An article on Yahoo states that the incandescent bulb we've all grown to love is being phased out. While this is good news because it'll help us save on electricity, what I don't understand is why it gonna take 4 years to start the phase out and two more years to complete it?

Yahoo!

It's about time. I already don't have any incandescent bulbs left in my home. I guess this means no more EZ-Bake Ovens though

The dimmable Edison-screw CFL is out, so indeed we no longer need incandescent bulbs.



Anyone know if you can get this type of (dimmable) bulb for smaller-than-standard sockets? E.g. a chandelier? That would be cool.

Actually I think a screw-in LED would be kinda cool, wonder why no one's tried it.

There are plenty of LED based "bulbs" that screw into standard sockets. They aren't cheap though - normally $50-100 each, but they last almost forever.

http://www.x-tremegeek.com/templates/searc...p;pi=Y&st=3

Sounds good. Implementation (cheap) is going to be hard though. I know from experience of using these things....

Bulbs tend to break, and no one would go to the store and buy a 60$ replacement!!

If I had an extra $100 laying around, I might think about getting an LED bulb. But then I know I'd find something else to spend it on. Like a new Wiimote.

Home-Lighting is overrated.

I just tape a flashlight to my head.

In my house, We have no incandescent light bulbs at all. its all LED's and it does save us alot of money on the Energy Bill. Sure they cost a little more, but i rather save money on my energy bill.

Which equals more spending money, and money for bills.

Incandescent lighting is only inefficient if the heat is considered a wasted by-product. If you want a room to be warmer than ambient and have thermostatically controlled heating, then it's not, although I'm not discussing the relative efficiency of gas and electric heating here!

I'm glad energy savers have got so much better now, because when they first appeared on the market, they gave me a really bad headache! Now all out bulbs are energy savers...

OK, fair enough. I didn't know about those. Shame on me, I work in the lighting industry.

Has anyone used induction lamps? Similar to fluorescent, originally conceived by Tesla. A little pricey and almost never used, but supposedly very long life and nice, even light output. I kinda want to try these things out...

Wikipedia Entry for Induction Lamps

Another interesting thing I found is this chart listing the relative efficacy/efficiency in terms of light output vs power consumption of various lamps and other light sources. Beware: math ahead! But anyway, modern fluorescents are beating LEDs in terms of efficiency.

Luminous Efficacy

Like so many others , I thought energy saving lamps were a great idea when they first came out and started replacing my incandescent lamps with them as and when they failed - I now have mostly energy saving lamps throughout the house , but with a few exceptions .

As I gradually replaced the lamps in my living room with energy savers , I began to find that I was finding it difficult to operate my TV set , Hi-Fi system and any other items that were operated via infra-red remote control . At first I suspected batteries , but found that replacing those made no difference ; I had also noticed that the receiver for an i/r remote extender I have sitting on top of the TV often had its tell-tale LED illuminated (indicating that it was picking up a signal of some sort) but I had not thought logically about all of this .

It all came to a head when I found that I could no longer control my Hi-Fi/AV equipment despite standing right in front of it with fresh batteries in the remote control (my equipment is housed in two full height racks in a rear corner of my living room with i/r repeaters placed in front of each piece of equipment , and I had suspected a problem with this repeater system) . NOTHING was working via infra-red and the receiver lamp was glowing strongly . On going over to investigate it , I noticed that the LED dimmed when I walked in front of the receiver and went out when I cupped my hand over the window : something was interfering with it ! I then went round the room turning things off to find the culprit ....

You guessed it - energy saving lamps have an output in the infra-red part of the spectrum which interferes with remote controls . As soon as these lamps were replaced with incandescents all my remote controls started working again : now I don't have any energy savers anywhere near i/r controlled equipment .

A while after I discovered this I happened to telephone my mother , who is quite elderly , and found that she was shouting and she could barely hear me above the sound of her television ; it turned out that she was having trouble using the remote control and when I asked if she had an energy saver nearby , she told me she had just fitted one in the table lamp beside her seat . When I told her to turn the lamp off , hey presto ! , the remote immediately worked !!

So , much as I'm all for saving the planet , sorry folks , but if these lamps stop my remotes from working then I for one am giving them a miss .

Why do they need to be "phased" out at all? They are almost identical in price, they last extremely long, save energy, and fit in all the same stuff. I fail to see a reason to stick with the old bulbs at all when the new ones have the same compatibility and price but so many more benifets. Just replace them all at once already, let the idiots soil themselves for awhile until they figure out that those fancy twirly bulbs that are 25 cents more expensive will save them tons of money (remember, when you buy incadescent you buy in packs even if its just one fixture, nobody buys a single bulb thanks to their life span).

Only a few left in my place where I rarely use 'em. Never look back! If I could afford the LED bulbs I would change to them in the heavily used rooms.

That's what I'm saying. The only thing that comes to mind as to why it would take a little while would be that so many people would be out of a job. But it still shouldn't take 4 years to start phasing them out!! 2 years, tops.

I've never heard of people having problems with IR remotes and Fluorescent bulbs... I light my living room with fluorescents, no problems here... but here's an article about it - Consumer Reports Article on CFL Interference

So, basically, if the bulb is energy star certified the output should be within a limit so as not to cause problems with your electronics. Not sure what the equivalent of Energy Star is over there...

(edited to save room)

Yea I'm with glavin, I've never had nor do I know anybody that has ever had problems with their remotes when they had energy star bulbs.