Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Apartment Lit Solely by LEDs

Posted by timothy on from the hey-mine-frequently-is-too dept.

(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."

26 of 529 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by Q-Hack! · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Well... by l810c · · Score: 5, Funny

      I swear I've seen a porno shot in that apartment.

    2. Re:Well... by splurdge · · Score: 5, Informative

      The N.Y. Times article that I read said the installation of the system cost $50,000 (according to the designer's approximation). So much for not too expensive. The article is here.

    3. Re:Well... by QHacksCumGuzzlinWife · · Score: 5, Funny

      My wife has bookmarked my slashdot account and reads this stuff.

      Don't worry about me, honey, I created my own account.

  2. what? by awing0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sure there are tons of slashdotters whose apartments are already soley lit by LEDs.

    --
    Cthulhu Saves.
    1. Re:what? by iabervon · · Score: 5, Informative

      I doubt there are many slashdotters with apartments that aren't in part lit by either CRTs or halogens (such as LCD backlights).

    2. Re:what? by Metal_Demon · · Score: 5, Funny

      You are giving a bad name to geeks everywhere. Most of us aren't ashamed pussies.

      --
      Trust Your Technolust
    3. Re:what? by kfg · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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

    4. Re:what? by kfg · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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

    5. Re:what? by kfg · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, it's not really. While he lived in his cabin in the woods (only a mile out of town mind you) he also kept his commercial schoolroom, lectured, made few of his out of state tourist journies, sold his produce commercially and continued to be an active member of the transcendentalist literary movement.

      It was, as he stated, an experiment in minimalist living, and the form it took was that of a gentleman farmer and scholar reduced to the barest essentials. He also happened to love nature.

      No, I've never met a "back to nature" person who PETA would want to have much to do with. PETA isn't much for slaughtering livingstock and keeping milk cows and hunting. PETA are the very antithesis of the back to nature folk and can only exist in cities. The Amish are religious Luddites, not back to nature people, perfectly civilized and like it that way and very effective capitalists. They tend to think of the back to nature folk as city loons, and they're right.

      The back to nature folk are sort of a cross between hippies, survivalists and new agers.

      They're not only anticapitalist, they're antimoney and often antitrade. They have some vague romantic notions about "being one" with nature and try live totally and completely self sufficiently, by farming mostly, with some hunting and gathering thrown in, and making absolutely everything themselves, eschewing everything they perceive as technology (without any apparent realization that farming itself is a technology, as is a house and a candle and a steel hoe). They can't quite make up their minds about whether they want to be hermits or communists. They virtually all come from cities (country folk think of them as city loons, and they're right) and they virtually all fail.

      You can do mountain man/hermit just fine if you want. A good knife and you're set. A gun is really, really nice to have though, and matches make life easier. Every one I've known also has some product to sell now and again, even if it's only racoon hides. But then a good knife is actually pretty high technology. A gun is even higher. You're not going make your own of either out in the woods or on your little farm thingy. You have to buy them.

      The only back to nature folk I've ever met who "made it" were the ones that eventually realized that the way you make a living from a farm was by being a farmer. You grow crops in excess of your needs. You sell them and then you spend the money on things you need. Things that other people make in excess while you're farming. Things like oil lamps, plough blades, maybe a radio, or a knife, or an electric generator, or, gasp, modern medicine ( 'cause those natural herbs just didn't seem to do the job after all on little Johnny's appendicitis).

      Because farming is a technology of civilization. Go figure.

      Thoreau sold crops and taught school. For money. To buy things with. Things he couldn't make himself. Like flour (remember I said don't grow grain?) paper and ink. His family owned a factory in town that made pencils.

      I only know of one way to go completely back to nature that works. Full blown late stone age living. It can be done. There are certainly at least a few people living like that right now, although fewer every year (The knife and the T-shirt seem to have made it nearly everywhere now). I've tried it as an experiment (just because it's the sort of thing I do sometimes for fun. Really). I can do it. Others less suited for it than I have managed with a little extra to work with. Selkirk, for instance. It isn't what most people would call "fun." Oh yeah, don't get sick.

      City person. In the woods. Naked.

      Riiiiiiiight.

      They don't even know how to make a proper pointy stick.

      KFG

  3. Please use google cache, already slow... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

    1. Re:Please use google cache, already slow... by mark-t · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah, but the pics themselves weren't cached on google, only the html content so the pics can't load from a site that's so abysmally slashdotted that I'd be suprised if it's still up and running in 2 hours.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  4. Big deal... by odie_q · · Score: 5, Funny

    If I turn off my monitors, my apartment is also lit solely by LEDs.

    --
    ...ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
  5. Costume by MSBob · · Score: 5, Funny
    Are you required to wear a shiny white uniform when you are in the apartment? It looks like a set for a B rate sci fi flick from the fifties...

    Perhaps it's just that my interior decorating tastes aren't up to date :-)

    --
    Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
  6. LCD TV above the stove? by phatsharpie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

  7. Kenny Roger's Chicken by qedigital · · Score: 5, Funny

    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...

  8. slashdot my BOX, now ;) by Janek+Kozicki · · Score: 5, Informative

    I wonder if my box will survive, but anyway, here's what I captured.

    --
    #
    #\ @ ? Colonize Mars
    #
  9. *Sigh* Designers w/o common sense - again by reignbow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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:

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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!
  10. Re:Any ideas? by imsabbel · · Score: 5, Informative

    Those arent the LEDs you should looking at.
    http://www.lumiled.com/luxeon/products/luxeon III_i ndex.html

    This are the babys for serious room illumination. http://www.lumiled.com/luxeon/products/luxeonIII_i ndex.html
    3.xV, 1000mA. And around 3-5 times the lumen efficency of your traditional bulb. And its only 30$ or so (if i remember correctly). So this is around 15 times more power/money than your example.

    Sure, more expensive in the beginning, but in situations where broken bulb does not only mean 1$ for a new bulb, but working time to replace it, or simply a room being dark that SHOUDNT be dark, the 100.000 hour lifetime should be quite a bonus.

    Especially considering that LEDS dont "break", but fade. If not electrocuted, they become slowly dimmer. The 100.000h usually means the time where they are only at 50% or so output. So even a long time after that, it would still produce light, even if its not a lot.

    --
    HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
  11. Slashdotted! Mirrors collected below! :D by rohan_leader · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Because of the absolutely phenomenal number of requests for this 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 :-) We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause."

    Mirrors that were grabbed from the slashdot thread: Consider using these mirrors.

    mirror 1
    mirror 2
    Karma whoring at its finest :D

  12. Re:informative ?!? by Trejkaz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Link describing various methods of backlighting.

    HTH.

    --
    Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
  13. I guess the Vos Pad is now lit by,,, by NoData · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...the crackling embers of a slashdotted server.

  14. I know someone with a LED basement by OYAHHH · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  15. A MIRROR (with the images) by blixel · · Score: 5, Informative

    here

  16. Re:LED lit by VCAGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    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."
  17. One more try... by davmoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.