Panasonic debuts "hybrid lighting" Pa-Look compact fluorescent bulbs

LEDs may be snagging the majority of light bulb headlines these days, but Panasonic's apparently found some room for improvement with compact fluorescents, with it now proclaiming that its new Pa-Look Ball Premium Q bulbs boast the world first "hybrid lighting method." That apparent innovation consists of a "Quick Lamp" at the center of the bulb, which helps the bulb reach 60% brightness in half the time a conventional compact fluorescent takes, and then shuts off automatically once the bulb has reached full brightness. You'll apparently have to make do with 54 watts of brightness to take advantage of all that, however, not to mention live in Japan.

[Haikibutsu @ Jun 12th 2008 5:26PM]

Let me translate some of those katakana, im in japanese.

[Haikibutsu @ Jun 12th 2008 5:27PM]

It appears there is some kanji. I suck at kanji, but I know one of them is "iro"

[Haikibutsu @ Jun 12th 2008 5:27PM]

The blue boxes say "kuuruiro".

[schmitty338 @ Jun 12th 2008 5:28PM]

WOW! Thanks, that was SOOO helpful!

[andres @ Jun 12th 2008 5:41PM]

"im in japanese."
hmm..

[Ian @ Jun 12th 2008 5:49PM]

i like the effort but really that wasn't worth it

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Jun 12th 2008 6:04PM]

It's that the Japanese borrow-word "clear"? Like these have the same color light as a clear day? Or the capsule is clear?

[benjasmine @ Jun 12th 2008 8:26PM]

"im in" Chinese. Japan's Kanji is pretty much Chinese.

The light bulb in the left yellow box produces an incandescenti-like light. "電球" in Japanese means "incandescent light bulb", and "色" means "color".
The blue box on the right says "クール色". "クール" means "cool". So it produces a cool white light.

[Steven1350 @ Jun 12th 2008 5:43PM]

So this is just a regular energy bulb that starts faster?

How useless......Most energy bulbs take less then 5 seconds to reach their full brightness, is this really so important?

[srue @ Jun 12th 2008 5:57PM]

I agree this seems pretty useless. Most of my CFLs achieve full brightness instantly, but I do have several that come on at about 75% and slowly increase to 100% over about 2 minutes.

It appears from the picture that this bulb has an incandescent in the middle. That means the character of the light should be quite different at the beginning and until the incandescent is turned off. That doesn't really solve the problem of having the light change as it warms up. I am also skeptical that they manage to keep the light level even as it transitions. Seems like a waste of time.

[John Stracke @ Jun 12th 2008 9:52PM]

"is this really so important?" -- for some of us, it is. I *really* hate dim rooms.

That's not even mentioning the problem of emergencies, where you need full light right away--for example, coming into your kid's room when they've fallen out of bed and broken their arm. (No, this hasn't happened to me, but it does happen.)

[pbase @ Jun 12th 2008 5:41PM]

I actually don't notice any delay in the time it takes my florescent bulbs to reach "full bright"…

[stefan @ Jun 12th 2008 6:29PM]

plus IKEA sells pretty good ones at 1$ a piece...

I would rather see more effort being put in making dimmable CFBs as those are still at around 30$

[Greg Mcp @ Jun 12th 2008 6:31PM]

Well, I do.
I've gone and installed fluoro bulbs in a few rooms, and it does take a minute or so to go fully bright. It is a bit annoying in some cases.

Maybe it's the brand of bulbs.

[Richard Lai @ Jun 12th 2008 8:22PM]

@pbase: it depends on the quality and age of the bulb I guess. I have seen some horrible bulbs in my boarding house two years ago, some of which took literally 5 minutes to reach full brightness. You can imagine how horrible the atmosphere was while waiting for the room to brighten up.

Now I'm at uni and I still had a lazy bulb to start off with, but it eventually died (like 4 weeks ago) and got replaced by a much quicker one. Gloomy no more! :D

[Lukino @ Jun 12th 2008 5:49PM]

World first? I've bought one yesterday from Beghelli for my bathroom (price: €9 for the 23w version), and had another one bought more than an year ago... it has a fluorescent tube and an halogen "start up" lamp that dims as the tube warms.

[Macfly @ Jun 13th 2008 2:22AM]

You're right, I've seen them made by Osram in Italy at almost two years ago.

[Carl @ Jun 13th 2008 7:38AM]

You're right, here in Australia you can buy "instant start" Osram and Mirabella globes (that have a instant-start halogen bulb in the middle of a compact fluro.) at local chain SUPERMARKETS so it sure as hell isn't new, because im sure grocery stores arn't usually a year ahead of cutting edge electronics.

[ahecht @ Jun 12th 2008 5:50PM]

Watts of brightness? Mr. Lumen must be spinning in his grave.

[andres @ Jun 12th 2008 5:55PM]

maybe if we fasten a magnet to him and put a coil of wire on his tombstone...

[Danger @ Jun 12th 2008 6:57PM]

Win.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Jun 12th 2008 6:01PM]

Don't bother with these. I have some of the "Gen IV" "all-electronic" Panasonic CFLs. They're expensive and they aren't even as good as an N:Vision you can get cheaply at Home Depot.

And N:Visions start up practically instantly.

Note that this "world's first hybrid lighting method" has been used in streetlamps in many places for years because low-pressure sodiums start up slowly.

[Ryan Trevisol @ Jun 12th 2008 6:14PM]

I have all energy bulbs in my house and about half of them flick straight on like a regular bulb. A couple of them take about 2 seconds to come on, and still another flick halfway on instantly, only to go to full bright within 2 more seconds.

It hasn't annoyed me once.

[andres @ Jun 12th 2008 6:20PM]

all energy?

[Ender Wiggin @ Jun 12th 2008 7:29PM]

"all energy"

Glowing spheres of sure energy? Sound like some sort of really lousy sci-fi movie.

"Bullets won't work against those aliens! They're made of pure energy!"

*changes channel*

[Killakai @ Jun 12th 2008 9:34PM]

this is about as close to useless as I could imagine. And what happens when the conventional part of the hybrid bulb burns out quicker than the rest of the bulb or does this not happen because its only on for a short period of time?

[Chris @ Jun 13th 2008 6:47AM]

"I have all energy bulbs in my house"

Might I suggest you try some low energy (or energy saving) bulbs next time.

[arkweld @ Jun 12th 2008 7:52PM]

At last someone has solved the problem of a light bulb that takes 20 seconds to get "really really bright" instead of "just bright" when you switch it on.

I can now do so many other things in those extra seconds of super brightness!

[Wolfticket @ Jun 12th 2008 9:08PM]

I think that generally, the quality of florescent lighting is pretty poor. Maybe it is a good, low energy replacement in some cases, but it definitely isn't like for like. All this talk of phasing out conventional bulbs is a bit worrying, esp. since my studio currently uses 3 naked conventional daylight bulbs. (Surely they should ban lampshades?)
Start-up time is important though, 'cause if they take a while to warm up, then people are gonna leave 'em on when they're not in rooms, totally undoing any saving made by having them in the first place.

[Killakai @ Jun 12th 2008 9:51PM]

the people who leave on lights indefinitely because they can't do anything in the seconds it takes for bulbs to get 100% bright, are morons to begin with. I think your argument is more about civilizing a segment of the population than it is about energy saving bulbs.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Jun 13th 2008 1:18AM]

From the whole of your comments it's pretty clear you haven't used a recent CFL. They have multiple colors now, with decent color rendition, and they get to almost full brightness (I'd say well over 80%) in under half a second, before you even get your hand off the lightswitch. They start up in cold temps too!

They can replace almost all bulbs outside of the bathroom, unless you are using a dimmer, because even dimmable CFLs don't dim well.

In the bathroom, the color rendition, good as it is, just isn't quite good enough, you won't look right in the mirror close-up.

[Wolfticket @ Jun 13th 2008 7:49AM]

Hmm... maybe you're right. It's not light I'm anti-energy saving, it's just when I last used CFL the quality was pretty poor and I haven't bothered again since.
I suppose it's a maturing technology though, so I should try again :)

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jun 13th 2008 12:49AM]

I have been doing similar for a while. In my kitchen, I have a dual socket overhead lamp. One socket has an warm incandescent lamp that is quick to start and easy on the eyes and the other has a slightly cool compact florescent bulb. This way, I get a wide range of quality light that doesn't need to warm up and save about 40% on my energy. Panasonic's Idea is great, but I've been doing this for much longer.

[Michael @ Jun 13th 2008 4:38AM]

From the article: "You'll apparently have to make do with 54 watts of brightness to take advantage of all that...."

I'd like to point out that watts are NOT a measure of brightness. Lumens are the measure of brightness most commonly used in reference to light bulbs. Watts refers to how much power is used.

Various factors such as the coating on the glass of the bulb can also affect it's luminosity, yet use the same amount of power as an otherwise identical bulb.

This is why CFLs are energy-saving to begin with, they use less power, yet put off the same amount of light!

C'mon Engadget, quit trying to confuse people.

More info if you folks desire: http://www.theledlight.com/lumens.html

[Wildovenboy @ Jun 15th 2008 7:48AM]

Lumens are not a measure of brightness either. They are a measure of luminous flux which is the total amount of light in all directions. The unit that is closest to a measure of 'brightness' is the nit or candela/m2 which is really luminance.

Most lighting scientists deplore the use of the word brightness since it is purely a perceptual issue and not a measured value.

[toyotaboy @ Jun 13th 2008 2:00PM]

I bought a 3-pack from menards, they never got full brightness, and slowly burned out. Couldn't even re-use the removable cover because the diameter of the bulb they use is super small.