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7 Comments

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  PleasureGelf at 02:20 PM JST - 5th October

  They're environment-friendly and energy-efficient. Not to mention hellishly expensive. You'd have to use them for a few years to break even.

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  Klein2 at 10:50 PM JST - 5th October

  Good product. With low interest rates and long life of depreciation, these things make so much more sense than solar panels.

  The article does not mention that a lot of people like the light quality. Less flicker, no heat, and a better spectrum.

  They use A LOT less power. Incandescent 100 W can be done for 22 W with fluorescent and about what 5 W with LED? Although lighting is not a big source of power demand, going from 100 W to 5 W is a huge step. It is hard to imagine that the next step, say from 5 W to 3 W, would ever be worth it.

  These might therefore be the last lightbulbs you will ever need to buy... or change. One less thing to worry about... for the rest of your life.

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  jtalbot44 at 12:13 AM JST - 6th October

  LED lights are incredibly efficient, but right now they are still too one-dimensional to use for much except down-lights and spot-lights. Another generation or two though, and I might make the jump.

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  ebisen at 08:42 AM JST - 6th October

  Klein2 - for your informatin, LEDs have pretty bad light quality (only a partial spectrum, missing a lot of it's blue).

  Also they are rated as spot-light illumination only, and it takes much more to have ambiental (360 degrees) LEDs.

  If you want to make ambient lights from LEDs the power need is much higher (still). I hope in the future the technology improves, because otherwise LEDs seem the way to go (non-polluting, really instant cold light).

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  Klein2 at 10:03 AM JST - 6th October

  Hey Ebisen. I think your "informatin" is old. You can tweak the spectrum easily with filters and by combining different colors. You spelled its wrongly also.

  You are thinking about the LEDs used in flashlights or something, which these are obviously not. I have seen lamp makers up to now try to use mirrored surfaces and other tricks to try to get the most illumination out of each LED. They worried about lux rather than color. That is changing quickly.

  Reports of studies done a year ago by various parties were showing that particularly for older people, the light was far superior to that from flourescents, and especially in work environments, they are great. Personally, I have tried LED lighting and I like it. I will likely switch my office out before the end of the year. I have compact fluorescents in most places now, so I will not get great cost savings anyway, but the lack of flicker and the better brightness will be great. If I have to use lamps or spots at work areas, that is ok for now.

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  Cliffy at 09:19 PM JST - 6th October

  I had modified my outdoor motion flood light to use white LEDs and run off from a car battery which is charged by solar panels and wind turbine (kind of my experiment). It works quite well except that LED really needs to go further than that narrow beam of lights. For spot light purpose, not too bad.

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  ebisen at 01:21 PM JST - 9th October

  Klein2 - I'm talking also out of personal "exprience" ;) I tried using the latest LED bulbs at home (borrowed them directly from the maker. I have a completely light controlled house, with dimmers taking care of various "mood setting" needs.

  If I put them to 10-20% - the normal incandescent or halogen light bulbs give a very pleasant light using about 6 watt only (I also have a energy meter). You can dim LEDs, but their power needs do not decrease too much (from 7 watt to around 5), but the light they give was actually not acceptable (extremly spot light like, and blueish).

  Filtering LED light is not an option, as this decreases luminosity.

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