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Toshiba Ends Incandescent Bulb Production After 120 Years

Posted by Soulskill on from the bright-ideas dept.

angry tapir writes "Toshiba has stopped production of mass-market incandescent light bulbs, putting an end to a 120-year manufacturing history of the products. The company, which is one of Japan's largest makers of lighting products, had planned to halt production next year but brought up the date by a year. It will now focus on more energy efficient products, including LED (light-emitting diode) lights, which contain a handful of white LEDs and draw a fraction of the power of incandescent bulbs."

7 of 430 comments (clear)

  1. so long... by eexaa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ....and thanks for all the friendly warm light.

    1. Re:so long... by Lord+Ender · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How about this: the color of the light emitted by CFLs and LEDs is ugly, and sometimes even hard on the eyes (especially with LEDs).

      For me, this is reason enough to stick with incandescent bulbs for the places I spend most of my time.

      If you consider my above statements to be "crap" then you shouldn't have skipped class on the day they talked about the light spectrum. The spectrum emitted unquestionably differs between lighting technologies.

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    2. Re:so long... by ircmaxell · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's more to light than just color temperature... There's also emitted frequencies. So while an incandescent typically emits light evenly across the visible range, a typical CFL emits light in a more grained spectrum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp#Spectrum_of_light). So to emit the same "color temperature" and luminosity (brightness of overall effect), a CFL will need to emit more light in certain frequency ranges to compensate for the missing frequencies. And since the human eye doesn't perceive all frequencies equally (We're typically MUCH more sensitive to green than red or blue) it can lead to the light not "feeling" right. The net combination of the colors looks the same, but they are processed differently in the eye which leads to a real, measurable difference. A CFL can never be identical to an incandescent. It's a matter of the physics behind it. Sure, they can "approximate" the light output, but the difference will always be there (and hence why some colors are less discernible under a CFL than under an incandescent)... In situations where color is very important (Artists, designers, etc) an incandescent bulb will be far better than a CFL. In situations (like every day life) where it isn't important to get colors exactly right, then it doesn't matter. But the point is that there is a difference...

      --
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    3. Re:so long... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have Philips bulbs. I timed my 60watt-equivalent (13 watt actual) and it took 4 minutes to reach full brightness. And no it wasn't just a bad set, because identical bulbs I bought a year later still exhibited the same behavior.

      Maybe you should have tried a different brand then? I have CFLs in almost every fixture in the house. The only ones that take more than 1s to reach max brightness are a recessed light and my 200W-equivalent porch light.

      Some of these lights were rather cheap, too. :)

      I was not aware Philips make crap products?

      Every company has at least the occasional piece of crap in their product line. Phillips has a good reputation, but that plus you holding a crappy Phillips CFL in your hand does not prove all CFLs are crap.

      cleanness (not reactive power)

      Huh? Is this your way of slipping in Power Factor as a reason CFLs are bad? Well at least you aren't still claiming it means CFLs don't save any energy. LOL.

      Shouldn't our priorities be focused on more energy-expensive things like heating/cooling? If all new home standards were increased to "PassivHaus" standards, which bring heat/cooling to almost nothing, we'd save HUGE amount of energy.

      Yes indeed! We need to push energy efficiency from all angles and insulation is a huge one. It is being pushed, too, but hey I agree it should be a bigger priority than it is.

      After fifteen years of testing CFLs, I've concluded they are inferior.

      Why do I get the impression you concluded that long before fifteen years had passed, and at best kept up the "experiment" in the form of buying a new CFL every year or two just to stave off people that you should try em, not all of em take forever to get bright, etc.

      I mean, fifteen years and you haven't found a single CFL that performs well? It took me all of two trips to Home Depot to accomplish this. They exist. Your inability to find any after fifteen years is, um, shall we say, in conflict with the idea of this being a neutral unbiased experiment that you were conducting.

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    4. Re:so long... by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I can't imagine anyone using them to light a well-decorated interior or do anything else, really. Switching to an incandescent is like a breath of fresh air, even my wife can notice after adapting to those horrible, horrible phosphor emissions. Human eyes are adapted to looking at black body radiators.

      Yet architects and decorators have been utilizing fluorescent lights for decades in commercial and industrial settings.

      I personally find incandescents to be far, far too yellow. Give me a 'bright white' CFL any day.

    5. Re:so long... by kmac06 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How about this? In a free country, don't tell me what kind of lightbulb I can buy.

  2. Efficiency by wh1pp3t · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It will now focus on more energy efficient products, including LED (light-emitting diode) lights, which contain a handful of white LEDs and draw a fraction of the power of incandescent bulbs.

    That use much more power and materials to manufacture than incandescent bulbs.

    I just love corporations using global stewardship to cover up apparent profit motives.
    /sarcasm