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Philips unveils cool-looking light bulb replacement

By Rain Noe - May 12, 2010

in Tech | Object Culture

Today at the Lightfair trade show Philips takes the wraps off its new 12-watt EnduraLED light bulb, meant to replace the standard 60-watt incandescent. The form factor of the EnduraLED is similar enough to the standard bulb that it will fit in the same places and fixtures, and the quality of light is designed to be similar, though the EnduraLED draws a fraction of the power and will last some 25 times longer.

Even though most people will rarely see the bulb in un-lit form, we love the futuristic way it looks, from the yellow glaze (presumably to tint the light to what we're used to) to those cool metallic grooves in the body and bulb surface:

No word on pricing yet, though they mention the bulb will save the average household about $120 throughout its life.

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Matt

14 years ago

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Taomeister, fluorescent and LED light sources use warm color temp to make up for their color rendering shortcomings. Fluorescent tubes and "white" LEDs produce UV light that strikes a phosphor that glows in the visible spectrum. Unfortunately the visible light they produce spikes certain colors that don't really make us look good (green and blue). A warm tone LED is just one with a phosphor mix that amps the red wave lengths to compete with the green and blue spikes. I assume it will take thousands of years of evolution for people to begin liking greenish/blue skin tones.
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Taomeister

14 years ago

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People should move away from the idea that light should mimic incandescent color (which itself is an extension of light mimicking the color temperature of candles and fire) and celebrate the natural color of the LEDs (in this case, probably daylight-adjusted bluish white).

Unfortunately such a cultural paradigm shift isn't likely to happen anytime soon, since fire and candles is so ingrained into our culture with romantic overtones.
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klaus

14 years ago

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Cool looking?
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