LED Light bulbs are starting to appear. This one is a 36 led model that fits in any standard lightbulb socket. It has a 60,000 hour estimated life and it costs less than $1 to run 12 hours a day for one year.
I wonder how bright this thing actually is compared to normal light bulbs, and how long before the LEDs start to dim. As far as I know LEDs gradually loose their brightness. But they might be perfect for using in a display cabinet which stays on for long periods of time and doesn’t need a very bright light. I expect more of these to start showing up in hardware stores.
Probably really freakin’ bright if my little LED flashlight is any indication. Nice pure white light, I’d expect. With little to know heat either!
But LEDs are still much less efficient than compact fluoescent bulbs…
LEDs are way way more efficient than CFL, however they are not very bright. The LEDs in your headlamp are not representative, a good rule of thumb is that the number of LEDs=#watts for an incandescant. Thus a 36 LED bulb is similar to a 30-40 watt bulb, probably closer to 30.
Like computer chips, LEDs have seen their performance – the amount of light they put out – double every 18 to 24 month.
From a CNN story
LED light bulbs are still pretty dim bulbs, but can be an earth friendly choice of bulb for limited low light applications like a small reading lamp, or a samll directional light, or night light. If you want a site that has reasonably priced bulbs that will fit into regular lamp fixtures try http://www.shop.donsgreenstore.com .Still LEDs main outstanding feature is their extradorinary long life of 50,000 hours or more usually.