11 Feb 2003 | SU said...

The outdoor industry has been putting LEDs into headlamps and other lighting sources for several years now. Because of their battery life, LED-based products are really gaining a following (we use loads of Petzl Tikkas and Princeton Tec Auroras in Rocky Mountain Rescue).

I love that I can't remember the last time I replaced my headlamp batteries (well over a year).

11 Feb 2003 | ek said...

Yes, this seems to be one of those technologies that actually delivers on its promises. I hope that LED lights do come to be used in indoor lighting. The idea proposed in the article to vary light levels through the course of a day is pretty interesting.

11 Feb 2003 | Steve said...

I've switched to the fluorescent lights that screw in like the old incandescent types. I think they give off a brigther light, they allegedly use like 20 percent of the energy, and they last forever.

11 Feb 2003 | Dave said...

Hmm.. I wonder how many people will long for incandescent light.. it does have a certain warm glow that florescent lighting just can not replicate (I use both in my house...) Personally, there is nothing like that yellow/orange glow falling on the written word...

11 Feb 2003 | Steven Garrity said...

For further reading on LED technology and some photo/diagram examples, see the article Let There Be Light (580Kb PDF) from the IEEE's Spectrum magazine.

11 Feb 2003 | ~bc said...

Yeah, OLEDs (link note: entry at bottom, we don't have perma-links yet, and we're not fully Safari-compatible yet either)... anyhow, OLEDs have big prospects for making cheap, thin, large bright displays. They're working on making just one pixel display RG&B (instead of LCDs which need one pixel per color) which will bring down the price, and up the efficiency. They don't need backlights (the #1 consumer of laptop batteries) and a lot of other neat stuff...

12 Feb 2003 | hurley#1 said...

One of the biggest success stories for LEDs has been their use in traffic signals. Red lights and arrows were the first to become commercially viable, but green and yellow have become more affordable recently. Denver is saving $360,000 per year in energy, labor, and materials costs after converting its traffic lights to LEDs. It's also reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 9,000 tons/year.

Steve mentioned compact fluorescents. I bought a dozen of them in 1990 and all but two are still working. I've moved a bunch of times since then...whenever I move to a new apartment, I unscrew all the incandescent bulbs (except rarely used ones like those in closets) and replace them with my compact fluorescents. They've paid for themselves many times over. My monthly electric bill in New England (where I lived until last July, with some of the highest electricity rates in the country) rarely exceeded $35, and that was for a large 3-bedroom apartment complete with home office.

Their light is indeed a bit colder than that of the incandescents, but warmer than most big overhead fluorescent tubes.

12 Feb 2003 | hurley#1 said...

Just read over my post above and want to add that I don't mean to imply that compact fluorescents were solely responsible for keeping my electric bills low. I'm pretty energy-conscious. My girlfriend and I moved in together last July, and the two of us use less electricity in our three-bedroom apartment than she used alone in her one-bedroom before, despite the fact that I'm working here all day in my office. That's mainly due to the fact that I replaced her fridge and clothes washer with Energy Star models, although I'm sure the compact fluorescents help too!

12 Feb 2003 | hurley #2 said...

Hurley #1, your practices to energy savings make you worthy of the hurley name. Kudos to you.

12 Feb 2003 | B said...

I'm going to hurl.

12 Feb 2003 | hurley #3 said...

Huh, there are two other Hurley's?