What is the lighting of the future? Treehugger points us to an article in the International Herald Tribune on the subject. We've heard strong opinions here on how ATers feel about the CFL and the light it gives off. So we're wondering where do you draw the line between good for the environment, and good for your environment?
Industrial designers notoriously struggle with the CFL, in fact Tom Dixon has invented Blow, a light fixture designed to offset the CFL's icy tones. He's working to develop a new low-energy bulb, that will counter the aesthetic problems of the CFL. However, the International Herald Tribune sees LEDs as the way of the future, although they're not quite in the price range of the normal household. We've been struggling with our apartment's lighting recently, and glow of the CFL. The question in our minds, do we design around it or do we sit in the dark and wait for a better option?
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Just buy one or two Led Bulbs at a time. They're good for 60000 hours and they're cheap when it comes to electric use.
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view baudolino's profile
CFLs vary widely in quality. It pays to shop around for a light with a spectrum you can live with - each CFL will have different gaps and hot spots in its light spectrum, and some work better than others depending on your environment (the color of your walls, furniture, floors and so forth).
LEDs can have a much wider color gamut than CFLs, so as they become more affordable look for them to replace - or at least augment - CFLs in many applications (backlights for LCD monitors,for example, or in bathrooms where people are going to be looking in a mirror). It'll be quite awhile though before they become economical in all situations.
The big plus to LEDs is the flexibility of their form factor. You can create all kinds of lamps and fixtures with LEDs that just aren't possible/practical with other lighting technologies.
view sunspot42's profile
Having had previous optical problems due to fluorescent sensitivity issues, I was apprehensive about CFL's. While they don't bother me as much as full-on fluoro's, after 15 minutes I have had enough. After 1/2 hr I had to leave the room.
Until I can find a CFL that doesn't make me wanna tear out my eyes (yuck) I will stick to regular light bulbs.
view KathinCO's profile
A broken CFL releases enough mercury to kill my cats, and most broken light bulbs in our home are directly caused by cat intervention. So we do not do CFLs. For the small amount of time that we have lights on in our tiny apartment, we're not causing enough pollution to justify a dead cat.
LEDs, on the other hand, I really like, especially when having accent lighting is irresistible.
view wende in phoenix's profile
Unless the cat runs over and licks up the broken bulb, it's unlikely they're going to be exposed to enough mercury to cause them any harm. Besides, with that much glass in their systems, they'd have bigger problems than mercury to contend with.
IKEA sells a lot of CFL's that have a squishy plastic outer layer. They're virtually impossible to shatter just by dropping them - you'd have to step on one to break it.
view sunspot42's profile