The new bulb in town

At Lightfair in Las Vegas last month, manufacturers were letting everyone know that, come fall, there would be a new contender for the energy-efficient-lighting crown. GE, Philips, Sharp, Toshiba all were showing new bulbs with standard A19 Edison bases that use LEDs as the light source. These bulbs should be hitting store shelves by October.

The shapes of the new bulbs are in some ways reminiscent of the traditional incandescent bulb that for years has appeared over cartoon character’s heads to indicate a bright idea. But the need to dissipate heat from the LED base has led to some bright ideas in heat sink design. In the case of Philips and GE, heat sink fins wrap around the bulb to let heat radiate away from the bulb in more directions, much like in a traditional bulb. Of course, there’s much less heat, so the whole bulb stays a lot cooler; you could unscrew an LED bulb that’s been on for a while without fear of burning your fingers.

Toshiba, on the other hand, keeps the heat sink at the base of the bulb, but has managed to make the light radiate in very wide angles. A prototype on display was providing light equivalent to a 100-W incandescent and shining at a 240° angle.

The LED bulbs have a distinct advantages over compact fluorescent lamps. For one, when you flip the switch the LED bulb comes on immediately, unlike the CFL. The former is also more efficient and can last longer than the latter.

The main disadvantage that LED bulbs will have initially is that they will have pretty hefty prices; estimates are that they will cost around $30 each. But Keiichi Shimizu of Toshiba’s Technology Development Division notes that in Japan, where the light bulbs have already been brought to market, the price dropped from around $80 to $30 in about a year. While the price of LED bulbs may never reach that of incandescents or CFLs, their energy savings and longer lives will in time knock out those rivals for home lighting,