A New LED Light Bulb with 7 Shades of White

“Any color you like, as long as it’s white!” No, it’s not a bizarro version of Henry Ford, just Sharp’s new LED light bulb. Using the included remote control one can dial through 7 different shades of white light – without any white heat.

Ambiance at your fingertips has arrived, thanks to Japan’s Sharp Electronics Corporation. According to Sharp, the new DL-L60AV LED Lamp allows users to adjust the color function of the light bulb through a range of 7 different shades “ranging from a pleasing warm white to a cooler daylight white to match the weather, the season, time of day, purpose, or other preferences.” The adjustment is done via a hand-held remote control that also allows users to tune the brightness of the bulb to suit their preference. Forget Henry Ford, what would Thomas Edison think?

The thought of a single light bulb needing a remote control may seem somewhat extravagant but Sharp intends for the bulbs to act as stand-alone lamps; one per room is enough. The DL-L60AV LED Lamp is rated at 560 lumens – tops in the industry – yet cost a mere penny to run continuously for 11 hours. One especially “bright” feature of the DL-L60AV LED Lamp is its base; exactly the same as standard incandescent light bulbs so it can be used in existing lamps and light fixtures.

I’m not done yet: this bulb is cool – literally. LED’s don’t create heat like incandescent bulbs do, which means they don’t waste energy on creating such heat.

They also differ from incandescent light sources in that they emit very little light in the 350-nm waveband, the part of the light spectrum that lies in the ultraviolet range and attract insects. This makes the DL-L60AV LED Lamp ideal for outdoor use, especially near entry/exit doors.

The DL-L60AV LED Lamp is one of nine new high-efficiency, mercury-free LED light bulbs to be introduced to the Japanese home market this July 15. All have the convenient screw-type base that negates the need for expensive retrofitting. Very cool indeed!

LED There Be Light

While LED (light-emitting diode) costs are still high, this type of lighting is extremely long-lasting. And as prices come down, its efficiency could lead to huge energy savings.

The first consumer LED products lit up in the 1970s, with red light numbers on pocket calculators and push-button displays on big, geeky Pulsar watches. Then came those centered, high-mounted brake lights in the rear windows of cars. Now LEDs are found in everything from traffic lights to operating rooms to greenhouses.

An LED is a device that produces light when an electrical current flows through it. The color it emits depends on the materials used to make the diode.

“It won’t be long before LED lighting technology has a space on your desk, has a space on your ceiling, certainly has a space on your car,” says Russell Dupuis, an electro-optics professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dupuis was awarded the 2002 National Medal of Technology for his work on LEDs.

“Most cars today have a whole lot of LED, certainly the instrument cluster,” he says.

And some cities are also investing in LED for their roads. Dupuis says LED traffic signals would pay for themselves in about three months because of energy savings. And how long do they last? “Until somebody knocks the pole down!” he laughs.

Here are some numbers from the U.S. Department of Energy comparing lifetimes of LEDs to traditional lighting:

• Incandescent bulbs: 750-2,000 hours
These bulbs haven’t changed much in 120-plus years; they give off 80 percent heat and only 20 percent light.

• Compact fluorescent bulbs: 8,000-10,000 hours
CFLs are more efficient than incandescent. but do contain small amounts of mercury.

• High-power white LEDs: 35,000-50,000 hours
The Department of Energy estimates a quarter of the electricity in the United States is used for lighting, costing $50 billion per year. The agency says new technology could reduce lighting energy use by 50 percent.

For some big companies, the transition already makes sense. ”Walmart decided to replace the lighting in all of its refrigerated cases with LED lights,” Dupuis says. “Every store is going to save enough in six months to pay for this change.”

There’s also a niche for special lighting needs. Some surgical teams are using LED headlamps and operating-room lighting. LEDs also light up the words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence at the Jefferson Memorial. And at the British Museum they illuminate the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band uniforms so the fabric doesn’t decay.

OLEDs, or organic light-emitting diodes, have other intriguing potential. They can be created on paper-thin plastics, and made into wallpaper, window blinds, even clothing.

But it will be several years before consumers can pick up a pack of LEDs at the hardware store. ”Designing lights with LED has inherent challenges,” says Michelle Murray, a spokeswoman for LED lighting manufacturer Cree Inc.

Those challenges prompted the Department of Energy to launch the L-Prize, a competition offering millions in cash prizes for the creation of a “high-quality, high-efficiency solid-state lighting products to replace the common light bulb.”

The Department of Energy admits major consumer confusion when it first started promoting the efficiency of compact fluorescent lights. It says the United States cannot afford to squander the enormous energy-saving potential of LEDs, so it wants to make sure the products are ready for prime time when they do hit the market.

The Department of Energy is setting 2012 as a target for large-volume production and replacement of incandescent lighting.

Battery-free LED Flashlight with Quick-recharge

As we all know that the LED flashlights are use batteries mostly. But a new high-tech flashlight called Light for Life become available to order.

What’s special about it? Well, the flashlight uses three LEDs, but its key component is Flashpoint Power technology, an ultracapacitor energy storage system from Ivus Energy Innovations.

Light for Life recharges in just 90 seconds and shines at 90 lumens for 90 minutes per charge. The flashlight has three modes: bright (270 peak lumens), standard (90 lumens), and strobe, which is good for dance parties or scaring the neighbors’ dog and kids (OK, I’m kidding, but you get the picture).

According to 5.11 Tactical, the 50,000-hour LEDs never have to be replaced and the flashlight is engineered to “offer 10 years of maintenance-free service under typical conditions.” (You can recharge it up 50,000 times or one time a day for 135 years.)

I got a chance to play around with the thing at a recent event, and I have to say I was pretty impressed. It’s lighter (16 ounces) than it looks, and it feels very durable. The one question I asked was: what happens when the power goes out and you have to recharge the thing? Answer: it comes with a 12V DC automotive charger, so you can use your car to charge it up in the event of a power outage.

The only drawback: Light for Life costs a whopping $169.99. But 5.11 Tactical says that when you add up the cost of all those D batteries over the lifetime of a battery-powered police flashlight, it’s still a deal. And then there’s all that good karma you get for not chucking those batteries into the garbage or landfill. It’s hard to put a price on that.