

LED Bulbs Save Substantial Energy - raju
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/business/energy-environment/30led.html?_r=1

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mieses
Incandescents approximate sunlight better than LED's and most other light
sources.

[http://exploration.vanderbilt.edu/images/news/article_main/q...](http://exploration.vanderbilt.edu/images/news/article_main/quantumdot_led_5.jpg)

The health implications should be studied. Subjectively, incandescents are
more pleasant than fluorescents and LED's. Our brains might be telling us
something.

~~~
lowkey
Funny, I am a co-founder of a HW startup working in the LED space. One of our
core patents is based on the concept of 'Polychromatic LED Light.' Our low-
cost high-efficiency intelligent LED controls are designed to reproduce the
full natural spectrum of lighting - more like natural sunlight than ever
before possible.

Incandescents do generate high quality light but they too fall short at
reproducing natural sunlight. Unfortunately because Incandescents were
dominant for so long the industry has established a color rendering index
(CRI) based on a black-body radiator which considers incandescent to be
perfect even though it actually falls far short.

Fluorescents and Compact fluorescents produce horrible light as a result of
the phosphor coating used to create white light. LEDs can be much better,
though admittedly not all are.

All in all LED lighting is the future for a whole host of reasons. I can't
wait to replace fluorescents and CFL which, as a result of their mercury
content, are one of the most environmentally toxic 'green technologies' ever
developed.

Just my, clearly biased, $0.02 :)

~~~
stan_rogers
"Fluorescents and Compact fluorescents produce horrible light as a result of
the phosphor coating used to create white light." That's a bit of an
overgeneralisation -- there's a significant difference between the cheapo
tubes and, say, an OTT tube (just one, albeit excellent, example of a full-
spectrum fluorescent).

The easiest, cheapest way to get a decent idea of the spectrum is to use a CD
or DVD (we've all got at least one coaster at home that used to be a disk).
The data side makes a great diffraction spectrometer. A common industrial-
grade tube has great gaping holes in the spectrum; an OTT is indistinguishable
from indirect skylight (the 6500K "north light" of the studio artist's dream).
It's a bit disconcerting at first, probably because we're very much used to
incandescent light indoors ("daylight" photographic incandescents might hit
4200K when they're brand new, and they're WAY blue compared to standard bulbs
at around 2500-2800K) but it can hardly be described as "horrible".

LEDs aren't quite there yet -- at least none of the ones I've actually seen
are. On the other hand, I fondly remember a time when LEDs could not be seen
at all outdoors in daylight and drank power at a rate that would have left a
plasma TV in an envious rage -- one had to duck into the shade and press
eighteen or so buttons simultaneously in order to tell time on a thousand-
dollar digital watch. The idea of using an LED (other than a laser) to
illuminate anything other than itself was laughable around 1980; the spectrum
problem and diffusion are trivial compared to the problems that have already
been solved. It won't be long.

~~~
jerf
Thank you very much for the CD/DVD idea! I see five clear differently-colored
copies of my local compact florescent tube in my DVD's rainbow... can you
confirm that I am interpreting that correctly as five spikes and virtually
nothing in between those spikes?

My local incandescent lights are just a rainbow smear.

Oh, awesome, I can do it to my LCD screen too and clearly see three
differently-colored reflections!

...

Forgive my geekout, but that's cool and I've never heard it before.

~~~
stan_rogers
Why, yes. Yes I can confirm that. And I can tell you that noticing it about 25
years back, when I was doing photography professionally, saved me a metric
crapload of money on special meters and so on -- but only after I had button-
holed every single person I'd ever met to show them what I'd seen whether they
cared or not. I truly understand the geek-out part.

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bumblebird
We have a kitchen which contains about 7 small spotlights. I thought I'd try
out some LED replacements, which each contain like 10 small white LEDs. They
were more expensive, but I thought it'd be worth a try. A bit like these
[http://nextday.diy.com/app/jsp/product/productPage.jsp?produ...](http://nextday.diy.com/app/jsp/product/productPage.jsp?productId=89946)

The issue is, they look bright when you look at them, but they actually
provide absolutely no actual light. Even when we had 7 of them, the room was
almost pitch black. I actually think it's a bit of a con to even sell these
things, knowing they are unusable for most applications.

>> "While it is indisputable that LEDs use a fraction of the electricity of a
regular bulb to create the same amount of light,"

I'm not sure on how they measure 'same amount of light', because all of the
energy saving lights I've ever seen are absolutely no where near as bright as
standard lights. Which is a shame.

just my 2c

~~~
amalcon
Most of the older LED spotlights are highly directional. Like, very highly. I
suspect your bulbs did an excellent job of lighting one little spot on the
floor beneath (or wall opposite) the light, and almost nothing to illuminate
the whole room.

Anyway, they've come a long way since then. Probably not long enough to buy
them next time you change your bulbs, but they're a lot better than they used
to be.

~~~
bumblebird
I bought these earlier this year :/ Maybe I'll give them another go in a few
years.

~~~
amalcon
Well, nobody was buying the ones from a few years ago, so most of them are
still on the market.

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pmjordan
Now they just need to come down in price and get the spectrum right. While the
fluorescent lights are already competitively priced, LED ones are still rather
pricey, at about €15-20. The spectrum emitted by the pseudo-white LEDs is also
unpleasant (primarily yellow + blue), the RGB ones need to become cheap
enough.

RGB lamps could also have some interesting extra features, like adjusting hue
based on time of day, which might help insomniacs (such as myself).

~~~
lsb
Or even RGB LED lighting that can plug into an Arduino, so you could make that
yourself.

Or, I suppose, in the vein of a plant that twitters about its thirst, a bot
that performs sentiment analysis on your tweets and adjusts the light
accordingly.

~~~
mixmax
We've done the RGB led --> Arduino --> Internet trick.

This link will let you change the light color in the steering house of a barge
in the Copenhagen harbour owned and run by artists and hackers.
<http://liljedahl.dk/christian/illutron/picker/>

And this one lets you see how much power is currently being used on the barge.
<http://illutron.appspot.com/PowerGauge.html>

Were planning on doing more with this. Throw me an e-mail if anybody wants to
play :-)

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Goronmon
That was actually a much more detailed and thorough comparison than I had
expected when I clicked the link.

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tybris
I recently replaced a bunch of 50W of Halogen lamps (came with the apartment)
with 1W LEDs. It's quite a bit darker, but I got used to having more directed
light. My energy bill dropped by about 70% without any other changes. It's
interesting how quickly lighting costs can run up.

~~~
brianobush
Can I ask what your costs were? How long do you estimate it will take to
recoup your capital costs?

~~~
tybris
I'm not sure, but 1W LED lights shouldn't be more than $10 (mine were $7,50
iirc). I could say it took me 1 month, but that wouldn't be entirely fair
since I have significantly reduced the lighting and changed the way I use it.
Something which I probably would not have been able to do by, for example,
reducing the number of lamps since that creates an annoying bright/dark
distribution of light)

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pxlpshr
this is certainly a good thing, no doubt about it, but what I'd like to know
is how many people's mindset shifts from conservative to liberal knowing that
they are "saving electricity with new bulbs therefore can run the lights all
day". i'd have to say i'd be in that camp as well because I work from home and
often like it to be well-lit but force myself to act more conservatively in
favor of our electricity bill.

in my opinion, this was one of the problems with the American auto industry
too. all of the efficiency realized through R&D effectively went into
appeasing the "demand" for more HP instead of better MPG...

------
natch
I was just at Home Depot this morning looking for LED 'bulbs' (using that term
very loosely).

Admittedly Home Depot might not be the best place to look.

In any case, I was very disappointed. They are super dim compared to other
choices. For $35 dollars you can get something with the physical size of a
regular light bulb (which matters because I want to screw them into an
existing fixture) but they only put out 200 lumens (!) as compared to 800
lumens for a 60-watt bulb or its ~15 watt compact fluorescent equivalent.

Looking at the design of the unit, on the light-emitting side there was an
enormous span of wasted black plastic, with fake plastic unneeded heat-
dissipation fins taking a bunch of space, and with three LEDs arranged in the
center. With better design, you could probably fit 12 or so LEDs in the same
amount of space, and then it would be a product worth buying.

Anyone know the story about why LEDs are not subsidized by state energy
programs as CF bulbs are in California?

~~~
brucer
here's some that go up to 1500 lumens:
[http://www.ledliquidatorsinc.com/PAR_38_12_LED_Cree_light_bu...](http://www.ledliquidatorsinc.com/PAR_38_12_LED_Cree_light_bulb.php)

one thing to note is with LED's the higher power ones are less efficient, so
the 800 lumen lights on that page use 1/3 the power.

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brc
I recently fitted all new lighting in my home. I looked at LED lighting, but
the salesman was quite honest with me and said that at this point, unless you
double the amount of fittings, you're going to be dissapointed. It's not so
much the light output but rather the angle of the light - you end up with
little star trek beams all over the place.

I bought some CFL spotlights and fitted them into the bathrooms, but I don't
like the light quality - it reminds me of an airline toilet. I fitted plain
'ol inefficient halogens to the kitchen, and it's by far the most pleasant
lighting in the house. CFL replacements went into all the other fittings.

I haven't noticed any difference in my power bills at all. I suspect that
might be to do with the 13 kw air conditioner, pool pump, at least 6 computers
running, plasma tv, tivo, exhaust and ventilation fans and exterior lighting.
Interior lighting is such a small part of the total energy use in a lot of
modern houses.

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bd
Definitely. It's very noticeable when you are energy-constrained. I recently
bought LED based flashlight and it's awesome. It's tiny, very bright and
batteries lasts forever.

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anamax
Their CFL lifetime numbers don't match my experience. (I typically get longer
life from incandescents than CFLs.)

Also, they assume that energy converted to heat is wasted. If you're heating a
lit room, that's obviously not true. Yes, many forms of heat are cheaper than
resistive, but if you're going to claim to be the last word, you have to
account for things like that.

~~~
jackmoore
Heat generated by a lightbulb is near the ceiling where air is probably not
being well circulated. So unless you are installing fans around the base of
your bulbs to move the warm air around the room where it would be useful to
the inhabitants, it is mostly wasted. This is assuming that the heat is even
desirable.

~~~
teeja
Air circulation is essential to efficient and comfortable heating with any
heat source. However it's done, it must be or heat will pool at the ceiling.
You're right if lighting is done at ceiling level. Table lamps, though, create
some convected air.

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dnsworks
I'm personally hedging my bets on light bulbs until the replacement
compromises go away. CFLs don't last nearly as long as Incandescents, and the
light they cast is subpar. It is silly to spend hundreds of dollars to replace
a tried and true, centuries old technology with vaporware because of effective
guilt-based "green marketing".

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vinhboy
tl;dr -- anyone have a link to the LED in the picture? it looks cool.

~~~
jrockway
You probably would have scored higher and gotten a useful response if you had
omitted the comment about your attention span.

