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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."
I looked at this and said cool... My wife looked at it and said YUCK!!!
Just goes to show, Not for everybody.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
I'm sure there are tons of slashdotters whose apartments are already soley lit by LEDs.
Cthulhu Saves.
A link to a page full of images on slashdot... This website will die.
Please use this:
Google cache for the pictures
And this:
Google cache for the 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.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Already have one, sorry.
If I turn off my monitors, my apartment is also lit solely by LEDs.
...ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
OH GAWD make it stop..... I would turn insane after living in a place like that, with hardly any direct light, and everything purple or green. Did they do that on purpose? I know even the white LEDs are a little thin in their output spectrum, but damn, they aren't purple!
Hint to lighting designers: the human body has evolved over millions of years to expect sunlight. Lighting should either look like direct or diffused sunlight.
Perhaps it's just that my interior decorating tastes aren't up to date :-)
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Any ideas on why led lights for the home are not more widely available? The technology is not new.
The site reports that that led lights are up to 10,000% longer lasting and can produce up to 10 times more light than incandescent bulbs.
The site also states that led's use less power and are less expensive.
I'm laughing at clouds.
What does it cost to have this done? What are the monthly saving each month?
I can't imagine placing a LCD TV above the stove is a good idea. Not only would heat from the stove damage it, but what about oil splatter from cooking?
-B
This "electric light" thing will never catch on.
/lights a candle.
Company just released their second product: First NOC lit by flaming server. Footage at 11...
Compact Flouresent is much higher in efficiency per watt of electricity used.
plus it's a bitch to find a LED area lamp.
LED's are ok for small point task lighting, they completely suck at area lighting that is typically used in a home in both electricity used and lumens of light output.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The photos make it look like an FPS game. Do you need a geforce 4 to live there??
When this was posted on Fark yesterday, several people sent me the link... and I couldn't figure out why. I kept reading the page, thinking I was skipping over something that stated something newsworthy or truly interesting about the "Vospad" ... like how this is the inside of George W's Texas ranch or how some new, amazing type of LED is at work here... but nothing was to be found. A house lit by LEDs... looks cheap and tacky to me. So, I asked the people who sent me the link why they sent it to me.... same answer "cuz it's cool." No, sorry, it's really not.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
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.
It's a good concept, but LED's don't output enough light to live comfortably. Maybe it'd be cool to flip a switch and have your apartment be purple...but that as the only option? Doesn't work for me. The main benefit I see is that LEDs use a ton less power than conventional lighting. Unfortunately, they don't offer the brightness or color of good ole' conventional light bulbs.
...the lights on their router are surely blinking like mad! Hopefully it won't catch fire, which is certainly a more dangerous (albeit more aesthetically pleasing) method of lighting. :-)
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
I think that having that many lights strobing would have a great effect, when I invite the door to door Mormons in and convince them I gave them LSD.
Otherwise - I'd like to see a little more white light; I'm not Prince, so I don't need that much purple.
Reminds me of the Seinfeld where Jerry has trouble sleeping because of the red glow of the neon sign from the Kenny Roger's Chicken across the street.
Your colour vision would go all out of whack as you move from room to room with the different colour schemes never mind what will happen when you go outside for some sunlight (that rat fur hat might even look good).
Rapidly approaching the Zener knee...
Why are all the pictures taken during the day? What does it look like at night?
NYTimes had an article about this company on thursday here is the
Google link.
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
"Lit by LEDs, inhabited by virgins."
The coolest voice ever.
I was expecting something showcasing technology like the 5 watt Luxeon Star LEDs, instead, it just looks like Lucky the Leprechaun shat all over the place.
Despite the bad example (and color scheme, ugh.) this site shows, LEDs really are coming into their own for uses in lighting and will be a very interesting technology to watch in the coming years. The LED Museum has a great listing and reviews of LED based lighting products, from flashlights to Xmas lights.
I do believe LEDs can be effectively used for lighting. I was given a 1 watt Luxeon Star-based flashlight this Christmas and after using it in instead of an incandescent flashlight, I have to say I am very impressed. The Luxeon puts out a pure white light (very similar to HID headlights) which makes objects being illuminated appear more clearly and it projects an even beam with no dark shadowy spots. If for nothing else, this article should be a reason to check out what's available in LED lighting - you might be pleasantly surprised.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
> The Vos Pad is the world's first apartment solely lit by LEDs
No natural lighting at all? Sounds grim. Wanting to get away from Windows is one thing, but this is a bit extreme.
I wonder if my box will survive, but anyway, here's what I captured.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
The article noted that the apartment's lighting system cost an estimated $50,000. That probably accounts for the lack of popularity of LEDs for home lighting.
An alternative to LEDs are Organic LEDs, a much cheaper, plastic-based technology. Unfortunately, they are not yet ready for prime time.
all LED lighting....must bee inexpensive to power those I bet.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Looks like there's no books in the home of the future.
That's unfortunate.
--saint
if you have a link to a halogen lcd backlight, please post...
(meaning: there arent any)
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
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!
Check the phone number for their PR contact - it's central London number (England, not anywhere else)
A standard fluorescent bulb flickers at 60 Hz.
With 4 diodes (at a few cents each) you can build a full wave rectifier that will let you connect an LED to AC power without flicker.
Jason
ProfQuotes
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Mirrors that were grabbed from the slashdot thread: Consider using these mirrors.
mirror 1 :D
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Karma whoring at its finest
- no sig.
That said however, I've ordered a bunch of of Luxeon LEDs in various colors - mostly the "warm whites" - to play around with. I think if you did this in a decent house or apartment with colors that didn't induce vomiting you could end up with something pretty special.
>With 4 diodes (at a few cents each) you can build a full wave rectifier that will let you connect an LED to AC power without flicker.
It'll still flicker at 120 Hz without a filter capacitor!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Kopin Corp
Color Kinetics
Luminus Devices
The biggest issue was the overhead of the LED for the residential aspects, whereas larger corporations may be better equipped financially to handle the current cost.
To quote this article directly
"The problem is cost. Like early computer chips, today's LEDs are still too expensive to spark mass adoption. "You could replace a 100-watt light bulb with a 60-watt LED, and get the same brightness," says John Fan, chairman and founder of Kopin Corp., a Taunton company that makes LEDs. "You'd save 40 percent on power, but it would cost about $100. We need to bring that price down.""
Personally that is far outside of my price range. At that rate I'd be replacing one household bulb each year... hmmm.. I should have my entire house finsihed when I'm about 87 years old. And by that time I'll be blind and won't need lights anyway.
Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
One thing I noticed was the LCD display over the range. At first I thought it was stupid because why would you want a tv there. Then I though well maybe you could use it as a internet appliance recipe book. But then I realized that having electronics hanging above steaming pots really is a bad idea after all. It should be moved to counter space where you would be doing cutting and mixing. You also need better task lighting in a kitchen unless you want to slice your finger off.
Having the sconces with their beams of super bright light reflecting off the wall and providing indirect lighting is very cool and is like a fusion of 21st century modern with 19th century retro since it is similar to gas lamps or candleholders. I couldn't help but be reminded of all those dungeons my 24th level Magic-user had traipsed through. However, it appears the sconces are below eye level. It doesn't take an 18 intelligence to know that is a bad idea.
The LEDs in the floor of the kitchen look like the emergency lighting in the aisles in a passenger jet. It might be useful if your apartment ever crash lands and you need to crawl to the exit through thick smoke. And I won't even go into the colors because so many people have already commented about it that it would just be redundant.
'cause it'll save him all kinds of money on his cooling bill!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
So it looks like it would be OK to walk around it, but it's missing some basic things, such as directional lighting for reading. LED's provide narrow directional light, which is fine for washes of light (when diffused with lenses or diffusers) or small pin-spots, but the designers don't appear to have tried to create light at the scale needed for common things like sitting on the couch and reading or cooking.
x /2 5mm_med_index.htm
Btw, I've had my apartment stairway lit with white LED replacement bulbs from LEDTronics for 5 years (continuously! Never turned off because it's too dark to find the switches, which is why I installed the bulbs in the first place.). It's worked great, except that they've now faded to the point they no longer provide enough light to walk up the stairs with, but it's taught me that the technology isn't ready to replace all the bulbs in the house. Here's their full line of replacement bulbs:
http://www.led.net/datasheets/25mm_medbase_inde
Because of the absolutely phenomenal number of requests for this :-) We apologise for any inconvenience
site (due to its being listed on Slashdot), we have had to take
the unusual step of temporarily disabling the content of the
site until things calm down
that this may cause.
Wihtout a rectifier it is off 50% of the time.
:).
With a full wave recrifier, it will be off for tiny amount of time between pulses; almost certainly faster than the LED can turn off, and it will be on fully twice as much. Also, the human eye can't detect a 120Hz flicker, the limit is around 48Hz.
If it bothers you, spend the 10 cents to add a filter cap
Jason
ProfQuotes
I
Know someone who has an LED basement.
She has an extreme case of porphyria and she can only tolerate light in the 585+ NM wavelengths.
BTW, 585 is exactly the wavelength of those ugly yellow street lamps you occasionally see. I think those lamps are some type of sodium vapor lamp and they are ultra efficient also.
Since incandescants, etc. were literally cooking her from the inside out I built her an LED lamp.
Her lamp has 50 LEDS connnected in 10 parallel circuits. I also slapped on ten switches with one master on/off switch.
Thus, she could turn on as little as 5 or as many as 50 bulbs simultaneously.
It works great for her. She's still very sick, but at least she has some light she can tolerate.
LED's emit a very narrow wavelength of light. You can get them in small bulk packages at the following address:
www.TheLEDLight.com
That store also has a whole bunch of Super Cool LED flashlights etc.
Also, my friend's porphyria is a really rare and strange disease which means she is akin to a vampire. She has the EP variety. Only approximately 300 more like her in the US.
She has been stuck in her mom's basement now for two years, at the age of 34. Such a tragedy!
Caution: Contents under pressure
here
>With a full wave recrifier, it will be off for tiny amount of time between pulses; almost certainly faster than the LED can turn off
:-)
Considering LEDs are used in TOSLINK circuits (and heck, gigabit fibre circuit), I really hope that isn't true!
An LED should shut off nearly instantly. I mean, how can one expect it to stay on but the rectifier diodes to turn off?
>Also, the human eye can't detect a 120Hz flicker, the limit is around 48Hz
Directly, yes. Indirectly, the debate is still out there.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Now, just to find a way to integrate this into my apartment without the landlord having a seizure (literally!)... hmm. There isn't much heat in our bedroom, but with a decently overclocked Barton and a stock Palomino in custom cases, we don't get cold toes ;)
I wonder if the boss will let me convert from fluorescent at work...
One of the 187.
That's not quite true. Some fluorescent bulbs do indeed flicker at 60 or 120Hz--these use the old magnetic ballasts. However, most newer fluorescent (and also HID) lamps use electronic ballasts that are very similar to switching power supplies--they "flicker" at 20,000Hz.
Q: "Why do sound techs say 'check 1, 2'?"
A: "Cause if they could count any higher they'd be lighting techs."
But an electronic ballasted compact flourescent that screws into a standard lamp base flickers at 25-40kHz. The compact flourescent technology causes no visible flicker, is smaller than the old magnetic ballast (which operated at the frequency of house wiring, 60Hz), and improved efficiency overall, losing less energy to heat in the ballast.
One reference
Another reference.
Oops, the first sentence was copied from a previous poster, but I did the blockquote tag wrong and didn't notice it on preview. Sorry.
Also, when purchasing a compact flourescent bulb, be sure it is electronically ballasted. It'll last longer, turn on quicker, provide no noticable flicker, and work in colder temperatures.
We all know full well that the /. effect can kill all but the most well supported sites. Perhaps something radically different is in order. Perhaps an akamai like p2p fallback system.
/. and get obliterated into ether the maintainer could allow the site to be mirrored and then sent out to some temporary storage sites for.. oh say a few days, and then when the referrer is /. then the content can be served up by one of the ac hoc distributed mirrors?
before a small site gets listed on
Those lights are really dim, so you'd still need a lot of them to light a room.
To give you an idea, the average 60w light bulb gives off 860 lumens. Those LEDs you linked to only give off 80! You'd need 10 of them just to get close to a 60w bulb! If each of those LEDs are $30 as you say (there are no prices on the website), that's $300 per 60w bulb!!!
Those 15w mini-twister flourescent bulbs give off 900 lumens. They also last for 6000 hours. Seems to be the reasonable way to go for now...
- Murphy's Corollary: - It is impossible to make things foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
And it will probably fall on deaf ears like it has every other time I've posted a comment like this.
This story, the resulting Slashdotting of their site, followed closely by the need to take the site down, is yet another indication that the powers that be at Slashdot need to learn the simple courtesy of *ASKING* the people behind websites like that if they want a story about them on Slashdot. Or at least allow them time to prepare for the devestation their servers are about to undergo.
When stories about spammers and such ilk are posted, we show our feelings by Slashdotting their site, thereby either costing them tons in bandwidth charges or crashing their server.
When stories about things we like are posted on Slashdot, we show our approval by doing the same damned thing.
Quite frankly, I'm surprised that in this day and age of litigation-while-you-wait no one has sued Slashdot for getting their server hammered.
I'll stop now so that the moderators among you can show your ignorance by moderating this post as "off topic" or "flame bait".
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
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.
A while ago I stumbled across LEDtronics...they have a wide variety of LED products, but what makes them really interesting is that they have retrofits for just about every kind of incandescent bulb out there, with ordinary threaded bases that operate on anything from 12VDC to 240VAC, and bulbs for automotive applications. They also have a cross reference that converts incandescent bulb number, bulb type, or bulb base to an LED product.
The reason that the light does not flicker is that there is a phosphorescent coating on the inside of the glass, which gives the light a die down time. Sorta like glow in the dark objects, but a much shorter time frame. So in essence, there is a flicker, just less noticeable to the eye (assuming the bulb is in good repair.)
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Geek Eye for the Normal Guy
But really, it's kind of cool. But I think I'd shoot myself if I had to live there.
Also, the human eye can't detect a 120Hz flicker, the limit is around 48Hz.
I beg to differ. A 60hz flicker is highly irritating to my eyes. If someone's CRT monitor is set to 60hz, my eyes tear up and get red and sore after just a few minutes.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Contrary to popular understanding, LED's aren't particularly efficient when compaired to incandecent lights.
A high-efficiency white LED puts out something like 15-20 lumens/watt. A good halogen bulb puts out ~15 lumens/watt.
LED's seem impressively bright because they throw all their light in a fairly narrow beam.
I believe that florescent lights are more efficient that LEDs, though that will likely change. Appearantly their will be white LEDs in production with effiencies reaching 60 lumens/watt by 2005.
Speaking as someone who suffers from minor Seasonal Affective Disorder, I have to wonder what the value would be, outside of saving power, in lighting an entire room or home with LEDs.
The material I've read on SAD, and my own direct experience, have shown me that both broad-spectrum (approximating daylight) and high intensity (again, approximating daylight) are important in combating the condition. We live far enough north (Puget Sound region) where the short days and extended periods of cloud cover during the winter do indeed have a noticeable affect on my moods.
Considering that I grew up in California, which averages 328 sunny days per year, this came as no great surprise.
What I ended up doing for our home was installing full-spectrum flourescent tubes in the flourescent fixtures, and bright halogens in my work area. Both have done wonders for my mood in the winter months.
Unless someone has come up with a full-spectrum LED, I don't think this kind of lighting is going to see wide adoption outside of perpetually sun-drenched areas, and then only as a "Gee Whiz" item because of the high cost.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Or any number of other tv shows featuring unrealistic and impractical lighting in pastel colors that real people would almost never want in their home/workplace. Bleah.
Because there wasn't any juice left for their server ;-)
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
>Good point, but then why do the LEDs in TFT notebook displays have such horrible lag?
;-)
Because they're not LEDs, they're LCDs.
LCDs are a totally different technology. They lag because, well, jeez, I explained this once before but it slips my mind (It's early here! Give me credit! Please!). Basically, it has to do with the fact you're asking a material (crystals) to twist and bend when power is applied; then you take the power off them (or reverse it) to try to force them back to their original position. This takes time.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I asked my other half, she wouldn't use the bathroom for all the rice in China. Point-blank no way. "How could I work out my makeup in that light?" was her first question.
I am thinking about the kitchen. How do I get a meal looking right in those ghastly hues? How can I enjoy a steak when it will look like a Quake gib under that light?
So while this is a noteworthy effort, it may have set the cause of LED lighting back by years... (kidding, okay? I'm pretty sure other architects and designers will see the advantages and adopt them pretty quickly...)
Which is sad because the idea of using LEDs to light a living space (or indeed a workspace) is sorely needed in view of the air pollution that our thirst for light and convenience creates.
I read somewhere that a 100W consumed for a year produces a cupful and a half of pollutants in that year. (I.e. collect all the pollutants and scrunch 'em together, bingo, 1 1/2 cups of waste...)
That means that for every 100W lightbulb in your place, which stays on for an average of a quarter of a day or so, over a quarter of a cup of crap per year... The average home has seven lightbulbs, that's over two cups of pollution per house per year.
If you could reduce the amount of power required to produce the same amount of light to around a fifth or less, you'd reduce that contribution to pollution due to light from two cups to a quarter cup.
That has to be worth going for...
-- ted russ http://www.arach.net.au/~ted/mydynes/ http://www.arach.net.au/~ted/myblogs/
The VOS pad was kitted out using the Aurora and Genius fittings from ACDC Lighting.