Got a brilliant new thing

I've taken my household right into the 21st century.

We now have our first mains LED light (excluding Christmas lights).

It's in the living room, and its brilliant.

It is a regular bayonet connector, so no messing with wires, just a straight replacement of bulbs.

But wait... There's an exciting twist... It can do all the colours, you can adjust the brightness, and its remote control.

But wait again.... It's also got technology in it. In addition to changing colour (or selecting regular white), it has four programs. It can flash (annoying), cycle through red, Green and blue, or smoothly and seamlessly changing through all the colours of the spectrum. It's awesome.

 

Now I'm reminded of the poem about the candle light fisherman.

 

I can't find the poem I was thinking of, but this song reminds me of it a lot.

http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/song-midis/Candlelight_Fisherman.htm

The gist of the poem is that a fisherman had a ritual of taking a lot candle outside just before launching his sail boat. If the candle didn't flicker, there was not enough wind to fill the sails, so no point going out. If the flame flickered but stayed lit, conditions were right. If the flame blew out, a storm was coming, and it would be dangerous to go out.

Then one day, when his larder was empty and his family were hungry, he went out even though the candle had blown out. He never returned.

 

I have used colour changing LEDs for years , used them in the bathroom to reduce the halogen GU10's intensity . They give a very nice soft lighting effect over the bath , while the halogen spots point over the basin for shaving etc . Just had LED downlights fitted in the kitchen , these are really good and use virtually no electricity - actually all 15 being on would use around 100watts . On the downside , the new lights I fitted in the lounge use Eco halogen 28w x 5 , these are pathetic . It is difficult to read by them.

 

Ive just invested in some new LED lighting for my aquarium 21 watts over aquarium lighting.

 

It cost about £23, more like £25 factoring in delivery.

The remote comes with it.

 

I've a blue coloured led bulb in the bedroom - so the light can be turned on in the middle of the night without causing a disturbance (and without hurting eye balls ).

My lamps are either cfl or led. I'm happy to shell out on the cfl lamps - as there is a massive difference in power consumption between these and incandescent lamps. The power consumption difference between cfl and led is not as large - so I find it difficult to justify the high price of led's.

They do have their place - for example in difficult to reach places.

Many of you will know that I work for a Council - I was told off once, by a street lighting engineer, for calling lamps bulbs. As he pointed out - bulbs are the things that are planted in the ground .

 

Ah that would be the opposite for me. Blue light is seriously painful im really sensitive to that more so than white. Yellow is best. The hospital car park has blue LED lighting in the stairwell i spent a maximum of 30 seconds in there because it became too painful even with my sunglasses on. Felt really silly getting the lift for one floor but i couldnt be in that lightening.

I find LEDS tend to be far too strong for me anyway even the soft ones. I will be sitcking with normal light bulbs esp energy saving ones they are much nicer on the eyes and i dont need to wear sunglasses constantly with them.

The light of the tv is too strong for me tho if im not wearing sunglasses the lamp next to the tv which has an energy saving bulb in and a yellow lampshade needs to go on so that it helps makes the tv light less painful.

 

Problem I find with modern lighting is working out how bright they are supposed to be, and "supposed" is the right word.
They give you a kind of equivalent wattage in an ordinary bulb on the pack but its rarely anything like what they say, I find.

As for bumbling on about "Lumens", thats really a nightmare, I've thought in watts for 50 od years, only scientists bothered about Lumens.

Buying a light bulb these days, if your not a scientist, is a very dodgy experience, combining the different types of bulb with all the different fittings available, its an expensive and complicated process.