cool LED lamps
so i'm sorry but i hate CF bulbs for indoor lighting. there are a few with the right color temperature but being that i live in the fag-tastic castro district of san fran, every light switch in my house has a dimmer on it. and the dimmable CFs turn a nassssty shade of blue when you dim them -- even the "warm white" ones. plus, my inner geek tells me that those CFs are just a placeholder until the vastly-superior LED lamps become "real".
well they're real.
http://www.enluxled.com/120v-white-datasheet.php
i bought one of these to try it out and it arrived this morning. the color temperature is indistinguishable from incandescent. it looks perfect. it dims nicely thru most of its range. the only critique i have is that under extremely low dimming situations, the light turns green. so unless you're using it in your makeout room, you're not really going to notice. here's some pix (more on my flickr account):
( note: only the center light is LED )
the best part:
you'll save between $180 - $330 over the lifetime of the bulb
here's some fun with excel:
(this doesn't take into account that electricity prices typically grow faster than inflation.)
yes, they're $90 each. but you'll save 4x that over its lifespan. if you've got some track, flood, or recessed can lighting in your house, seems like a no-brainer. they come in a bunch of colors and three shades of white. because the LEDs are mounted directly onto a PCB, they don't make omni-directional, globe-type bulbs. i've ordered some of those from another manufacturer and i'll post some pix next week...
UPDATE
well they're real.
http://www.enluxled.com/120v-white-datasheet.php
i bought one of these to try it out and it arrived this morning. the color temperature is indistinguishable from incandescent. it looks perfect. it dims nicely thru most of its range. the only critique i have is that under extremely low dimming situations, the light turns green. so unless you're using it in your makeout room, you're not really going to notice. here's some pix (more on my flickr account):
( note: only the center light is LED )
the best part:
you'll save between $180 - $330 over the lifetime of the bulb
here's some fun with excel:
(this doesn't take into account that electricity prices typically grow faster than inflation.)
yes, they're $90 each. but you'll save 4x that over its lifespan. if you've got some track, flood, or recessed can lighting in your house, seems like a no-brainer. they come in a bunch of colors and three shades of white. because the LEDs are mounted directly onto a PCB, they don't make omni-directional, globe-type bulbs. i've ordered some of those from another manufacturer and i'll post some pix next week...
UPDATE
citations:
- incandescent lifepan from GE's own specifications for r30 flood
- LED lifespan from enlux's website
- incandescent bulb price from froogle
- average power price by state from DOE
- CO2 emissons per kwh from DOE
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