For years, experts have predicted that LEDs, the technology used in digital clocks, would eclipse compact fluorescents as an energy-saving alternative to traditional incandescent bulbs. Now Switch Lighting, a venture capitalist-financed company in San Jose, Calif., says it has come up with an LED bulb that emits light eye-pleasing enough to make that happen.
Others have introduced a number of LED bulbs in the last few years, but most have the same drawbacks: because LEDs are powered by semiconductors, they project light in only one direction and lack the warmth of their incandescent counterparts. Switch Lighting claims to have solved these problems by mounting outward-facing LEDs on metal fingers and cooling them with an inert liquid, creating a warmer, brighter output. The bulbs are also recyclable and, like most LEDs, mercury free.
They will be available in 40-, 60- and 75-watt equivalents, for about $20 each, later this year.