Are LED bulbs able to prevent from excessive vitality bills? Last 12 months I visited Switch Lighting, a small Silicon Valley firm that claimed to have constructed one thing revolutionary. Switch’s product: a gentle bulb that produced the same heat, comforting glow that we affiliate with Edison’s enduring incandescent bulb however lasts 20 times longer and makes use of a fraction of the energy. It was lovely, too. A pear-formed glass orb that sat atop a shiny metallic heatsink, the Change bulb looked like a work of artwork. Better of all, it was remarkably affordable. The Change bulb was going to price $20, long-life LED but over its 20-12 months-lifespan-sure, 20 years! One hundred in vitality over an incandescent bulb. I used to be won over. In my story-"The World’s Greatest Gentle Bulb"-I promised that when the Swap bulbs went on sale in the fall of 2011, long-life LED I’d be shopping for them for my house. I wasn’t the only one who was thrilled by the prospect of a perfect light bulb.

Wired put the identical Switch bulb that I’d hailed on its cowl. There was only tiny drawback with the bulb that Wired and long-life LED i went gaga for: It was by no means launched. The corporate says that it ran into unforeseen manufacturing challenges, and late final yr it had to go back to the drawing board. The firm utterly redesigned the bulb with a watch to making it easier to manufacture. The good news is that the newly designed Swap bulb is now on sale. You possibly can pick one up at a Batteries Plus store near you. The dangerous news is that the Change isn’t the perfect bulb. For one thing, reasonably than $20, a Change bulb that’s equal to a 60-watt incandescent now prices $50. What’s more, in my testing, the Change bulb’s glow doesn’t fairly match the quality of gentle put out by an incandescent bulb. And it’s not simply Change: Over the last few days, I’ve been testing 4 different LED gentle bulbs that are actually available for sale.

I discovered all of them to be pretty good, however every was one notch short of excellent. Considering that you’ll be spending a lot of money on these bulbs and EcoLight using them until around the time Malia Obama runs for president, you’d be sensible to hold off shopping for any long-life LED bulb proper now. Next yr, they’ll be a lot closer to good. The lighting business has been attempting to give you an power-efficient alternative for the incandescent bulb for a very long time now. The pursuit has currently change into extra urgent, since federal power regulations are scheduled to limit the gross sales of old-college bulbs. In October, 100-watt incandescents have been banned. In the mean time, the main various to the incandescent is the compact fluorescent, however heaps of individuals don’t like these bulbs. I’m one in all them. Most CFLs are ugly, contain hint quantities of mercury, and put out a harsh, whitish light that feels clinical.

Hordes of CFL-loving readers attacked my stance on these bulbs, mentioning that "covered" CFLs look just pretty much as good as common bulbs, and in addition produce heat, yellow gentle. Certainly, in scientific exams, some CFLs have been shown to provide light that individuals like more than incandescents. Alas, I nonetheless blanch at the sight of CFLs-however for those who don’t, your perfect bulb is already here. For the rest of us, the very best hope for matching incandescent bulbs is with LEDs, that are semiconductors that produce gentle. The quest to turn LEDs into the proper bulb has dominated the lighting industry over the previous few years. So what’s unsuitable with the Switch and EcoLight other LED bulbs now? Let me clarify what I used to be in search of within the bulbs I tested. First, I wished a pleasant "color"-I was searching for a bulb that produced a yellowish mild fairly than a whitish light. The LED bulbs I examined all aimed to supply a "color temperature" of 2700 kelvin, which corresponds to a "soft white" incandescent bulb.

I used to be additionally on the lookout for a bulb that produced a beam that was comparable to that of an incandescent. Placed beneath a lampshade, I wished the bulb to emit gentle in all directions (somewhat than just upward or downward). I additionally didn’t want the light beam to create sharp patterns on the ceiling or the ground, as a spotlight would-as a substitute, the sunshine ought to hit objects gently, with a blurry line between gentle and dark. Finally, I assessed the bulb’s appearance when it was both on and off. I wanted a bulb that might look trendy in a transparent fixture-one thing you’d be pleased to exhibit moderately than hide, as you’d do with a CFL. My evaluation was subjective-I didn’t use a chroma meter to check brightness or color, just my eyes-however I did aim for rigor. I tried a parade of those bulbs in lamps in my bedroom, both one at a time and facet-by-aspect, long-life LED and that i took detailed notes on how they performed.

Edit

Pub: 14 Aug 2025 01:29 UTC

Views: 46