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WiFi, Light Bulbs, And The FCC
JFMulder writes "According to Cringely, 802.11 WiFi wireless networking is going to get in lot of troubles when Fushion Lightning starts marketting low-power light blubs which causes interferences with Wifi signals. Read about it at I, Cringely. Supposedly the new kind of light bulb is a real electricity saver and can wreck havoc to wireless networks in a half a mile radius. So what would you prefer? Wireless networks or low cost light bulbs all around the country to save more and more on electricity?" Update: 06/13 03:52 GMT by M : Cringely confused the FHSS-or-DSSS 802.11 standard with the DSSS-only 802.11b standard, but the general warning about the potential for interference is certainly troubling.
first comment.
anyway i'm willing settle with the energy saving light bulb. it's good to save up energy that my oh so important PS needs.
This was posted -- what, two or three weeks ago? Come on guys!
The old story even had a poster who mentioned that he'd used the lighting technology Cringley mentioned, and it's nowhere NEAR primetime, so it won't be causing probs for several years, if ever.
Light or WiFi? Light or WiFi?! Aaah, can't...choose...*head explodes*
Actually, I already have a few energy efficient lights around, and I don't really use WiFi, sooo... guess it doesn't apply to me.
Danish != nationality
Until the geeks of the world learn to curb their appetites for lower power and roaming Internet, we are going to see these clashes.
Unfortunately, it's likely we'll see the death of one or the other before the geeks ever learn to use what they are provided in moderation.
I have been pwned because my
Why can't the world just grab a clue and use LED's instead... MUCH cheaper, MUCH tougher and MUCH better.
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
It's in their "about us" section.
Disclaimer: This is a joke. Don't get your panties in square-knot over it. Mod it down if you can't untie a square-knot.
We're burning some Karma tonight!
tcd004
While I agree that energy conservation is an important factor, consumption from light bulbs has to be balanced with all the rest of the devices in a home. What about TVs, or washer/dryers, or dishwashers? Or all of the industrial consumers? All those consume far more energy than regular residential light bulbs. Heck, we already have fluorescent bulbs for those who want to save. These light bulbs sound like a feel-good measure for those interested in saving the environment. Save the exchange of information FIRST.
Cell phones, laptops and PDAs with light switches?
I would pay to see that!
i like hallogen instead, screw power companies , make some fusion shit, then give it to us for free,
Righteousness postpones the inevitable
http://burningaureole.caveism.net
Well the answer appears very simple to me.
If these lightbulbs are emitting RF in the 2.4GHz spectrum then when will some smart-assed entrepreneur come up with the dual-function lightbulb/WiFi node?
Half the guts is already there -- the transmitter.
If every household and business had these bulbs, think of the massive 802.11 network we could build!
Each bulb could become a node in a new, better, "brighter" Internet.
Okay so I'm kidding!
Of course if that doesn't work -- why can't they just use some sheilding on these bulbs? A very thin (transparent) metal-film conductive coating (of the type they use on LCDs) should do the trick quite nicely and at minimal cost.
If they can magnetically shield speakers so they don't mess with CRT monitors, they ought to be able to shield these bulbs from emitting these waves too. Or perhaps something from the same school of thought as the leaden vest and the x-ray machine at the dentist's office is in order.
and what's all this about wrecking havoc anyway?
...like the fushions on my couch?
We really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
I've seen this suggestion before... But I want to state again that I think Cringely deserves his own Section... I look forward to reading his article every week. It is always topical and insightful (even funny at times)... Also, everyone should read about the tragic death of his son here. If you have children you know how scary SIDs is. If you have the time, please help with his cause.
could do without the lights and just rely on the glow from their monitor?
:)
12% of slashdot judging from the current poll: Preciousss, the sunsss hurtssss.....
802.11xx are doomed anyway, as long as the frequencies can be used without regulation. Yes, wlan shrinks cells automatically and delivers less when there is more users and traffic, and yes, you can "just" add network elements. However, when it really becomes a success story, it is doomed. WLAN with it's uncontrolled frequencies just will not work in very tightly populated areas if a significant percent of people begins to use them. And we don't even need any assisted interference to achieve the congestion.
the 2.4ghz band is a mess. cordless phones, video transmitters (X.10!), 802.11, and Bluetooth all share that band of frequencies. Granted, this is what was pretty well inevitable with the FCC unrestricting the 2.4ghz band.
now there are technologies they never thought of, like interference from this light. I seriously have a problem with any of these 2.4ghz products: i'm not even guaranteed that my video transmitter will work with my phone without interfering.
i'll wait until Ultra Wide Band products become available. 3.1ghz phones are just around the corner. then watch us roll into GPS territory. maybe we should just switch back to carrier pigeons (:
Another thing producing radiation at 2.4GHZ. I wonder how many things have to be around before I start getting cancer. My HAM radio book says I should try to limit individuals exposure to radiation at frequencies this high up in the spectrum. Now it seems that every one potentionally is going to be producing radiation at this range, although at a lower total output level. However, if I have 400 people around me producing 1 watt, I could end up with getting 0 or 1000's of watts of energy at this frequency depending on where I'm standing. Perhaps I should go and purchase a Tempest suit or make my own.
Reserved Word.
WTF is a "light blub"?
"You're just scared like a little white pussy. I'll fuck you till you love me, you faggot!"
Perhaps it's because I've never used a wireless network in my life for computing, but I'd much rather have low cost lightbulbs myself.
Low cost lighting benefits everyone, rather than the relative few who can and will access wireless networks. I can see the power in wireless, but since most people will never take advantage of this, and you can be environment-friendly in the process, I say go for efficient lighting. As Cringley briefly mentions and then forgets for the rest of the article, it will decrease energy usage and reliance on oil, which will really benefit everyone.
This whole "war on terror" would not likely be happening without our (the US's) incredible appetite for oil. Anything we can do to curb this will be beneficial, and that to me is far more important than being able to get sports scores and news headlines on my Visor.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
You crazy diamond.
I am SO bored.
I want to be able to moderate stories down. And I want karma values for the bozos editing this stuff.
Maybe it's just me, but this is a no brainer. Sure, I'm writing this from the shitter thanks to my 802.11b network. Sure, I like using my laptop anywhere near my apartment. But if these lights are the real deal--prime time or not--I'll gladly move to an 802.11a network if/when they're widely used. Light bulbs waste a tremendous amount of energy nationwide, and if these bulbs can help reduce that, then great! We can only abuse the earth so long. We can wait until after we drop a deuce to check email, or can upgrade to 802.11a if we really can't.
Of course, widespread adoption of the new lights is a huge concern. Look at how energy efficient compact flourecent lights are, and how relatively few are actually used.
Since the bulb is not even on the market yet, what is to stop the company from improving the design at the last minute? And where did the author of the article get this information to begin with? It seems kind of shaky.
It seems to me that if this *really* poses a problem that it will be noticed and dealt with quickly, assuming that a sufficent number of people with high speed wireless live in an area with one of these lightbulbs being used...
Anyone know exactly how much power these lights are supposed to give off? If these are supposed to save power better than current technologies(e.g. florecent) they need to put out 12W. But the claim is that it interfers with 2.4GHz so how much power is going out in that band if the whole thing is only using 12W? It seems unreasonable that 12W falling off at 1/r^2(okay I assume a sphereical bulb) would have enough power to interfer with WiFi .5miles away. So does anyone know the power output(or usage) of these lights and exactly what intensity a WiFi will pick up?
1. Why are Cringly's articles automatically turned into /. posts.
2. Did the submitter read the article? The gist of the story was that 802.11b would work just fine with the new, RF-noisy lights.
3. Yes, a more insightful webpage & technically detailed website was listed on slashdot just a couple of weeks ago.
Not that I really want more EMI all around me into my brains. WiFi or what ever..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Let me get this straight, 802.11 and cell phones are very limited in power emission to (sensibly) keep our microwave exposure to safe levels, but now these light bulbs are going to be everywhere that emit enough microwaves to drown out wireless data stuff? Will the light bulbs give us cancer or sterilize us? That seems like a much more pressing question than the energy-savings vs. broadband access tradeoff.
Mr Cringley has cribbed a bit belatedly
....but its too irresistable
To quote a famous rapper, modified for the slashdot masses
So the FCC won't let me be
Or let me be me so let me see
They tried to shut me down on 802.11b
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
Many people don't realize just how much power light bulbs consume. To borrow some statistics (source): 25% of US energy consumption and 10% of the average residential energy bill comes from lighting. Light bulbs are horribly inefficient - 90% of the electricity they suck up is wasted as heat. So from an infrastructure standpoint, a cheap energy-efficient bulb can make a huge economic and environmental difference.
Lots of people waste their money on excessively energy-consuming CPU's - Intel, AMD - while equally powerful systems, about equally priced, exist that consume a fraction of the energy (and produce a fraction of the heat), and are exempt from MS-tax to boot.
They obviously don't care about that. Why would they start caring now?
Dude, do not tie you panties in a knot. 400 people around you will need to shove their wi-fi up your ass and wrap you in tin foil for you to absorb all that energy. Not that it is entirely impossible, it's for you to tell, but for most of us - highly unlikely usage pattern.
Some data HERE
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
i don't have links but i thought someone else set up networking based on the flickering of neon bulbs... maybe a fusion light bulb network would run faster than the 802.11 it is destroying? and at 1/2 mile link a pop they might be cost effective... a few bulbs in every building!
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Just get us fusion power.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
taking on the invisible EM spectrum. Is this a great country or what? </sarcasm>
I'm going to replace the headlights in my monster SUV with these babies ...
The EMC directive: you're allowed to radiate gibberish, brain-dead stupidity, pornography etc. but NOT NOISE
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Who believes we'll save on electricity? OK, I might be a cynic, but experience tells me that if everybody started using low-power light bulbs, the power companies would just hike the price per kW-hour.
I would complain about this "story", but I'm getting slashdot for free (or at least, for the price of ignoring a few adds).
:/
I am a Karma Library.
I want Wireless Light Bulbs OR Light-Up Wireless rays. Either will fit into my plans of world dumbnation!
How the heck are you supposed to run a network at all if there is severe interference in the way of the information ?
Is it really true that the US patent office is dumb enough to not even do any safety checking procedures at all ?
I thought the one-button online click was pretty bad, but anyone who doesn't even bother to go through all the safety steps involved in the counter-checking has definately wasted too much time sleeping in the office.
I'm off to have tea and sleep it off now.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Watch out! A technology that is 5 years away will probably seriously impact a standard that, although in heavy use today, will be superceded in a couple of years.
Now they not only tell us what vaporware is coming, but what other vaporware might impact it!
Someone call the Police and file a WGAS Report.
PS. If there was even a choice to be made it would be for the Lights. Reduction in power consumption is good for everyone but Oil companies and Opec.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. -Samuel Johns
I find it incredibly hard to believe that one of these low power lights can radiate so much field strength in the 2.4 GHz band that it will knock out wireless networks for a half mile.
These lights are governed by the same standards as WiFi networks with regard to field strength. Namely, FCC Part 15.
These light fixtures would likely be considered "incidental radiators" by FCC Part 15.
An incidental radiator must use "good engineering" practices and must not cause harmful interference to radio services.
It seems to me that wiping out a half mile of wireless networks is harmful.
Just for sake of argument, let's bump these lights up a notch to "unintentional radiators," which means they generate radio energy internally for whatever use but do not by design radiate it into space. In this category, they are limited to 500 microvolts per meter of radiated field strength as measured at 3 meters distance.
This is exactly the same field strength limitation placed on intentional radiators in the 2.4 GHz band.
This means that these lights may only produce as much radio energy as a WiFi base station/client card with a unity gain antenna.
The FCC has also classically ruled against unintentional radiators which cause interference with intentional radiators due to their excessive field strength, regardless of whether they meet the requirements of Part 15 or not.
The FCC normally requests that unintentional radiator manufacturers show good faith by being far below the legal limits permitted in Part 15.
I'm not even going to go into the fact that WiFi is a spread-spectrum system and is very immune to traditional forms of interference. Unless these are spread-spectrum, intentionally radiating low power lights, I don't think we've got much to worry about.
Also, whomever thinks the FCC just doesn't care what goes on in the unlicensed portions of the spectrum is wrong. They certainly don't chase down every Part 15 violation, but they do randomly sample finished products from a variety of manufacturers to determine their compliance.
The manufacturer gets into trouble if these things don't meet Part 15 requirements, so these lights will simply never get off the ground if they interfere as much as it has been said they do.
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
I have a MUCH better question that Lightbulbs vs. WiFI:
What would you prefer? The WB Network or WiFi+Lightbulbs?
Why are the "people" shoved into this tiny band where they have to fight against microwave ovens and friggin lighting systems while bottom of the trash heap networks are given the rest of the spectrum FOR FREE to put crap on the air that provides no value and nobody watches anyway? Shouldn't those airwaves go to something good and useful, and actually help promote society?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
If you have ever spent any time in or hear a hospital, you have probably seen signs telling you to turn off your mobile phone.
If these bulbs can disrupt WiFi then they are probably putting out enough RF noise to cause problems with medical equipment.
Unless someone can come up with a method of keeping them the necessary safe distance from a hospital or other medical institution, they will probably be outlawed by most civilised countries (ie those with hospitals) before they reach the shelves.
I got Phillips light bulbs all over my house already so it's wireless LAN for me.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
We choose the wireless networks. They're more important to communication, and overall, our economy.
Plus, let's go ahead and use up all the electricity we can. Let our kids deal with the problem. Those bastards deserve it.
Each of those little light bulbs should come with an RJ-45 socket.
Regards, Ralph.
The biggest problem with any technology like lighting that messes with geeks is the geeks will ultimately destroy it in anger.
:)
They'll either throw rocks at the bulbs or hack the company using them and shut them down.
Not all of us can reload evry 10 minutes all throught the day. Nor can we all spend hours digging through the archives to find what we may have missed. While I do agree that posting the same story two or even three times in a single day is a clear sign of lazy editing, having a potentially important story (and having my WiFi decimated is pretty serious in my world) repeated every so often lets those who missed it the first time hear about it.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
When disposal is properly handled, nuclear gives the best energy per environmental impact per dollar.
Even with that, it doesn't have a huge lifetime (a few generations?) due to limited quantities of uranium.
And before you brush me aside over the disposal issue, think about the yearly environmental impact of improperly disposed motor oil and the like.
Face it, disposal of nuclear waste, even if it leaks, is hardly Chernobyl. How many bad radition leaks have there been? How may bad oil spills?
I'll be the first to embrace fusion when it gets here, but for now, the nuclear track record looks good enough for me.
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
>>>The prizes come from my backpocket and my beautiful, intelligent and creative wife Forget the backpocket prizes, I want the beautiful wife prize!
This obviously renders WiFi useless for any mission critical networking. Any signal that can be interfered with that easily should not be adopted by businesses.
Isn't there some kinda regulation that says something about this? Disrupting all (wireless) internet traffic within a half mile radius has got to be illegal some how. Who needs lights anyway? The only light I need comes from my monitor glow!
Please read the article before you guys get all "the story sucks" -- XM radio uses this frequency band as well;
WiFi i can't care less -- 802.11a is already making headways, by the time any kind of remotely user base of the light bulbs are established, i would have (as i assume a large portion of the rest of y'all) moved onto 5.8Ghz; or drop the speed down to 2Mbps; -- DSL is only 1.5 anyway -- and if i was really gonna move that much file -- i would just pull a cable temporarily or start the transfer and get some coffee -- either way i do not see it being a big problem for WiFi.
on the other hand, i don't see the feasibility of XM radios getting an upgrade... so if these bulbs do get popular, it means XM would work everywhere except the cities. ha!
so if they are really that troublesome, we will be seeing the company getting squashed in no time; there are too much $$ at stake for XM;
My life in the land of the rising sun.
How much oil and gas do people consume getting to and from work?
Wireless networks will further allow people to telecommute, reducing dependancy on oil. Sure, right now, most people are a few meters away from the access point, but creative people are building long-range networks using these things, within the boundaries of the current laws, using well-engineered antennas and low-power transmitters.
Look at those super-efficient flourescent bulbs that have been available for years. People just don't use them, probably because they cost more than the super-cheap incandescants that most people are used to.
On a personal level, I've spent a couple hundred dollars building my wireless network at home. Am I supposed to just toss that equipment into a landfill because my neighbor wants to save a few cents and feel that he is being 'green'?
What about the regulations that the FCC has on RF noise-emitting devices - don't they apply, even though the spectrum is free?
-- My Weblog.
Ok everyone. Disco time.
lightswitch on...off...on...off...on...off...on...off...
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
Reading the Cringely article, the problem seems to be a temporary one, that won't even hit us straight away...
These new light bulbs are not ready yet. By the time they are ready, a new WiFi standard will be available, using a spectrum with which the bulbs do not interfere... Well, there may be some overlap, between early adopters of the new light technology, and people who cling to the outdated first WiFi.
For these people, how about requiring the use of Faraday Cage Light Shades [TM] around these new bulbs?
(I cycle to work myself, but only use flourescents in the summer, when I start to notice that the halogens are making it warmer in my place. Awful things, those...)
About the server, yes, I am one of those 'uptime' boasters - (294 days - Woohoo.) but I specifically chose a machine with pretty low power consumption, plus, where I live, the power comes from nuclear, not oil or coal.
Still, if my neighbor's porch light starts to interfere with my por^H^H^H downloading, I'm going to buy an air rifle...
-- My Weblog.
The solution is simple, Apple already proved that using a bit of titanium shielding can effectively diminish the strenght of the 2.5 ghz single. So there you go!! And thanks to Apple for the early tibooks!
according to the article is: We are all saving money on imported oil and stuff.
Come on, guys! Every little bit of power produced domestically pushes the economy forward. Every petro dollar spent to import oil comes back to our warlord industry sooner or later. Making us wealthy and mighty. So bringing consumers WiFi will turn on economy, and using less than optimal electricity will do it another time. Or did any of you care about the power your CPU or Video eats up with regard to environment rather than fan noise?
Furthermore light is not exactly the most power eating energy according to peoples' mind, once they figure out what their hairdryer, dishwasher, stove, washing machine w/dryer or even heating will eat.
You probably can't do *your* work from home, but if you are my neighbor using these lights, you may be denying me the ability to telecommute.
I still think that if you introduce a technology that uses a shared public resource such as public bandwidth, you have a responsibility to not trash the resource for others. (Kind of like not organizing a football game in an area of a park where people happen to be having picnics.) Sure, it may be legal, but it's rude.
I'd guess also, that if your neighbors *do* get 'wired' in the next few years, the best way would be using this technology. Wireless NICs will be incredibly cheap in the next few years, while retrofitting apartment buildings with LAN cable will never be.
Do you think these bulbs would be allowed if they interfered at all with television signals, no matter how well they conserve energy? Doubtful.
-- My Weblog.
Put a thin wire mesh over the bulb during manucaturing. This will act as a faraday cage blocking all 2.4ghx radiation. 2.4ghz is microwave frequency. Every burned your eyes looking at a microwave oven? No? Maybe blocking 2.4Ghz isn't that hard after all.
. . .we've been talking about avoiding RF-fired bulbs in ham radio world for a couple of years now. This is news? Did anyone bother to get a spectrum analyzer near one of these bulbs? Will they really be putting out that much radiation at 2.4 GHz?
.
Most of the concern in the past has been that they will interfere with the HF spectrum [2-30 *MHz*]. The article reads a bit like Chicken Little to me. .
The solution is simple and running in at least three links. Is called Ronja 10M Metropolis and gives you 10M full duplex over up to 1km and you can build it yourself, the project isr onja
from the beginning GPL. See http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~clock/twibright/
Wait a minute... as i remember, microwave oven works with frequency about 2.45GHz, ofcourse, oven is more powerfull, like 700W, but does it mean that if i would have big lamp with a 1KW bulb like that i can go duckhunting with it? Wow, shooting down fried ducks.. sounds like days when first microwave radars were built...
Ok, i understand, that power of that electromagnetical wave would be small... but i actually don't wan't to burn my brain out with that kind of lightbulb on my desk...
Light dimmers using varacs have been around for a long time, and they generate huge amounts of RFI--as an SWLer I hate them with a passion. Does anyone know whether the hash they emit extends up into the band used for WiFi?
Someone has yet to offer me a satisfactory explanation of how these new lights are going to SAFELY emit enough energy at microwave-oven frequencies to disable dsss wireless lans (using low power at the same frequencies) 100 feet away.
The again, someone has yet to explain to me how its a good idea to hold a low-power microwave oven next to your head for an hour while chatting with your friends (2.4 ghz cordless phone).
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I've been using various prototypes of these lamps for plant growth studies since 1996. They are a fantastic light source - the closest thing to full spectrum since the sun, but without the heat load. They are basically a microwave oven with a sulphur 'bulb' in it. We've had them tested for leakage - they don't. The systems we have played with had RF sensors which will shut them down if there ever is a leak. As there are no filaments to burn out, you never have to change the bulb - unfortunately the magnetrons don't seem to like continuous duty...
Could the morons who posted that article please check the spelling of "Fusion Lighting" next time? It is clearly spelled in the article, and google knows how to spell it too. That would be helpful for those of us who wanted more information about these new cool light bulbs!
"low-power light blubs"
Good old Webster's defines the verb blub to mean "to puff out, as with weeping."
Hm. I'm using my imagination here, and I still can't think of a way that a lot of sniffling and minor lamenting would interfere with Wi-Fi usage.
I guess... if you went war driving, but then you got stuck behind a funeral procession and couldn't go anywhere...?
I'd prefer LED-based lighting, with still-higher efficiencies and none of the troublesome RF pollution. I think LED-based lighting (using a mix of various colored LEDs and white LEDs to simulate a natural spectrum) is a lot closer to reality than Bob's bogeyman technology, with there already being LED-based lighting in specialty apps (such as theater spotlights that don't get hot and last a very long time (http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/digital.htm), in addition to burning a lot less electricity).
It will take less people and dollars (in designers) to work around the problem of sharing the 2.4 GHz (or some other unregulated) band than it would take (in lawyers) to get permission to use a band that's currently regulated for some other purpose.
Given the choice between solving a technology problem and solving a political problem, I think most geeks would prefer the former.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
gimme wireless, I tend to avoid light anyway
Beware the fury of a patient man
- John Dryden
That there's been low powered efficient lightbulbs around since lightbulbs were first made. The orignal light bulb could last 20 years, but feeling that a 20 year light bulb would not make them much money, Edison & Co gimped it down to a 40 hour light bulb.
And to this very day they've been making money off of it. Holding back technology they knew they had so they could sell inferior products with higher throw away rates.
At first sight, I'm not sure whether this is a really cool lightbulb which uses fusion or something that's going to zap me everytime sit on the couch.
;)).
;)
Now I'm pretty sure they meant "lighting", but for "fushion", the question remains (or at least until i read the article
Spell checks would be nice before stories are posted
E
Actually I am not one of the guys who pulled out of Kyoto. There are /.ers out here who are not resident in the US, you know...
We need at least two frequencies dedicated to public TCP/IP over wireless. One in the high bandwidth, medium-low distance NLOS range (such as 2.4 Ghz), and one in the low bandwidth, long distance NLOS range (such as 154.6 Mhz).
Couldn't the bulbs just have a built in grounded wire mesh? (OK, so standard lamp sockets aren't grounded - hmmm)
I worked for the company that did the first large scale installation of this sort of lighting.. That was several years ago.
Short version of the story: there were major problems with the system and after a year of installation the whole (very large) system was torn out at our companies expense? Why? Because we were losing money daily fixing the things when they broke.. This from a system that was supposed to save BIG $$$$$$ on maintenance. The company that makes these things was in bancruptcy last time I heard.
Slightly longer version:
- the lights are VERY expensive
- they work by radiating a glass globe with a bit of sulfur in it with microwaves. The sulfur turns to plasma and puts out a lot of light (and heat). To keep the plasma from burning through the glass that encloses it the globe is constantly turned and blown on by a fan (the globe is actually stuck in the center of the fan wheel).
- the lights break.. a lot. The 1st generation units had a 50% failure rate on their power supplies. Even the later units had many fan failures.. When the fan stops turning, so does the bulb. Bulb goes *POOF*.
- the units run very hot, this causes breakdown of plastics used in close proximity to the lights. Since one of the major applications of these units in our installation (and touted for use elsewhere) was light pipes (made the whole 100' long pipe look like a huge glowing flourescent bulb) and it made the light pipes break down, this is BAD.
Conclusion: was a great idea, and in 10 years someone else might try it and overcome the problems because it IS an energy efficient way to make a whole lot of light. Just a small reality check though: we aren't talking about 100 watt light bulb replacements. These things replace the big honking metal halide lights you see at sports stadiums on a 2 for one ratio (that is you can replace 2 big monster metal halides for ONE of these). The only place I can think of where they would be put out in public would be stadiums.. If the light pipes worked they would be perfect for large cubicle farms. But these things are VERY VERY expensive and put out a WHOLE lotta light.
Short term I wouldn't worry about it.
-] Crow
I am wondering if 802.11a is a bit of a scam.
The pluses
1. It is faster.
2. It is not in the 2.4ghz band.
But the down side is it has a much shorter range.
This seems to kill the idea of WIFI community networks. One AP covers one house? maybe?
The speed is not all that important for most home users. How many people have more than 2 mbits/sec internet access? Now if they drop the speed down two 11mbits and give us longer range and more channels that would be an improvement.
Can't we go a single day without a Slashdot story mangling the language?
It's wreak havoc, not wreck havoc. Look up "wreak" in the dictionary:
Is it too much to expect, at the very least, an absence of such obvious blunders in stories posted by people who are paid to do so?This seems to explain it in simple words:
http://www.emclab.umr.edu/emcproc.html
The fact that part of the spectrum is not regulated is irrelevant - just as in Europe, these devices are covered if they emit radiation as an incidental byproduct of their functioning. FCC regulations cover separately:
Communications devices using emr and
Devices not for communication but which still produce emr as an intrinsic part of their functioning (like physiotherapy equipment.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Since it appears that the FCC will not worry about devices that play havoc with other devices as long as they follow the rules of the unlicensed spectrum it seems as though no matter where in the spectrum wireless standards move they may end up being disrupted. Would it instead be more intelligent of the standards bodies to accept donations from companies that wish to create devices following the standard and then license the necessary spectrum for the industry to use as long as the specifications of the standard are followed.
Would they be able to build a Farraday cage using fine wire into the bulb itself to shield it?
Oh good grief. Wind? Solar? These things have been "up and coming" for YEARS and they have never been successful.
First, wind power generation requires massive farms of windmills. Not picturesque little ones here and there like in the Netherlands. We're talking tall stalky turbines covering hundreds of acres. Resistance to building wind farms on a proper scale has been nothing short of monumental. Furthermore, working on them is dangerous, and turbines have required frequent maintenance. Finally, the Greenies don't like them because they've been known to kill birds. This page includes a formula for generating power out of a wind turbine. If 100% efficiency is assumed, and assume a turbine that has blades 100 feet long operating in a 15 mile per hour wind, we find that this turbine will generate 519.5 kW. Plant Votgle, a nuclear power facility in Georgia, has a combined output of 2430 MW (2430 million watts). We'd need almost 4700 windmills to equal the power output of Plant Votgle.
Solar power. What happens when it is cloudy? Or Dark? I don't know anyone that would volunteer to only have electricity only on sunny days. Furthermore, it has the same scale problems as wind. According to this page, the average incident solar power density is 164 watts per square meter. At 100% efficiency, a solar plant would have a collector surface area of 14.82e6 square meters to equal Plant Votgle's power output (that's a square a little less than four kilometers on a side). A chart on this page says that efficiency for collectors used to heat water is between 60 and 80%, increasing our required collector size even more.
The energy density of solar or wind is not nearly high enough to replace fossil or nuclear fuels for electricity production on a large scale.
Stop being little bitches and switch over to 802.11a. No it is not compatable to WiFi but if everybody switches to it 5ghz band, there won't be any interference and it is several times faster and is more powerful to boot.
Can you install Linux on it?
"The two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." -Harlan Ellison
Plus Cringly has been known to "bend" the truth, some of his actions have been pure fantacy.
His 2.4Ghz passive repeater seemed to bend the laws of physics and he wouldn't answer questions about it but the nocat guys seem to think it was a hoax.
So take what Cingly says as entertainment, nothing more.
-M
I have a neighbor with a 802.11b wireless network who is the block pain in the rear.
He likes to brag about being able to set out on his steps and work his laptop with no cordies.
I happen to have a 100Base-T ethernet network built into my walls: ) Can't wait to start saving some money...
So what do you want? Unlimited cheap personal freedom of press and perfect universal news retreival or an alternate light bulb? I see fine at night right now, thank you, but I have to pay $65/month for cable. It would be just fine for the FCC to let these folks blot out the 2.4 GHz band, so long as they give the rest of the specturm back to the people.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
The total cost per kWh (counting upfront capital costs) has been dropping for years, and has now come within a hair of hitting the cost of fossil fuels (for wind). Solar is more expensive, but advances already in the pipeline should bring it to less than nuclear within ten years.
There is indeed resistance to building wind turbines. But in case you've been asleep since the 70's, there's a little resistance to building nuclear power plants too (we haven't built a nuclear power plant since Three Mile Island). And while they kill birds, it's is (and would be, even with a massive increase in generation) a handful. Plate glass windows kill 97 million birds in the US alone (and cars kill another 50 million), whereas wind turbines in the US kill 70,000. That means it'd take a 1000-fold increase before the two are even comparable.
Also, comparing the output of a single wind turbine to a single nuclear power plant is stupid. The question is, how many kWh of production capacity does a given dollar buy you when spent on Nuclear versus Wind? And the answer is, Wind, because the turbines are dirt cheap (compared to a nuclear power plant!).
As for solar panels, they do stop producing when it's cloudy and dark (much like wind turbines stop on calm days). There are two solutions. Large storage batteries, and nuclear plants to help keep them topped up during dark, overcast, calm periods.
Your figure for solar power density isn't completly correct. That's appears to be an average figure, but solar power density depends on your latitude, and ranges from 250 to 100 betweeen the equator and the poles. That means it would only take a square 500km on a side to supply the entire Earth's energy needs if built on the equator. Of course, shipping power from the equator isn't a great idea, but the US's power needs could be met several times over by coverering half of Texas in panels. :-)
That solution isn't cheaper than nuclear (not at the moment), but solar panels have been halving in price every decade since their inception, and it looks like this will continue to around 2030 (at least). Around 2010, both wind and solar will be cheaper than nuclear, and by some estimates wind will cheaper than fossil. And don't forget, fossil fuel generation can't really get any more efficient due to the laws of thermodynamics. The only way fossil fuel generated energy prices are going is up.
One wreaks havoc, not wrecks havoc.
Are basic english skills too much to ask for? And I'm not whining about people who speak English as a second language. I'm talking about the english-is-my-first-language-but-i'm-too-fucking-i ncompetent-to-speak/write-it-correctly crowd.
pooptruck
Everybody's fussing about this because this lighting will interfere with current wireless networking standards, but when we start using 5GHz spectrum in the next iteration it will be a moot point. It's rather selfish to throw a fit about your wireless network being disrupted since these lights have the potential to save a lot of power, which in turn saves natural resources. Adaptation has been no problem for us in the past!
If they ever get this lighting off the ground, and it does cause enough interference to muck with your precious wireless networking, then just start throwing rocks at the bulbs. They're going to be hideously expensive. If enough bulbs get broken, facilities considering adopting this lighting technology will think twice because they know the cost of replacing bulbs will be more than the difference in their power bill.
And I don't want to hear any conservation jibberjabber from anyone who has any incandescent bulbs in their house.
I'd be the first to "light one up" if it came to my neighborhood and suddenly thousands of dollars of wireless equipment stopped working ... and I don't even own a gun (yet).
My Panasonic 2.4Ghz Cordless phone wreaks havoc on my Airport Basestation. (No matter what channel it is set to).
Bear in mind that the problem caused by RF lighting is microwave emissions - 802.11 emits microwaves too, but only very noncontinuously (about 2% of the time on average under heavy use) and at low power (much less than a cellphone). Now we introduce RF lighting that can knock out 802.11 communications up to a mile away. In any direction and 100% of the time.
Have you any idea just how much emission you're talking about to do that? You would have to be utterly insane to stand around anywhere near one of these things. This is a truly evil idea for a product, and there's no way these should be permitted on health and safety grounds.
White LED are recent - just as blue and UV.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Can you tell me what dimmer to use to get rid of the hum on my new light fixture with a magnetic transformer? The lighting expert at Home Depot didn't know (but he did ask if I wanted fries with it).
Laptop == light source.
If there are more people out and about enjoying wireless networking, there will be less call for light sources. The reverse is also true.
May the best technology win!
...Time is the best teacher, unfortunately it kills all of its students.
At 100% efficiency, a solar plant would have a collector surface area of 14.82e6 square meters to equal Plant Votgle's power output (that's a square a little less than four kilometers on a side).
Not bad, but the nice thing about solar is it can allow distributed energy generation. Using more realistic numbers at 30% efficiency. And, a middle of the road average of 4000Whr/sq m per day in the US. And, an average home usage of 10,000whr/day. It would take 10,000/(.3*4000)= 8.3 sqm of solar panels to power a single home. Call it a square 10ft on a side.
See here to provide power for the entire US. A square 100 miles by 129 miles. Sounds like a lot, but there are some very desolate deserts in the southwest that could easily fit that. Of course you woudln't want it all in one place, so ideally, you cover every rooftop, and then put whatever extra is needed in the most god forsaken desolate piece of desert in the southwest you can find.
Add some wind, which will tend to smooth out the valleys of solar. Some nuclear, just in case. And, Water to hydrogen electrolysis and fuel cells to store energy for nights and peaks.
Dastardly
I was wondering the same thing. I heard a Mac guy mention Wireless Fidelity and his Airport card. I snickered under my breath. Then I looked it up and doh... :(
So what is the deal with that anyways?
Our light bulbs save power... they get people to stop using there computers.
As much as I love the internet and networks, I'd have to say that I prefer the lightbulbs. Where can I get my hands on one.
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Morph3ous.net: A synergy of art, technology and innovation.
Show me where I can get some of these!