The BEST 100W alternative around right now
The team over at littlegreenblog.com have done a pretty detailed review about what they thought of our new Quanta-18 100W flood replacement (Retail $99.99). They’ve even got a cool video that shows the actual light output in a real-world application! Get it here.
We’re excited to announce that the Eternaleds HydraLux-4 is currently featured in the October 2009 issue of Popular Science as one of their “12 Must Have Products”! Exciting stuff!
We’re Popular Science readers ourselves and would like to thanks the staff at Popular Science for picking us. It just affirms to me that we’re on the right track bringing the most innovative LED products out to all of you. We’ll be featured in some other international magazines in the coming months so keep a look out.
I saw this on one of those do-it-yourself websites and I was thinking that it looks uncannily like our Eternaleds company logo. Coincidence? I think not.
Wheres the number for my lawyer?
In fact, if I were make a real life version of that, that’s exactly what I’d do. Except instead of soil, it would be powered by pure awesomeness. Actually you could call this a solar-powered lightbulb and you wouldn’t be too far off. Looks really clean to boot. If I ever get a thumb green enough, I’ll try this and post it up.
At least I know what I can do with the bulbs I’m not using anymore
[via Instructables]
Looks like a fiery upside-down tulip
So personally I love lights. And I love cool applications for lights such as the Iron Man costume, but for me part of the charm and wonderment stems from an almost magical sense that the light is coming from nowhere. This artsy ceiling light by Designer Christopher Moulder accomplishes this by making the entire shade part conductive. Pretty neat idea. It uses little 10W xenon bulbs, which combined, total almost 300 watts. Could probably be more efficient if LEDs were used but maybe the xenons are extremely bright. Either way, I’d love to see some more designs that use LEDs since they would not only look good, but taste good be good for the environment as well. I have a few projects in mind in the next few months utilizing the portable nature of LEDs, so we’ll see what I can come up with. Stay tuned.
[via Gizmodo]
What can you make for a buck?
Oh how I envy the hope and naivety of the young. Kids that have yet to experience the real world and think that they can save the world by turning garbage into art. In this case, it’s a required part of their curriculum, so it’s for a worthy cause, namely getting them a degree. This is a nice gallery of things that you can make for “a dollar” which you definitely can’t get an led light bulb for at the moment. It’s a good idea, but probably not something that I would spend money on. Though if it is in fact, one dollar, then I guess it would be worth it.
I would have enjoyed doing something like this back when I was in school, but my extent of recycling was turning a juice box into a bomb…It’s like the Zoolander concept brought to life….Mugatu’s Derelict.
Design for a Dollar Challenge [Via Fast Company]
Super cool 21W bulb with an insane heatsink
Sorry guys, for the lack of updates. We’ve been VERY busy looking for some new manufacturers and new products. LED light bulbs and the technology that powers them is changing so fast, I’d almost say that the ones you’ve seen online 1 year ago are already obsolete.
The biggest advance we’ve seen is with heatsinking technology. Since LED dies/chips only get marginally better, the only other thing that manufacturers can do is cluster more LED’s together, and drive them harder.
More power means more heat, so they’re forced to come up with some insane heatsink designs (they’re starting to look like computer CPU heatsinks). I wonder if any CPU heatsink manufacturers are making LEDs……
The guy you see on your left is a whopping 21W LED floodlight that is DIMMABLE and is meant to replace about a 100W incandescent flood. 80% savings and it lasts 10x longer…NICE. Price? Well, let’s see if we can get them over here and we promise you we’ll get the lowest price possible.
So stay tuned and we’ll keep you updated on our status in the hunt for better, brighter LED bulbs. What’s the most common bulb you’d like to replace in your home or store? Floodlights? Halogen or Globes? Leave a comment and let us know…
Make: Magazine, one of my favorite mags, and subsequently the website, has a really cool and informative movie on the history of LEDs. Did you know the first LED was actually a rock? Yeah, me neither. They also give a quick tutorial on how LED lights work and how to make a simple circuit. Go check it out and learn a thing or two thing Monday morning. At least you’ll know who Nick Holonyak, Jr. is the next time you Trivial Pursuit.
$75 or $2? How much would you pay?
So with the economy in a downturn, it seems that EVERYONE is cutting down on spending now. Lighting included. By now most people know LED’s are AWESOME in termss of energy savings, money savings, environmental benefits but many still aren’t spending the money.
LED bulbs right now range anywhere from $10 (of the Ebay variety) to $150 across the internet. The ONLY way they’re going to get cheaper is simple supply and demand. If there aren’t enough people buying, then manufacturers won’t be able to sell enough quantities to bring prices down. So it seems the path to adoption is sell to large-scale projects like hotels, office buildings, chain restaurants, that can retrofit their fixtures with bulbs like this LED PAR38 (since they use & save the MOST energy) to bring prices low enough to the point where average homeowners can afford LED lighting.
A couple manufacturers and large distributors I’ve spoken to recently have been focusing on targeting large scale projects, government projects (street lighting, government buildings, universities etc.). This makes sense since they’re not as price sensitive and can actually SEE the savings on their final bill by switching out hundreds, if not thousands of light bulbs that are on typically 12 to 24 hours a day.
Now average Joe-Six-Pack *wink*, by switching out 1 or 2 bulbs or even 10 bulbs in his home won’t really see a huge difference. So it seems the strategy for most people/consumers is to “sit and wait till the price drops”. But to how low? How much would YOU pay?
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Powered by rice....kinda.
Imagine a world where you could have a coat or a bag that has solar panels on it that would charge your gadgets while you were using it. What, that’s already been done? Well, sure but what I meant was have it done it a way that doesn’t scream “uber-nerd”. I mean how do we expect Lindsey Lohan to wear something that’s ugly?
Well, this technology may be it. It’s a solar cell that is created using tiny solar cells(1/4 the size of a grain of rice) that can potentially be put into a solution and sprayed on various material like a car, a house, your head, etc. and produces a seemingly unheard of amount of energy for the size/power ratio. Not only that, but they plan to double the power in just a few months. So potentially you could just walk around with one of these LED PAR30 bulbs in your backpack to bring light everywhere you go. I can’t wait for my hawaiian-shirt-powered laptop in the next few years.
[Via Reuters]
Chevy Volt...Yay!
Ok so we’re finally ALMOST there. I was lurking through my favorite blog the other day, and they seem to have put up some new ads on their site. This time, it’s about the Chevy Volt. For those that have been living under a rock, the Volt is supposed to be the “new hotness” when it comes to green vehicles. Now it does not have the fame of being the first well-known “green” car (that honor would go to the very homely Honda Insight) but it is the first highly publicized made-for-the-general-public primarily electric model.
When I say primarily, I mean that it still swings both ways, but definitely has a penchant towards liberal rather than republican. It’s getting all the attention because even though it has the same overall parts as the past hybrids, this one has a trick up its sleeve. (No doubt they’re probably use an LED light bar or two for interior lighting). Through normal everyday driving, providing it’s under 40 miles, the car will use only use electrical power. So if you’re going back and forth from work everyday, then you never have to fill up the tank. Once it goes beyond that, the battery won’t be able to keep up and the engine kicks on. Pretty novel idea and seems like something that a lot of people are excited about.
This is not by any means the holy grail (since it still sips dead dinosaur juice), but from a usability standpoint, goes a long way towards almost never having to fill up a tank. One of my good friends swore that he would get one when it comes out, so if that happens, I will definitely be doing an in-depth review of the experience. Or maybe I should just go to the lot for a test drive….
Either way, I’m definitely excited about the possibilities of it all, and maybe in a few years, we can completely wean ourselves away from foreign and domestic oil, for the better of the economy, and ultimately, the planet.
[Via Chevy Volt]
