Brett Sharenow chairs the Pepsi Challenge of lightbulbs. The CFO of Switch, a new company in Silicon Valley, Sharenow has put himself in a cabin 20 by 20 in the rear of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, and he's asking passersby to get two tones identical white. Behind lies a standard incandescent bulb, household lighting technology that has gone largely unchanged since Thomas Edison invented 132 years ago. Behind the other is an impressive prototype, quasi-art deco-style that contains 10 LEDs and a fluid secret. It is a liquid-cooled bulb, as radically different from Edison's invention as anything that has ever been screwed into a standard socket and hopes Sharenow, the next big thing in the lighting industry $ 30 billion. The challenge: Can you tell which is which?
It's the first day of Lightfair, the annual international trade all that glitters, dazzles, blinks or shines, 500 exhibitors and 24,000 visitors who hung row upon row of light after light.
The future of light is LED
by Dan Koeppel (44.8 MB. mp3)
Subscribe: Wired Features Podcast
This is the last before Lightfair new regulations governing lightbulb efficiency begin to take effect in the U.S. in January, and there is a real sense of history and urgency in the exhibition hall. Ready or not, the way we light our homes and offices is about to change, and the way technology is in this room somewhere.
If all goes to plan, the provisions of the Law on Energy Independence and Security 2007 effectively prohibit 100-watt incandescent bulbs from 2012. Bulbs will seventy five watts in 2013, followed by 60 - and 40-watt bulbs a year later. So the race to find a suitable replacement technology is coming to the last moment. The industry is betting on LED lighting as the way forward, and is virtually the only bulb technology on LED display: There is hardly a single incandescent or compact fluorescent sick to be seen. Only 200 thousand square meters of companies compete to fill their quota of billions in the world-standard plugs and betting on LEDs as the way to go.
There is an excellent reason LEDs have taken on the aura of inevitability: LEDs are semiconductors, and like all solid state technology, which are getting better and cheaper on a predictable curve. In 1999, a researcher named Roland Haitz, then head semiconductor R & D at Hewlett-Packard, co-author of an article that became the manifesto of the lighting industry. In tracing the historical prices of LEDs and projecting future Haitz estimated that the amount of light they produce has increased by a factor of 20 per decade, while the cost will be proportionately reduced by a factor of 10.
Haitz law has proved remarkably accurate. But the lighting industry still has big hurdles to clear before LEDs gain acceptance by consumers. Beyond the very real problems cooling technique, the costs, the color-light is not persistent public dislike of CFLs, which failed miserably in its intended role as a bulb of the future. That feeling has introduced a fuel Tea Party backlash against the new rules, and there have been attempts in Congress to roll back completely.
The reasoning behind the lighting of the Law on Energy Security and Independence is quite simple: incandescent convert less than 10 percent of the energy pumped into them into light, losing the rest as heat. More efficient bulbs could save billions of dollars, reduce dependence on foreign oil and significantly reduce greenhouse gases.
However, the reaction of consumers resonates, not just CFLs are horrible, flickery, ugly and unreliable. Evolutionary biologists believe that human lighting preferences are the result of our trichromatic vision in non-primate-rare, which makes us especially suited for daylight and color vision primary. There is an anthropological component as well: for 400,000 years, mankind has been banishing darkness with fire. And Edison bulb is, in its essence a burning filament that casts the glow of a flame. Abandoning incandescent bulbs means abandoning fire as our primary source of light for the first time in human history.
As with all exhibitions, business and Lightfair cabins become progressively smaller and the further back patchwork. The front of the hall is the province of the three major industry-Philips, Osram Sylvania and General Electric, founded by Edison himself. Giants give way to a second plane occupied by the likes of Toshiba, Samsung, Leviton and Honeywell. Behind them, small business manufacturers such as LED lighting manufacturers and LED Display manufacturers of accessories, component vendors and Asia-fill the remaining space, to the wall. Here, within smelling distance of the hot dog stand, Sharenow chairs the switch position.
"What's what?" Asks Sharenow. Most people get it wrong, which is significant. When you select what they feel is the top light, that they are selecting the switch.
Although there are a number of 60 Watt LED Lightfair testing prototypes, few are available for side-by-side comparisons with incandescents. Most are sealed inside cabinets or exist only press releases or PowerPoint presentations. The bulbs are in the open switch: shell crystal clear faceted crystal with aluminum tips holding yellow-tinted LEDs shine through coolant to cast a warm glow salon-quality and draw only 13 watts to do it .
About 80 percent of all bulbs sold in the U.S. or equivalent is calculated at 60, 75 or 100 watts, but almost all LED launched so far has come in the range of 40-watt-equivalent, good for little beyond closets and crawl spaces. Brightest bulbs are too hot, too expensive (more than $ 50, although they can last for 20 years), or both. Change plans to start selling its 60-watt equivalent bulb this fall for about $ 30.
"Light is something that people have always needed," says Sharenow. "It is a light source people want."
It's the first day of Lightfair, the annual international trade all that glitters, dazzles, blinks or shines, 500 exhibitors and 24,000 visitors who hung row upon row of light after light.
The future of light is LED
by Dan Koeppel (44.8 MB. mp3)
Subscribe: Wired Features Podcast
This is the last before Lightfair new regulations governing lightbulb efficiency begin to take effect in the U.S. in January, and there is a real sense of history and urgency in the exhibition hall. Ready or not, the way we light our homes and offices is about to change, and the way technology is in this room somewhere.
If all goes to plan, the provisions of the Law on Energy Independence and Security 2007 effectively prohibit 100-watt incandescent bulbs from 2012. Bulbs will seventy five watts in 2013, followed by 60 - and 40-watt bulbs a year later. So the race to find a suitable replacement technology is coming to the last moment. The industry is betting on LED lighting as the way forward, and is virtually the only bulb technology on LED display: There is hardly a single incandescent or compact fluorescent sick to be seen. Only 200 thousand square meters of companies compete to fill their quota of billions in the world-standard plugs and betting on LEDs as the way to go.
There is an excellent reason LEDs have taken on the aura of inevitability: LEDs are semiconductors, and like all solid state technology, which are getting better and cheaper on a predictable curve. In 1999, a researcher named Roland Haitz, then head semiconductor R & D at Hewlett-Packard, co-author of an article that became the manifesto of the lighting industry. In tracing the historical prices of LEDs and projecting future Haitz estimated that the amount of light they produce has increased by a factor of 20 per decade, while the cost will be proportionately reduced by a factor of 10.
Haitz law has proved remarkably accurate. But the lighting industry still has big hurdles to clear before LEDs gain acceptance by consumers. Beyond the very real problems cooling technique, the costs, the color-light is not persistent public dislike of CFLs, which failed miserably in its intended role as a bulb of the future. That feeling has introduced a fuel Tea Party backlash against the new rules, and there have been attempts in Congress to roll back completely.
The reasoning behind the lighting of the Law on Energy Security and Independence is quite simple: incandescent convert less than 10 percent of the energy pumped into them into light, losing the rest as heat. More efficient bulbs could save billions of dollars, reduce dependence on foreign oil and significantly reduce greenhouse gases.
However, the reaction of consumers resonates, not just CFLs are horrible, flickery, ugly and unreliable. Evolutionary biologists believe that human lighting preferences are the result of our trichromatic vision in non-primate-rare, which makes us especially suited for daylight and color vision primary. There is an anthropological component as well: for 400,000 years, mankind has been banishing darkness with fire. And Edison bulb is, in its essence a burning filament that casts the glow of a flame. Abandoning incandescent bulbs means abandoning fire as our primary source of light for the first time in human history.
As with all exhibitions, business and Lightfair cabins become progressively smaller and the further back patchwork. The front of the hall is the province of the three major industry-Philips, Osram Sylvania and General Electric, founded by Edison himself. Giants give way to a second plane occupied by the likes of Toshiba, Samsung, Leviton and Honeywell. Behind them, small business manufacturers such as LED lighting manufacturers and LED Display manufacturers of accessories, component vendors and Asia-fill the remaining space, to the wall. Here, within smelling distance of the hot dog stand, Sharenow chairs the switch position.
"What's what?" Asks Sharenow. Most people get it wrong, which is significant. When you select what they feel is the top light, that they are selecting the switch.
Although there are a number of 60 Watt LED Lightfair testing prototypes, few are available for side-by-side comparisons with incandescents. Most are sealed inside cabinets or exist only press releases or PowerPoint presentations. The bulbs are in the open switch: shell crystal clear faceted crystal with aluminum tips holding yellow-tinted LEDs shine through coolant to cast a warm glow salon-quality and draw only 13 watts to do it .
About 80 percent of all bulbs sold in the U.S. or equivalent is calculated at 60, 75 or 100 watts, but almost all LED launched so far has come in the range of 40-watt-equivalent, good for little beyond closets and crawl spaces. Brightest bulbs are too hot, too expensive (more than $ 50, although they can last for 20 years), or both. Change plans to start selling its 60-watt equivalent bulb this fall for about $ 30.
"Light is something that people have always needed," says Sharenow. "It is a light source people want."
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