LED Light Fixtures for the Home?

HBergeron writes "Despite some exhautive searching I have able to find very little about LED based light fixtures for the home. There are some in marine use, and a spare handful of others come up on a Google search but from all I have read on Slashdot I have to believe there are more out there. I am in the final stages of a home remodel and would very much like to use 'the lighting source of the future' (tm) in a number of places. For one, the bedroom, LEDs could make a nice bedside sconce/reading light, and a red/white option could be just the like for those late night stumbling across the room expeditions. A vanity light seems like another good place. Not to mention energy and bulb replacement savings." While these may not be economical for most people, I'm sure there are a few folks out there who have put these new lights to the test. How well did they stack up to the use of traditional filament lights?

Comments

dansdata letters

[FrenZon]

Dan covers this in one of his more recent letters sections. He states that compared to Halogen bulbs, LEDs aren't as efficient, and are best suited to accent lights.

But he says it better than I could.

not really what you want, but..

[austad]

This isn't really what you want, but it's cool enough to mention here. Target sells an Eddie Bauer branded flashlight that is roughly the same size as the AA Maglite. Except, it has 3 ultra bright LED's on it, which nearly blind you (brighter than the Maglite). They look like Xenon HID's on newer cars. And the best part of all, *200* hours on one set of batteries. $25, so it's a bit more expensive, but the coolness factor makes up for it.

A couple years ago, flashlights like that cost a couple hundred bucks.

Re:not really what you want, but..

[Klaruz]

I found a neat website on this thing:

http://www.ebtx.com/mech/optolite.html

They sound like the real deal. I'm going to stop by target and grab one. :)

small applications

[este]

I've got an old '67 volvo, and I was sick of the old-looking green backlighting in my dash. I replaced all the bulbs with blue LED's, and they look great. Kind of expensive, but they'll last forever. Smaller applications like this seem to be the most useful. though here in Eugene, OR, we've replaced the red and green traffic light bulbs with LED bulbs. Still waiting on yellow, a cost issue mostly.........

LEDs are cool, fiber-optic is cooler

[maggard]

LED's aren't necessarily the "lighting-of-the-future", actually fiber looks more likely:

1. Fiber is cheap these days, especially the 2nd rate stuff left over from telecomms and reused for this
2. One or two centralized light sources can provide all of the lumens needed for a home or office
3. Those one or two light sources can be optimized for output, their heat vented directly outside or recovered for use in the building, built to be super-efficient, etc.
4. Maintanence becomes trivial and cheap with the sources placed conveniently, not scattered all over in ceilings, up walls, etc.
5. The fixtures themselves are very versatile, basically a diffuser of your choice. Want a spot snap on the head for that, want a bulb-look pop on a frosted plastic bulb, same for strips and coils or flat panels
6. Dimmers on individual feeds are possible with LCD adapters, the same is true for color filtering
7. No RF noise, no flicker, durable, cool, efficient, fixtures never need replacing, what's not to love?

Frankly I look forward to having one or two "light boxes" in my attic keeping much of the heat out of my living space (or in the winter pulling it into the HVAC system), only having to replace a few well engineered super-efficient bulbs in a handy box every few years, plugging in a fiber cord instead of a an electrical one for a lamp. LEDs might become a good retrofit for older wired-not-fibered places but for new construction I'm looking to plastic.

Compact Fluorescent

[Yonder Way]

I can't believe I haven't seen it mentioned here yet (maybe I am browsing at too high a threshhold), but compact fluorescent lights are the current way to get the best bang for your buck in home lighting.

You get roughly a 4:1 amount of light per watt in a compact fluorescent as compared to a conventional incandescent bulb.

I recently went through my parents house replacing bulbs. I used mostly ~15 watt bulbs (60 watt equivilant) and in a couple of areas where really bright light was needed I used 27 watt bulbs (~100W equiv.)

There were two fixtures in the hall that used a total of 600W of light originally and now use a total of 60W using compact fluorescent bulbs. The hall is still quite bright, but now use four 15 watt bulbs as opposed to eight 75 watt bulbs.

It doesn't take a math genius to see that these bulbs pay for themselves relatively quickly via savings in the electric bill. Not only that, but they last a long time. I've been using them for about six years and I've had only *one* bulb die in that timespan (that was a Philips if anyone wants to know).

Home Depot is selling them pretty cheaply right now. There is no excuse to not buy a pack and try them out. You are totally justified in spending the money for the bulbs up front and put them in now, knowing that if you annualize your costs you are actually saving money.

These bulbs cannot be used in dimmer type sockets, and other than the really small 9 watt models some of them have a hard time in very small enclosed fixtures.

You will realize the most immediate savings if you replace bulbs that are in use for extended periods, like driveway lights or hallway lights.

Paint those walls with light

[rich_r]

Using these!

Using them in the venue I work in and they really do look great!

YMMV on whether they're appropriate for your home application though! I would suggest, however, if you are going down the hardcore-lots-of-new-fixtures-everywhere route that you consider using fixtures that talk DMX, which'll make life a darn sight easier when you want your rooms to slowly change colour over the day!

They do

[Andy Dodd]

http://www.luxeon.com/

Currently the largest LED is Luxeon's 5 watt emitter, which gives off around 100-120 lumens. No one has been able to manufacture anything larger easily yet. There's a rumored 10W LED coming from another company, although its light output is specced as LESS than Lumileds' Luxeons (i.e. it's less than half as efficient.)

5W units are $40/each in small quantities, dropping to $24 or so each in larger quantities (100+) They are VERY hard to obtain.