So here we
go, we have finally reached the point where high power LED's are
starting to poach traditional incandescent territory.
Philips
have recently announced an LED package which while looking rather odd,
is in both luminous and physical size terms an equivalent to a 60W
incandescent lamp. I've not managed to get hold of one of these
yet, but once I track one down it will appear here. In the
meantime, I'd suggest taking a look at the page on Lamptech, a web site
run by fellow lamp collector and lighting enthusiast, James Hooker.
While this lamp isn't as revolutionary as that one, it's definitely
worthy of note I think. Officially this is being touted as
equivalent to a 32W incandescent, though to be honest in many
applications you would be able to substitute this for a 40W lamp I
would think without noticing a huge difference.
I was quite astonished when I switched this on to discover not only a
colour, but a light distribution hugely reminiscent of a 40W pearl
incandescent lamp. Even down to the fuzzy bright bit that looks
like the filament.
It is a bit expensive - on the same note though, if you looked at CFLs
when they were just starting to appear on the market, they weren't far
off the same price in relative terms. Once this sort of lamps
start to gain a foothold in the market properly I would expect to see
price levels dropping quite considerably. These aren't likely to
drop to the price of incandescent ES50's, but at the same time -
they're going to last a heck of a lot longer! Unlike CFLs as
well - these LED retrofits will undoubtedly handle physical abuse very
much better - so you're not likely to kill your £20 lamp by whacking
your head on the lamp when standing up from the desk - I've taken out
more than one incandescent doing that! Have killed a CFL by
dropping it before too.
These are early, tentative steps into the market of main steam lighting
for LED technology, just as was the case for CFL technology 26 years
ago...As with that before it though, it shows great promise. I
will be watching with great interest to see where things go from here.
