9-Watt LED Bulbs

The future of lighting? LED 9-watt bulbs are said to last throughout 10 years of continuous use and produce the same luminance as a 13-watt CFL bulb.

posted originally from: AT:New York

However, follow the link above and you'll see that the bulbs sell for $70-$80, making them non-competitive currently in the high efficiency light bulb market.

The design of the bulb provides 360-degree lighting, making them great for lighting an entire space with, say, a large floor lamp. And 100,000 hours of dependable use makes them attractive even when comparing them with CFL's, which have long lifespans but often burn out prematurely.

There's a great post on the LED 9-watt bulb over at Treehugger, with lots of insightful comments. Anyone have experience with this bulb type?

Comments (2)

The design of the bulb provides 360-degree lighting, making them great for lighting an entire space with, say, a large floor lamp.

Normal incandescents and CFLs already produce 360-degree lighting. (Whether you can light a whole room with a floor lamp depends on how bright the light is.)

A single LED lights only straight ahead, which is why the design of this bulb, mounting the LEDs in a circle, is exciting -- it gives you an LED bulb with light in more than one direction. But it's not a technical advance over regular bulbs in providing 360-degree light.

posted by wende in the twin cities on August 22nd 2007 at 5:18am
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I saw this post on Treehugger months back, and decided it was worth the money to get my feet wet and see if it might be worth doing the other 8 or so lights in my apartment. Nobody is more of a champ of the potential of LED lights, but if this is the best that's out there we just aren't there yet. I used it in the most meager of manners, as a floor light to read next to, and I'm afraid that despite its lovely color and appearance, I really have to squint hard to read anything. Unless you're using maybe four of them for every normal light, they just won't be effective for space-lighting. Keep the new models coming!

posted by pmorain on August 22nd 2007 at 6:16am
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