Hey, lighting industry: Where are my LED lightbulbs?

[ryos]

LED's have taken the battery-powered lighting industry by storm. Headlamps, flashlights, you name it: all come in LED varieties. It's not hard to see why: LEDs use very little power, enabling battery life figures above 100 hours; they are quite bright despite this fact; and, what's more, for all practical purposes they last forever.

However, for home lighting, compact flourescents are all the rage these days. These bulbs are a big step up from incandescents: they last around 5 times as long (though they get dimmer towards the end of their life), and they use about a fifth as much power, as well. However, they have their flaws as well: they're expensive, and as they contain mercury, they need special disposal.

Incandescents are to compact flourescents as compact flourescents are to LEDs. An LED lightbulb would sip power and last practically forever. From an environmental impact standpoint, they'd be a huge win. So where are they? Why is nobody working on this?

[ErikHolmes]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/831e/

With a Remote Control even 

Or you can go with these bad boys:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/9ceb/?cpg=ab

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Man...those look good. Expensive, but 75 watt equivalent for 5 watts, and lasts 11 years? Whew.

[Chaos]

Wow, that's amazing stuff. Perhaps in a few years they will get cheap enough to be available in a large scale.

[ErikHolmes]

Well, they say that they'll pay for themselves in the first year with the money you save on Electricity . . . .

[ryos]

Huh, not bad! However, you had to go to a site called "Think Geek" to get them. I was wishing to be able to just run to the supermarket and grab one, like you can with any other lightbulb. In short, I was wishing they were mainstream.

[Eerongal]

Huh, not bad! However, you had to go to a site called "Think Geek" to get them. I was wishing to be able to just run to the supermarket and grab one, like you can with any other lightbulb. In short, I was wishing they were mainstream.

Nah, the technology is still too expensive to make them for home lighting. Mostly because LED's aren't compatible with home light sockets, because the power output is too high, and would damage the LED's without proper stuff in it for protection, thus the reason why those are rather expensive.

I'm sure they'll be like that someday, though

[Miyabi]

Speaking of LED tech, has anyone seen the LED TV's?  They are absolutely AMAZING!

[Eerongal]

Speaking of LED tech, has anyone seen the LED TV's?  They are absolutely AMAZING!

Heh, they make flat screens look fat.

[Miyabi]

That is so true.  And they make plasma and LCD look cheap.

[Eerongal]

That is so true.  And they make plasma and LCD look cheap.

Ha. Yeah, 40-something inch TV for 4 or 5 grand? No thanks, TV doesn't mean *THAT* much to me.

[Renoard]

I was at the home imp. store the other day and someone was selling a compact florescent (how do they get compact florescent out of mercury vapor neon in a white tube?) that had a pair of white LED lenses pointing up through the middle of the coils.  The were mounted on the ballast of the neon tubes.

It was a neat idea, if it didn't mean having a toxic mercury vapor lamp in my house.  Now if someone would give me a Metallic Halide bulb with a standard thread base working at 80 watts. . .

Dejavu.  Sugar got scarce, Saccharine was found to be carcinogenic so they start putting corn syrrup in everything.  The fixes are all to often worse than the problem. 

[sortitus]

If you're crazy, Cree makes DC adapters for LEDs that you install in your house. Then you just buy normal LEDs, making replacements cheap. Plus, the adapters are heatsinks, which makes the LEDs last a lot longer than trying to cram an adapter/heatsink/LED into one Edison socket. Prices look to be about $80-140 depending on models for recessed downlights, which is comparable in price to a single good Edison plug LED bulb (The C. Crane GeoBulb, for example).

I don't know where you can get the correct replacement LEDs for the Cree recessed lights, but I'm sure they'd tell you if you're interested enough. I just helped design a remodel for somebody's basement, and they were seriously considering the Cree until they decided to cut back on construction costs. If I ever get a house custom built I'll definitely put something like that in.

I ramble. Sorry.

[Renoard]

If you're crazy, Cree makes DC adapters for LEDs that you install in . . .

Um okay so cree makes LED adapters. . . Not sure what you're responding to?

[sortitus]

Just saying that it's an expensive solution still, but once you install it you don't have to wory about the expensive/hard to find bulb problem anymore. Also, they're fairly new. Just thought it might be interesting to people. You know, if they really want LED lights.... *shrugs*

Forget I said anything then.