The days of OLED wallpaper are still some years away, but you can finally start thinking about replacing those tired light fixtures with something a little more two-dimensional. After testing the waters with its
Early Future lamp and then
boosting efficiency of its product, OSRAM is announcing availability of Orbeos OLED panels for general consumption. The discs are 80mm wide, only 2.1mm thick, and emit light at a temperature of 2,800K, meaning they're much closer to an average incandescent than those awful CFLs. They're not as efficient, though, managing just 25 lumens per watt compared to your average CFL's 60 - 72. Still, they're about twice as thrifty as traditional bulb tech and can be configured in a variety of interesting ways (shown after the break), but since the company isn't saying just how much any of those configurations will cost we have to figure it's still going to be awhile before you're mounting these under your cabinets.
posted December 1st 2009 7:41AM
LED lights FTW
@(Unverified) Agreed!
When these things get cheap enough...I'm gonna do my whole house with 'em....
CFL color can be very good, actually. Sounds like you haven't used one in quite some time.
@(Unverified) Yeah I agree CFL colouring is excellent i presume they mean to be referring to the poor quality affordable L.E.D's flooding the market.
@Vance
The downside to CFLs, is the warmup time. Literally, a minute or two will go by before the CFL has warmed up and full light output is achieved. LEDs are instant on, full power.
@Vance
CFL is bad for your eyes. That's been proven many times over and is covered up not only by the CFL industry, but also by many governments including the US.
@strommsarnac BRINGIT !!! BOOM HEADSHOT WITH CFL'S
@strommsarnac Is this the same kind of 'proven' that's proven vaccines kill your kids, global warming doesn't exist / is caused by sunspots / is a slow-action alien death ray, and cigarettes are good for you? Governments are covering those up too! Don't forget your tinfoil hat, it works against CFLs too.
CFLs are available in a range of colour temperatures; I like the bright 'daylight' kind, not the grungey yellowed 'looks like incandescent' flavour. LED lighting will be even better due to the instant-on (although in lots of situations I kind of prefer the CFL fade-up), more widespread dimmer support, and new form factors, but it's not ready for prime time yet in terms of price and efficiency (outside the lab).
I definitely am glad to see companies working on the early technology though. That's how these things improve.
Nice stuff.
However the price in the RS webstore for one of these tiles is 251€ (approx. $370)...
Did You know that "osram" in polish means "shit someone/something"..? Just a funny fact.
@(Unverified) Did you know in English, Osram means 'shitty light bulbs'? :)
OLED wallpaper on my ceiling would be the shit. I've always wanted the entire surface of my bedroom ceiling to be comprised of 'pixels' using the sorts of tiny LED's you get in mobile phones. That way you could have some real mood lighting happening with three dimmer switches (and a remote control)
@ljstevens They have to invest in research, and once they do why not to sell the products?
To comprehend the importance of research play "Master of Orion": stop investing in research, and your puny race is squashed by canning aliens.
Who cares about cost, if you must replace such crap-gadget every year (lifespan only 5000h in best case)?
@reinsuld
LEDs last longer than any current light source, including CFLs. Light fixture manufacturers will point this out as the benefit for using LED-specific fixtures for hard-to-reach areas, including wall washers and street lights, where the cost and time to replace bulbs outweighs the current cost of LED bulbs.
There are litlle difference between OLED & LED :-)
About ten times less lifespan ...
@(Unverified) That's "cunning", but you got the point
@(Unverified) I totally agree about the R&D, BUT LED's are not new... they have been around since before I was born and have come along leaps and bounds in the last few years. The big companies have already spent years R&D'ing them. If they were interested in making a greener lightbulb, they wouldn't want to charge outrageous amounts for a niche artsy product that doesn't even replace a standard bulb. One company need to take the plunge, release a bulb that they don't make much money on to get the market going, then other companies will start making them, volumes will increase and economies of scale will ensure that prices will come down to a fair level in a few years.
It looks like Joey from Friends got the news that it is dress like Han Solo day.
An OLED covered wall that is both a light source and a touch screen display. It reminds me of that scene in Total Recall.
When we are not trying to power toasters, we are powering lighting systems like this one.
@(Unverified)
No it's actually canning. Canned food is essential in space exploration.
"they're about twice as thrifty as traditional bulb tech"
What kind of "traditional bulb tech"? Incandescent, CFL, LED?
The form factor is very cool with this, however it should be noted at how inefficient these OLED elements currently are:
"They're not as efficient, though, managing just 25 lumens per watt compared to your average CFL's 60 - 72"
Also, high-end T-5 tube florescents offer 100-109 lumen per watt - or put in another way, more than 4 times as efficient as these OLEDs. More promising, I saw a demo a couple weeks ago of a plasma sourced induction bulb that has a 140-160 lumen per watt efficacy.
@GeekPI florescent bulbs are terrible for the environment tho because they rely on mercury. Not to mention the only place with lax enough environmental standards to make it profitable to create CFL's is china, and we don't need more of our money going there.
Perhaps some proper a while / awhile differentiation.
"they're much closer to an average incandescent than those awful CFLs"
Why is incandescent a benchmark? Incandescent is nothing like natural sunlight, and many modern CFLs surpass incandescent bulbs in their color rendering index.
Which ones please, I've never seen any with have decent CRI figures?
@GeekP1 - you are my new king geek idol
I swear, I must be the only person who *prefers* the bluer color spectrum of many (but not all) LED/CFL lights. Incadescents make your house look like it's painted yellow.
Me too.
I want all my lighting to be 5600 degrees K.
Which is photographic daylight.
Tungsten is way too yellow.
@tigerhawkvok Me too! I like my interior lighting to be... white. I've got LED bulbs in my kitchen, and they're actually blue compared to the CFL in the dining area (okay, so they're actually the same room, but there's different light fittings at each end). The really weird thing about them is that when it gets dim outside, I turn on the kitchen lights and I can't tell that they're on... things just get brighter. They're pretty much the same colour as late daylight, and that's really cool.
I know I am off the topic. But I notice that LED Christmas light are close to incandescent in price. I like the look of the new LED Christmas light over the incandescent, they have a richer color.