The LED Lightbulb-Wait a while

Today on twitter and in my inbox I recieved not one but TWO links to LED lightbulb stories. First was on gizmodo proclaiming the breakthru that lowered the cost of printing LEDs to the board that could make an LED light bulb a reality at 3 bucks a bulb.

The second was a link to a blog post quoting two other stories yet again proclaiming LEDs were going to take over CFL’s, in this case, within two years.

I don’t have a crystal ball. Here’s what I do know however. LED technology is not stable yet. Popular chip manufacturers are revving up bigger and better chips with higher Lumens Per Watt and better Color Rendering every 6 months. Buying LED’s right now is something like buying a computer in the late 1990’s you felt your purchase was obsolete 18 months after it was on your desk. The other issue is that power delivery to LED’s hasn’t been addressed yet. If the idea is these LED bulbs will screw into your floor lamp at home, then they will have to be able to take the 120v coming in from your outlet and convert them to the 12v or 24v the LED’s require. This will in the short term present the same problems CFL’s have had in shrinking ballasts to fit the CFL form factor. LED drivers effect LED performance as much as the board itself, so it is imperative that we engineer these well enough to make them reliable for everyday homes. The other tremendous hurtle to LED technology is color consistency. Of all the LED products I see getting two from the same manufacturer, the same LED company, even the same B IN to have the came color is like finding Waldo. As a lighting specifier I would need to see these issues resolved before putting them on my job.

This is not to say that LEDs may not some day become the prevailing technology. They simply aren’t ready for prime time just yet. CFL’s will also get better as demand for better quality light increases.