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Nanotech Could Make Incandescent Light Bulbs As Efficient As LEDs (sciencemag.org)

Posted by samzenpus on from the making-it-better dept.

sciencehabit writes: Thomas Edison would be pleased. Researchers have come up with a way to dramatically improve the efficiency of his signature invention, the incandescent light bulb. The approach uses nanoengineered mirrors to recycle much of the heat produced by the filament and convert it into additional visible light. The new-age incandescents are still far from a commercial product, but their efficiency is already nearly as good as commercial LED bulbs, while still maintaining a warm old-fashioned glow.

6 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can't wait to get back to the days of changing each light bulb in my house a couple of times each year.

  2. What's the lifetime of the bulb? by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's the lifetime of the new incandescent bulb? Do they still burn out as fast as they used to? Or does recycling the heat cause them to take longer to burn out. The major advantage I find in LEDs is that they last a long time. And with the plummeting prices (picked some up for $3.50 a piece at Walmart last week), It's going to be hard for incandescent bulbs to compete. If this was such a good solution, it could probably be used for LED lights as well, since they throw off a non-negligible amount of heat as well.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  3. I like my LEDs... by blankinthefill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Aside from questions of longevity, I honestly much prefer the availability of light color options that LEDs provide. After getting several LEDs that are substantially cooler in color than normally available incandescents/CFLs, I never want to go back. Add to that the fact that I can GET warmer colored LEDs if I desire, and the fact that I can use LED lights that package other abilities into their package (like wireless speakers), and I just don't see the consumer draw other than some rose colored glasses. (Maybe for dimmable bulbs, which I know LEDs struggled with for awhile but they seem to have overcome that also... This also ignores the brightness of the lightbulb, as LEDs have just generally been brighter [a good thing imo] than comparable incandescents and CFLs in my experience. Maybe the new tech solves that, but still probably not worth it as a consumer is my feeling.)

    1. Re:I like my LEDs... by Prune · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I hate LEDs. Their color rendering index is usually below 90, with the fanciest available at 93 -- still quite terrible if you care that colors of objects from clothes to decorations to paintings look anything like they do under sunlight. There's not going to be much improvement on this parameter as well, because the uneven spectrum LEDs emit, regardless of overall color temperature (what white point they're matched to) makes it impossible to filter effectively. Incandescents, on the other hand, have a smooth blackbody spectrum that's very easy to filter, and high end incandescent bulbs can be matched to duplicate solar spectrum.

      --
      "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
  4. So? by bigsexyjoe · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The right-wing blowhards on the radio will still complain about having to use them.

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    Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
  5. Re:Not a "warm glow" by tlambert · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I think the reason so many people want the yellow lights is it is what they are used to.

    Personally, I think it's millions of years of evolution, combined with the fact that it's only been the last 130 years or so that we stopped getting all our light from fire. You may want to have your color vision checked, next time you are at the optometrist.