While you're replacing your household incandescent light-bulbs with LEDs in a bid to save energy and possibly cash (over the 40,000-hour lifespan) you might want to consider these remote-controlled lamps from Sharp. The DL-L60AV gives you on/off and dimming functions as well as the ability to adjust the light in seven shades of white to warm up or cool down the glow. Best of all, they screw into a standard E26 socket for a one-to-one exchange with your existing ocean warmers. The features of the remote control are still unclear (lighting zone support, range of operation, etc.) but it appears to work with multiple-lamps in parallel which is a nice touch. However, we'd like to see Sharp integrate a
Z-Wave or
ZigBee chipset so we could link these directly (
without special wall-switches) into a tricked-out home automation and
power managment system. The DL-series start at ¥3880 (about $40) for simple LED lights before hitting ¥7980 (about $82) for the fully-equipped DL-L60AV and begin shipping July 15th in Japan.
posted Jun 11th 2009 3:18AM
I'm confused ... there are 8 bulbs and only 3 shades.
Maybe I need a new monitor.
Or new math ... ;)
Hey ... they changed the pic.
Oh ... well, it was 9 bulbs anyway if I included the one on the left.
I still don't think that I'll be buying a $40 bulb anytime soon.
Nor do I want another remote control to get lost on my coffee table.
Does it still work with the clapper? Then .... SOLD.
Despite ever increasing CO2 content, the oceans haven't warmed in 6 years now.
Does the one on the left added to the other 8 equal 7 shades?
Hmmm... okay ... I got it now.
dim....warm...cool
maybe you should stop speaking now
mmmmmmm... cupcake...
The remote runs on Android. Because.
Won't there be a shadow cast downward because of the heatsink?
From the diagram on the site, it looks like the LEDs all point upwards... with a "coating" to diffuse the light. It seems like they will act sorta like a flood light pointing to the ceiling... with stray light hitting the lampshade.
http://sharp-world.com/corporate/news/090611_2_4.gif
No, you have it upside down. (Or, rather, their illustration is upside down :-P)
The LED points downwards. The diffusion coating is for a couple reasons:
1. Because high-power LEDs give out a lot of light from a very small point, so without diffusion it would hurt your eyes.
2. Because I bet this is actually two LEDs: The power white one, and a power RGB one to control the "shades". The diffusor mixes both LEDs (otherwise it would be uneven).
Tom.... did you just completely revamp that story and picture? I read this about 20 minutes ago and I swear it was different. Stop playing mind games with me! >.
New pic, same story -- Thomas
These bulbs are all kinds of sexy. I wouldn't even want lampshades covering these, I'd leave them out for all to see.
Oh, sorry, that's not an option, the lampshade is already on it, claiming to be a heatsink.
"it basically gives EVERY electric consumer something...'
ELECTRIC CONSUMERS? is that like a robot shopper?
These look exactly the same as the Philips bulbs they sell at Home Depot.
Still too expensice though, since for 39 Canadian, they emit less light than a standard 60 watt bulb.
We cant win as consumers. Either we choose CF bulbs which are energy efficient but are known to emit harmful rays, or standard bulbs which dont but are extremely energy inefficient.
They have safer CFL's that you can buy at homedepot/lowes..1000bulbs.com has a lot too..
CF bulbs = harmful rays???
Um, [SUN = Harmful Rays] - CFLs and other fluorescent bulbs contain harmful gasses within them, which can be dangerous if released. Just using them isn't dangerous .
Actually the choice is easy. The dangerous component of CFL bulbs is mercury, but though mercury is highly toxic, they contain very little, and how often do you break bulbs anyway; so far as I'm aware, nobody has ever been seriously hurt by this. [Mercury poisoning is cumulative; iirc the most likely danger is things like, frequently eating fish from contaminated water.]
As for environmental damage, even if you assume it will be released (e.g. in landfill) and not recovered, the mercury in the lamp is still much less than the mercury that would be emitted in the process of burning coal to provide you with electricity for the huge additional power usage that incandescents would require.
Since CFL bulbs are very cheap, very efficient, available in a range of colours, etc they are the best choice for everyone for all normal uses.
If you have special requirements such as dimming, small fixtures, frequent switching on/off etc that make CFLs unsuitable, then LEDs can be a good but expensive and not quite as efficient option, but I expect they will improve significantly over the next few years so you might not want to rush...
LEDs aren't as efficient as CFL? I'm confused...
@ squeeg
CFL bulbs do emit a small amount of UV radiation. Obviously not enough to notice for most people, but enough so that people with certain skin conditions that make them sensitive to UV light will react to CFL bulbs. I should know, i'm one of them. I'm toast in the sun, but even if i sit in a workshop with a raw fluorescent light, I will notice it later.
If you want a CFL bulb but dont want the UV radiation, make sure you get a lamp with a full diffuser or grating that blocks the direct light and illuminates by reflecting the visible light down.
I hope i know what i'm talking about, because i see a dermatologist photospecialist every month, and that's what he recommends.
A remote control? Is that really necessary for a LIGHT BULB?
Also I'm not psyched about how they're shading the bottom of these LED/CFL bulbs with the heatsink. They say it increases light efficiency by directing the light downward, as it's intended, but they forget to tell us that a lot of the ambient light in a room is reflected down from the ceiling. And can you imagine how ugly the light pattern of one of these would be inside a lamp with a shade?
You have to wonder when people start talking about "fully equipped" lightbulbs...
How is a light source with a heat sink supposed to energy efficient? Is it a heat sink in the traditional sense, or more like a heat diffuser to move the little heat created out of the pinpoint area of the LED? I want to know... but I don't want to google right now.
hmmmm...
Wikipedia:
Because individual LEDs are low-voltage DC devices, implementing SSL to operate from mains AC requires well designed circuitry and a thermal case to dissipate the heat.
LEDs also have limited temperature tolerance and falling efficiency as temperature rises. This limits the total LED power that can practically be fitted into lamps that physically replace existing filament & compact fluorescent types. R&D is needed to improve thermal characteristics.
Both senses (though it's the same thing said in two ways, really).
High-power LEDs create insane amounts of heat concentrated in an insanely small point.
It IS energy efficient.. If you were to concentrate the heat a CFL emits across all it's surface on a LED-sized surface, it would destroy itself in a second and no heatsink would save it.
Not to mention that CFLs work better when hot, while LEDs get easily damaged by heat (and if you manage to get them running cool, they're much more efficient).
Downrank this spamming douche into oblivion please. You posted your affiliate link in here dude. Subtle, nice...
The + - control on the top left controls brightness in steps while the control on the top right controls the color in steps (daylight at top, light bulb at bottom). The three left side buttons on the bottom are full, half and low light. The ones on the right are daylight, middle and light bulb). The two buttons at the very top are on and off.
I'm gonna report him for spam, but he almost had me with "Or lets say you are death"
That's right about Zigbee, companies need to start conforming to wireless standards in this home arena for it to take off. Then we can ditch these silly remotes and use our phones (i.e. iPhone).
I like it but i took it one step further.i have been working on my own led light bulb with a motion sensor ,
sound sensor and remote interface. i am currently patent pending. i
built a very crude looking prototype however i would love to here
some feed back. here is a link or just google my name geno sirhan
www.inventright.com/media/the-smart-light-bulb-34.html
p.s remember it is a rough working prototype so i know it does not
look good, but it works!