In alt.engineering.electrical Don Klipstein wrote: | In article , Joseph Meehan wrote: |>>
|>> So you are saying that in 10 years, I can still buy incandescent bulbs for |>> the few places I actually need them? |>
|> Who knows, a new technology may have come along and no one may be making |>them due to lack of a market. | | I expect CFLs to advance a little more, especially with gains in dimming | and maybe some models with CRI in the low-mid 90's rather than 82 (with a | compromise in light output).
What about spectral continuity? Are they going to even recognize the issue?
| I expect LEDs to continue their pace of advancement, increment by | increment in performance, cost, and new varieties. But as LED technology | has been incrementing itself along increment by increment, I expect that | to remain the story for the next 10-15 years. | LED technology appears to me to only be advancing about half as fast as | computer technology, maybe a little slower.
As CPU performance is forced to move to multiple process cores, software has a lot of catching up to do to make effective use of it. We'll be seeing a slowdown of what computers can do for several years.
| There are also metal halide lamps, another technology that has been | advancing somewhat and is still advancing, though not as fast as LEDs are | advancing.
How do they compare to FL/CFL?
| One area where LEDs (and to some extent in recent years other | technologies) are displacing incandescents is nightlights.
All my nightlights are red in color. I just use Christmas tree lights in them to achieve that. Red is nicer on the night vision, which is what I want the nightlights for. Once they start making LED nightlights in red, then I will buy (when I need more or need to replace).
| The old traditional model used a 7 watt incandescent, and often a shade | because 7 watt incandescents are rather bright for this job, and it takes | more effort to make an 120V incandescent of wattage much lower than 7 | watts - or at least it used to. | Past 15 years or so, 4 watt incandescent nightlight "bulbs" have been | common - still bright enough to usually deserve a shade.
I have the 4 watt ones. The nightlights are also the sensor type that cut off when there is light in the area.
| Now, there are many LED night lights available. With ineffeciencies of | safe voltage dropping at low cost, most current models of 120V LED night | lights are not more efficient than incandescents in photometric terms - | but they still achieve efficiency gains by having a spectrum more | favorable to making use of night vision when the lighting is dim (higher | "s/p ratio"), along with being dim enough to not need a shade. Power | consumption of these is mostly around 1/3 watt to 1 watt. | Better are green and blue models and the Feit Electric white C7 "bulb". | Most other LED light models using white LEDs will have light output | degrading significantly year-by-year or even a bit faster.
I want the red ones.