Thursday, March 25, 2010

$20 LED "bulb" breakthrough ??



Bridgelux had a nice write-up yesterday in Green Venture Beat. The article entitled "Light bulbs are so over --- Bridgelux brings LED lights down to $20" leads us to believe that high performing, affordable LED general illumination light has arrived.

Unfortunately, the article fails to to mention that the $20 "light" is not actually a bulb.  It is only the LED "module" - that will require one of 15 approved power supplies -  that need to fit into one of the approved fixtures that will come eventually from one of 200 fixture manufacturers -  primarily targeting retail and commercial applications.

The idea that you can swap out a defective LED is novel.   But if a benefit of LED lights is that they last 30,000 - 50,000 hours  (using DOE/EPA usage standards that  translates into 45 years)  then one would wonder why you would need to replace an LED module?

http://green.venturebeat.com/2010/03/24/light-bulbs-are-so-over-bridgelux-brings-led-lights-down-to-20/