[flashbunny]

LED lightbulbs are the answer, but they're several years away from being practical.

[fanfan]

LED lightbulbs are the answer, but they're several years away from being practical.

I agree. The light from LEDs is getting whiter and brighter.

CFLs are very much like the betamax of their time.

[ridesthemiles]

Has anyone here priced the automotive LED bulbs?

They are definately seen better from a longer distance, but they cost waaaaayyy tooooo much!!
Price has to come down for me before I can change to them-just in my car. Will not change in my house.
I am trying to figure how many I will need for the rest of my lifetme, then going tp stock up. I already knew the new bulbs would not work in the refrigerator nor in the oven. Garage will be a problem, also, as most garages are NOT heated.
I need my security lights, here in rural America. They are motion triggered, not on all the time dusk to dawn. Without these lights, rural America is a sitting duck for criminals. Then the environazis will want all our guns and ammo and we will all be sitting ducks, not just rural USA.
I have had personal experience with the bulbs they are trying to foist on us. They cost way too much for the life of the bulb. They do NOT last 8000 hours. I have had them last barely 4 months in an office setting only. Not even on more than 9 hours a day. At the cost of replacement- $8/ea, this is no savings. Next will be a surcharge for disposing of them, like the batteries in the Prius.

[P-40]

but they're several years away from being practical.

They are good for places where changing a bulb is a considerable expense; we have stairwells where that is the case. Mostly we use them for emergency lighting as they are dependable, bright, and run off the batteries for a long, long time.

[mylife]

LED lightbulbs are the answer,

Yup. amd thats just what we use in our military aircraft

[muawiyah]

LED lights are definitely the wave of the future, but as the proud owner of several of them let me be among the first to suggest they need some really profound engineering to become fully useful.

BTW, I own one of the ORIGINAL fluorescent light brackets ~ my grandfather who was always into gadgets bought one as soon as they hit the market. They still make bulbs that fit them.

The new CFLs are built pretty much the same way except they're crooked.

[Young Werther]

Yeah, right. The City of Mesquite Texas converted from incandescent to LED traffic lights in 2002. Payback occurred in the first quarter of 2004.

Since the bulbs have a 5 1/2 year life the traffic engineer has saved on manpower 'cause he hasn't had to "change a light bulb in the last 5 years. Dumb old Town council didn't know what to do with the $250 per month times 26 traffic intersections converted. So like any good politician they decided to spend the savings on Playground equipment and School Books.

I'm glad they didn't listen to you or we'd still be waiting for action.

Fact there are 11,000 power plants in the US. 25% of all electricity generated is used for lighting. Convert to LED or new flourescent bulbs that you can buy at Sams, Lowes or Home Depot and we can produce the same lumens for 50% less electricity. So we could turn off half of the 2700 plants that produce electricity for lighting. Thats approximately 1300 plants. Since 1125 of those are 11,000 plants are coal fired plants which do you think we should turn off first. Howsa 'bout ALL the coal fired plants.

The conversion could happen in about a year which is quicker than you can file and receive permits to build one nuc plant, (not that we shouldn't). To bad energy efficent LEDs are not available till 2002!!!(Sarcasm Off)

[Kieri]

We switched to all LED Christmas lights for our tree last year. They're not very bright but the color doesn't flake off and they stay cool, keeping damage to any nearby ornaments down to a minimum. I also won't have to constantly replace them.

I hope LED standard bulbs to become a reality. I can't stand fluroscents -- they hum and their light gives me a headache.

[TC Rider]

LED lightbulbs are the answer, but they're several years away from being practical.

I'm betting we something much sooner. Look how fast LEDs have become mainstream in flashlight. They've moved into every segment with the exception of the brightest xenon bulbs.

LEDs will answer one of my big gripes with the CFL lights, a bulb that will work in a '3-way' fixture.

[Clinging Bitterly]

I agree that LEDs hold real promise, but I don't believe it will be all that long before we see household LED lighting.

I use LED lights in my camp trailer and it extends the amount of time I can run on battery power by a couple days.

But I'm not scared of CFLs either. I have found that some don't work in odd positions, and they wouldn't work at all in my light/motion sensor porch light, but I replaced the fixture with one made for the push in CFLs - it works great and IIRC it was less than 20 bones. CFLs also last a long time in the ceiling fan.

And you can get them cheap. I just grab a few when I see them on clearance somewhere, sometimes less than a dollar each.