LED Light Technology fast catching up with CFLs?

At last someone has come up with Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting ceiling fixtures which is claimed a world first. Up to now, ceiling fixtures with LEDs were not commercially successful, mainly due to the low luminous flux levels and the directional property of LED lighting. The manufacturer SHARP Corporation of Japan, claims 3 of the 6 models (which come with their proprietary “Eco Functions”) will also reduce energy consumption by up to 65% (switched on against switched off).These innovative designs are a joint collaboration of Inoue Laboratory of NARA Women’s University and Sharp Corporation.

Having been unveiled just only last August, this range of fixtures are surprisingly thin having thicknesses varying from 8 mm at the ends to just 43 mm at the thickest making them versatile from a designers point of view.

Earlier in mid last year they unveiled in the Japanese market another industry first, the remote controlled Color Function, enabling the shade of the white light from the lamp to be altered from a pleasant warm white (similar to that of the incandescent lamp) to a cooler daylight white (akin to bright daylight).With this wireless accessory the user can select the preferred shade of white in accordance with the weather, season of the year, or time of day. For best effect one can select warm white during the winter or at dinner time helping relaxation, or cooler daylight white during the summer or in the morning for a refreshing mood. Also featured is a built-in Dimmer Function, enabling users to enjoy a range of wide illumination settings, (110 to be exact). Notably all these fixtures would function even without the remote controller.

The much talked about drawback, the lack of evenly distributed light in LED lamps too has been now satisfactorily sorted out by Sharp with their proprietary coating technique of the glass enclosure. Life span? Would 40,000 plus hours satisfy you? And there will be no significant reduction in brightness throughout as well.

Interestingly, up to now home lighting more or less ended up at CFLs. While a low priced ordinary CFL lamp would be awkwardly long and tubby, the development of the helical fluorescent tube made it possible for it to be used in ceiling and wall fixtures as architectural building elements.

In comparison the LED which many identified hitherto as street lighting and traffic signal lamps only, now finds itself in the fore front as an eco friendly home lighting product. The newness of the technology is hampering the mass production but seemingly is fast catching up the lost time.

Well, in the meantime we seem to be seeing the last few months of the reign of the great incandescent lamp, along with the use of the term “watts” to illustrate the level of brightness. (Soon it will be Lumens). The EU’s ban on 75w lamp from the 1st September, will ensure that no one will manufacture them in this region (or import) while you will see less and less of them on the store shelves as well, till the stocks last. Next it will be time of the lesser folks like 60w, 40w and 25w.The new contenders for the title, the CFLs and LEDs will start battling it out soon for supremacy. It remains to be seen who will prevail ultimately as the best energy saver and most feature filled. At the present rate, at least big timers like Zumtobel, Siemens, Phillips, Osram, Sharp, etc. seem to be having their money (though somewhat hesitantly) on the latter.