You Can LED a Consumer to the Light, but You Can’t Make Him Bright

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the compact fluorescent bulbs. particularly the pushing of them by the whacky CEO of Wal-Mart.

When we first moved here, I happened to see a 3-pack of 23 watt, 100 watt equivalent spiral ones at BJ’s for what struck me as a great price at the time.  I think it was $11 and change.

My excitement was dimmed when I got them home and found they can’t go in fully covered fixtures and are too bright for any use in the apartment.  Doh!  Which is how we came to have one of those living in our stairwell, lighting up the whole thing 7/24, except when the landlord visits the building and helpfully turns off the light we’re paying (very little) to run.

Later I replaced the bulb in the cellar with another one, so you can actually see down there, while saving electricity for whichever apartment (I assume the first floor) pays for the cellar electicity.  There is no common area or outside lighting paid by the landlord, which always seems funny to me, if not a big deal.  After a year, the stairwell bulb started to die, so there went the final one from that package.

More recently, I started seeing the bulbs increasingly displayed in stores, especially Wal-Mart, which has them at nearly affordable prices.

We replace a ton of bulbs.  The apartment eats them, like no place I’ve ever seen.  I fully expect that the newfangled bulbs that are good for 5 years might have lives more like a year or so, but we replace some of the oldfangled bulbs as frequently as every six weeks.

I started buying the new bulbs to experiment.  They seem to have collapsed it down to primarily 60 watt equivalents shaped like standard bulbs, and 75 watt equivalents in spiral form, mainly from two companies.  Previously we got spirals, I forget if they were 60 or 75, for 99 cents each from a complete unknown.  I got some to try, but also got the others, not trusting something that inexpensive and no-name.  Yet so far, so good.

We’re replacing as they go, having done probably a third so far.  My only complaint is the bulb-shaped ones tend to need warming up, during which their light is dim.  Otherwise it seems brighter than the incandescents.  Except for the early one that I replaced in the stairwell, none of the new ones have died yet.  There seemed to be an impact noticable on the last electric bill, and if anything that should become more apparent.  It’s just tough to make myself put forth all that money up front.

Along with the new bulbs, I’ve noticed the big new thing is LED flashlights.  I’ve gotten a couple of pocket/keychain ones that are great.  Not counting a tendency to come on in my pocket and drain the “where do I find replacements for these???” tiny lithium batteries.  In places like Wal-Mart or Lowe’s, you can find a display of various types, and even conversion kits to turn your old flashlights into nice, bright LED flashlights.

The other day I found myself thinking “I wonder when they’ll put them in nightlights, or even regular bulbs - wouldn’t regular bulbs as LED be even better than fluorescents, or would they be too intense?”

Still don’t know about the latter, but sure enough, last night while waiting for my prescriptions to be filled, in CVS I saw a new display that included LED nightlights along with LED flashlights and more traditional examples of each.  One of them was a triple-feature dusk to dawn nightlight, automatic power outage light, and emergency flashlight.  Naturally that and the other nightlight had no prices, but based on the surrounding products, they’re probably around $5 or so.  Nice.  Our existing nightlights aren’t that great, so I’ll probably get the new ones sometime.  Better if Sadie will sleep with just a good nightlight than with the overhead light on for the duration.

I love watching these little leaps in technology.  They can be years in the making, yet seem so sudden when they reach the full-fledged consumer stage.

1. i suspect the dying light bulbs are symptom of power fluctuations in the building.  Do you have any lamps you can plug into surge protectors?  That might be one way to check.

   The reason I think this is that in NC we had the same problem, but out here the same bulbs have lasted MUCH longer, and I know the power is more constant in our plugs here....

   Posted by caltechgirl  on  01/09  at  02:37 PM  from 

2. I have wondered when LED lights would become more mainstream myself. I read about a year ago about a flat in London that was all LED lights. They were in the floor, ceiling, Counter tops ect. It was over done, But the actical said the cost of this huge LED lighted apartment was 1/3 as much as it would cost to have the same light level using standard low energy bulbs.  Not to mention the fact that LED’s don’t burn out.  I bet it won’t be long to see a multi LED light bulb replacement hit the market.

   Posted by wayne  on  01/09  at  04:08 PM  from  Ohio
3. Posted by Aubrey Turner  on  01/09  at  04:35 PM  from 
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