from LED these days, typically by packaging three different LED’s in one emitter. Heck, the BEST NEWEST large screen TV’s use LED’s to create their white light.
It’s amazing how many people in this forum run their mouths without even an inkling of what they are talking about.