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Apartment Lit Solely by LEDs
(eternal_software) writes "A company called Vos Solutions created what they call 'a blueprint for future living' named The Vos Pad. The Vos Pad is the world's first apartment solely lit by LEDs. There are some images of the place up on their website."
So, its funny but iTunes spun up Nightclubbing by Iggy Pop as soon as I clicked on the link to the sight, because that is exactly what this looks like to me. If I were single and 18-23 again perhaps I might think this was cool, but come on now. I was really hoping that by clicking on the link I was going to see real LED lights (perhaps spectrally tuned to the wavelength of sunlight) that could really light a house. I don't think we are that far away from other applications like automobile headlights and real replacement sources for household lighting, but this is not quite there. This to me is more like mood lighting or decorative lighting rather than household lighting.
Also, it appears that the apartment is not lit entirely by LEDs as ACDC lighting systems are providing cold cathode lighting as well.
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The site is /.'ed so I can't be sure it's the same but there was an article throughout the newsrags (NYTimes, LA Times, etc) this past week on a guy who lit his entire apartment soley by LEDs. The hardware cost him $50K. Too much really. To spend that kind of dough, there's gotta be some additional win. But you'll get a lot farther with a woman, for example, by spending that same amount on a nice car you pick her up in and a few nice dinners than on unfamiliar lighting she finds intimidating.
Off topic, but I gave a bunch of these really cool LED flashlights for Christmas: http://www.techass.com The Elite is really nice and very bright.
Why are all the pictures taken during the day? What does it look like at night?
So the question is when will prices really come down? Isn't the big problem making blue LEDs [cheaply]? When will the masses wake up and upgrade?
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
Any ideas on why led lights for the home are not more widely available? The technology is not new.
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I believe an LED the size and lummen output of a 100watt bulb for example would be a fair bit costly in contrast to a typical 100watt bulb.
I have no site to back this up, don't know where to buy a big ass LED, but let's look at radioshack
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5
5mm White LED $4.99
3.6V 20ma
http://handyman.everything-warehouse.com/PID-3E
GE Mazda 100W Edison Screw LightBulb 9004100198514
1000hours $0.99
120v
Now, I don't know how many 5mm white LEDs = the lumen output of one 100watt bulb... but at $5.00 a pop, in the short term the traditional 100W bulb costs less.
So you can either replace your bulbs at 99cents a pop, or construct a led solution that would likely cost $5.00 per unit, multi units to equal the light level of that one bulb.
I'm sure the LED would save you money, but people are lazy.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Actually, yes. Although not at the moment. A few years ago I was playing with LEDs a lot while working on data aquisition stuff. I thought it would be cool to use only rehargable LED lamps to light my place. I rather dislike cords. It worked quite well actually, and I intend to fit my next boat out the same way.
Mind you I didn't use them as a replacment for normal lighting as we know it. I used them more like a high tech oil lamp or candle so most people might have found the system lacking.
Japanese style lanterns make particularly lovely LED lamps. Quick, cheap and easy to make if you just want a little mood lighting without the fire risk of the real thing. Or try the old punch some holes in a coffee can trick.
Soon the lure of the light switch called though and I returned to using conventional electric lamps and conventional oil lamps. It was an interesting experiment though. I still keep a couple of LED paper lanterns on poles about the place for fun.
If I were going to build off the grid (like that boat or the cabin in Montana) I wouldn't have any hesitation about lighting it with a combination of LEDs and oil (never put your eggs all in one basket).
KFG
Once again, designers make a laughing stock out of themselves by refusing to use common sense. As a result, their "prototype" has obviously never been lived in for even a few hours. Three glaring points:
- LCD TV. Above the stove. So it can catch the oil crackling in the pan, the smell when something gets burned, as has occasionally been known to happen and the condensation when cooking something in boiling water. Yeah, right! No way anyone's going to hang an expensive LCD there.
- The bed. In the middle of an open square, so it takes maximum space. This is a bit so-so as they might have thought of a couple. The whole room gives off a rich-bachelor feeling to me, though. Most bachelors I know have the bed pushed up against one wall to conserve space.
- The sinks in the bathroom. They're round bowls with no shelf space in sight. Where do you put toothbrush, toothpaste, hair gel, combs, shaver, soap? Well, I'm sure the tooth fairy will be ready to hold them for a while.
As you can see, I don't think that what is shown in the pictures has anything to do with an apartment, which is made up of connected rooms where and this is important! people need to live, and need to want to live.Divide et impera!
You seem to know a lot about this off the grid stuff. I read many of your posts and come off as this geeky woodsman how-stuff-works kind of guy.
:)
Thank you. Thank you very much.
You saved money. Good for you. Most people in your position live a bit above their means and end up with all sorts of payments they can't make when the job goes away. You're ahead of the game already and show evidence of the sort of thinking that might make it off the grid.
An Adobe hut in Mexico is a lovely way to live. I spent a few months in a couple back in the late 60s. $20,000 should last you about 20 years if you live a bit American. You can live off the interest damn near forever if you aculturate. Yes, it really is that cheap to live there. Adobde is absolutely delightful to live in in the appropriate enviroment (desert}. Hell itself in the wrong one (rainforest). I've tried both. I enjoy it for a time, the desert is lovely, but I'm from the northeast mountains and start longing for trees and meadows after awhile. A bit of ocean doesn't hurt either.
Books. Lessee. There really aren't too many good ones. Most of them are written by "back to nature" types. There's a difference between back to nature and off the grid. One is a philosophy (generally propounded by city folk), the other is just living. Just living, on the whole, works better as a philosophy of living than a "philosophy of living" does. The trick is to adopt the proper mindset and adapt yourself to the life, rather than trying to force the way of life into some preconcieved notion of "the way things should be."
On the whole "nature" doesn't give a shit about "the way things should be" and just goes about her business as usual. If you get squashed along the way, well, that's natural.
The people who actually live like this don't normally write books about it. It's just normal life to them, why write about it?
But there are some exceptions and a handful of books not overtly intended for off the grid living that can be invaluable.
First off there's Walden of course, if only for inspiration, but there's a fair amount of very practical advice on living in there. Remember, the whole point was an experiment in living. Throw in Life Without Principle. If you read this and say "Yes! That's what life is all about" you'll probably have a shot at living off the grid. Anybody contemplating any sort of nonconventional living ought to read these. They're both available on the web.
One of the most valuable books you can possibly own if you're going to build any sort of shelter, from a shed to a mansion on the edge of town is Rex Robert's "Your Engineered House." If you've read my posts much you've heard me mention this one before. It's a must. Written in a conversational style that you can read like a novel and illustrated with his own crude pen drawings this book is a marvel. He covers everything in this book and will leave you wiser about home building than an entire library shelf full of other books.
***BUY THIS BOOK***
Did I make myself clear?
It's out of print. You'll pay at least triple it's original cover price to acquire it used (I'm not the only one who reveres this book. Last time I looked there were copies available on Amazon), maybe double that if you want a really clean copy with dustjacket. Pay whatever you have to. Diamonds aren't cheap.
Square Foot Gardening. How to grow the most food, the easiest. Forget everything you know about farming. Conventional farming is medieval ideas about how to grow food en mass for the masses. You want modern ideas about how to just grow food for you. This one will get you started. Supplement with any book about container gardening that catches your eye.
I'm afraid I've never seen a single book beyond the technique of growing food off the grid that was worth a crap though. Honestly, they're all pretty much garbage. You can cherry pick them for bits of info though
LED lights will eventually replace fluorescents, incandescents and other traditional forms of interior illumination. There's all kinds of reasons :
The colors are bright and pure when you want them to be, and significant progress has been made towards (simulated) full-spectrum light. The lights are cool and run on low voltage, are much more efficient than fluorescents and have very long lifetimes.
Cost is coming down (slowly) and eventually LEDs will be reasonable replacements for ordinary lightbulbs, with similar light characteristics except for added features such as optional color control and the like.
The Vos Pad is silly because like so many posters have pointed out, it's as uninhabitable as the star trek apartment that other guy built. Plus, it looks incredibly gay with those colors. Just an immensely complex concept piece demonstrating how not to use LED light fixtures. The Vos Pad appears dark and spooky, a movie set rather than a home. And the light beams coming from the floor will be incredibly annoying. But all this don't mean the technology itself is invalid.
LED lit homes can conveivably be every bit as practical as ordinary types. LEDs can be fitted into whole new kinds of fixtures that wouldn't be possible to make with conventional technologies. The LEDs are so versatile they can be built into anything and arranged in any pattern or configuration imaginable. Thin panels or stripes of light could be fitted under shelves or hidden in the ceiling so as to provide advanced discrete lighting without the hassle of bulb replacement.
As a test project a little while I ago I drew up a fancy model for a dream bathroom in a 3D program, accurately picturing discreet LED illumination with color accents and proper work surface brightness and no nasty point lightsources burning out retinas.
The render engine used was precise enough using photon maps, global illumination and caustics, that you could get a reasonable estimate of the number of LEDs on any given spec you need to light a room properly. You can pretty much go in with a virtual light meter and measure how much light hits any given simulated surface point and add more lights until you have the desired brightness. (As a photographer I have a nice digital spot lightmeter, and was able to calibrate the model using a handful of Nichia superbright white LEDs for reference.)
Turns out you need hundreds of LEDs to get an equivalent brightness to just a few 25 watt halogens. But if I had the cash to splash I'd definitely consider it for my new apartment!
When in Tokyo, visit Roppongi Hills and witness the glorious displays of LED illumination in and around the plaza at the base of the skyscraper complex. There's even LED illumination in the stairways and sometimes in the trees around the plaza too.