‘Best Lightbulb in the World’ Costs $119

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
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I know we’re a bunch of hardware enthusiasts but does your passion for the best include light bulbs? If so, the C. Crane Company has the light bulb for you. For $119, you can get the GeoBulb LED, which can provide as much light as a 60-watt bulb with only 7.5-watts.

Jessica Gillette, director of sales and marketing, said the price was one of the hurdles the company plans to address in the future. The bulb was designed with a typical consumer in mind and was made to be an easy method of being energy efficient.
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Maybe I'm not a typical consumer, but that's more than twice as much money for a single bulb than we paid to replace every lightbulb in our apartment with compact florescent
 
I'm no mathematician but how long would it really take for you to start saving money if you replaced out all your light bulbs with this??
 
60-watts brightness at 7.5 watts is pretty good. My bulbs are 50-watts brightness at 20 watts. It's too bad that most consumers aren't fully versed in understanding lumen and candlepower. Nobody's going to want to buy 20-watt or 7.5 watt bulbs because it sounds too dim.
 
Wshmaster0 said:
I'm no mathematician but how long would it really take for you to start saving money if you replaced out all your light bulbs with this??
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Think bigger. Stadiums, office complex, factories, residential zones (rather than single houses).

Individually you might save a few bucks a month, but the bigger picture is grander.
 
This is most likely for large companies/institutions who will implement them by the hundreds/thousands and then get some sort of tax credit.
 
batteriesnotincluded said:
Maybe I'm not a typical consumer, but that's more than twice as much money for a single bulb than we paid to replace every lightbulb in our apartment with compact florescent
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sounds about right for virtually any consumer.

sadly when I read the price I thought "Monster Cable's at it again!" and wondered if they were going to try and sell people on gold plated threading. :D

i'll be honest. this would be worth it IF (and perhaps ONLY IF) the person interested in this is looking to eke out every single watt of power savings in their daily power consumption OR they are literally needing to free up some power in their household for other things and are already nearly tripping breakers/blowing fuses as is. but at that point I think the latter would be better served by having their househol wiring examined. :eek:

depending on the power consumption of flourescent bulbs vs. these, if its significant enough of a difference, and has a long enough lifespan, I could see businesses picking these up and just getting writeoffs for them. afterall, the big push these days is to "go green".
 
they also make the worlds longest lasting condom, I read somewhere s that they are reusable and have a lifetime warranty. You cant beat that :D
 
Innovation is always good. I'm sure prices will come down dramatically with time. For now I'm happy with my 13-15 watt CF bulbs.
 
so bullshit, the efficiency is aweful, yes i can dupicate AC to DC @ 99%, but it decline expidentially over a moth, they should focus more on the ACtoDC converstion and degrading process...over saying how much energy save
 
Azhar said:
60-watts brightness at 7.5 watts is pretty good. My bulbs are 50-watts brightness at 20 watts. It's too bad that most consumers aren't fully versed in understanding lumen and candlepower. Nobody's going to want to buy 20-watt or 7.5 watt bulbs because it sounds too dim.
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Piaa is quiet good at selling xenon powah light bulbs to rice boys, 55watt = 85watt they say.
 
Well according to mythbusters leds do last longer but what's more interesting is that leds can survive absolutely silly amounts of on/off cycles where compact fluorescents die quickly. This light could indeed pay for itself in a place where it is constantly being turned on and off. Dunno if it really puts out the same amount of light as a conventional 60W incandescent bulb though.

The bulb in question looks like its from the year 2222:
http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/geobulb-led-light-bulb.aspx
 
LEDs are improving as fast as nanochips so I expect the cost of these types of bulbs to come down to CF range in a few years. That'll be nice because they don't contain mercury and are a helluva lot more durable because they're simpler and there's huge redundancy. One LED goes out and you won't really notice.
 
I welcome LED lighting but at that cost, no way you'd pay for it.

If you had 1,000 of these in an office...

Over $120,000 worth. That's a ton of electricity, I don't even know in bigger environments that it would pay off.
 
Terry Olaes said:
I know we’re a bunch of hardware enthusiasts but does your passion for the best include light bulbs? If so, the C. Crane Company has the light bulb for you. For $119, you can get the GeoBulb LED, which can provide as much light as a 60-watt bulb with only 7.5-watts.
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Hmm....use 7.5W to get 60W of light for $119.00
or
use 13W to gets 60W of light for about $1.25

It's a close call. I'll have to think about this for a while.
 
niconx said:
Well according to mythbusters leds do last longer but what's more interesting is that leds can survive absolutely silly amounts of on/off cycles where compact fluorescents die quickly. This light could indeed pay for itself in a place where it is constantly being turned on and off. Dunno if it really puts out the same amount of light as a conventional 60W incandescent bulb though.

The bulb in question looks like its from the year 2222:
http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/geobulb-led-light-bulb.aspx
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CFLs generally come with a 5 year warranty, so if you manage to hold onto your receipt, you're probably covered (or at least partially covered). I definitely don't see it paying off for businesses, where there are generally not many on/off cycles.

the LED's day will come, but at this price, it's at least 5 years off. I'm kinda surprised they cost so much. I'd swear i'd bought LEDs for a buck or less at retail. You'd think that a few dozen together would be fairly inexpensive....certainly less than $20.00....add 200% markup and you're still at $60.00
 
Uh, Terry, please get your facts right about LEDs.

Cree has the best type of lightbulb.

http://www.cree.com/press/press_detail.asp?i=1227101620851

Average 60 watt indescent has 890 lumens. At 161 lumens per bulb, 6 watts would equal 966 lumens. Their bulb kills this.

Cree is also used to brighten up cities who have gone to leds, like Raleigh.

Sorry, but I wanted to clarify. I have about 6 cree bulbs of my own.
 
and boasts a lifespan of 30,000 hours -- or 10 years -- with typical use.

On the plus side they're being alot more realistic with the life span. That corresponds to ~9hrs/day of usage. Most CF bulbs equate 1000hrs with 1 year; which results in them failing much sooner than people would expect in fixtures that are on for extended periods of time.
 
SamuraiInBlack said:
i'll be honest. this would be worth it IF (and perhaps ONLY IF) the person interested in this is looking to eke out every single watt of power savings in their daily power consumption OR they are literally needing to free up some power in their household for other things and are already nearly tripping breakers/blowing fuses as is. but at that point I think the latter would be better served by having their househol wiring examined. :eek:
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A more realistic consumer IMO would be someone out in the ass end of nowhere running a diesel generator for power, doubly so if they're far enough in the boonies that the fuel has to be shipped by helicoptor. You can end up paying over 10x the normal consumer price for electricity in those circumstances. Otherwise they still need to get the costs down a lot.
 
Tokamak said:
LEDs are improving as fast as nanochips so I expect the cost of these types of bulbs to come down to CF range in a few years. That'll be nice because they don't contain mercury and are a helluva lot more durable because they're simpler and there's huge redundancy. One LED goes out and you won't really notice.
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True. But burning the additional coal to run incandesants will release more mercury into the environment than throwing old CF bulbs into the landfill. Home Depot offers free recycling for them, so most people can dispose of them properly the next time they go shopping at the same stripmall.
 
"This is most likely for large companies/institutions who will implement them by the hundreds/thousands and then get some sort of tax credit. "

Thing is large companies/institutions can just use fluorescent tubes in fixtures that are already present. Ignoring fixture issue, and the issue of cost, its not a given the LED blub would be better than tubes. Add in cost again and its over.

LEDs are useful in some specific applications but for general lighting they're still far far off.


"I know we’re a bunch of hardware enthusiasts but does your passion for the best include light bulbs?"

Pfft... I just upgraded my flashlight from single core Q5 to a quad core MC-E...
stmce5a.jpg
 
I'm not buying their claim:

the bulb could reduce worldwide energy use by 10 percent, cutting energy bills in half over the next 10 years.
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I am pretty much 100% sure the leading cause of residential energy consumption and energy bills is heating/cooling. I would imagine lighting is also not the major part of commercial building electric bills as well.

So, It may be able to reduce electric consumption by 10% if you never cook or wash and dry clothes, but I do tend to think that is a grossly misleading claim.

If the bulds cost $20 to $40 it would be worth buying, but they are just trying to get stupid money for them.

Greedy bastards.
 
bexamous said:
Thing is large companies/institutions can just use fluorescent tubes in fixtures that are already present.
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I do not know of any large company that doesn't already use flourescents and most have sensors and timers to only turn on when the areas are occupied.
 
Azhar said:
Think bigger. Stadiums, office complex, factories, residential zones (rather than single houses).

Individually you might save a few bucks a month, but the bigger picture is grander.
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It's a 60 watt equivalent bulb that uses 7.5watts of power, so you replace each 60 watt bulb with one of these, and you're saving 52.5watts, lets multiply that over 30,000 hours (life of the bulb), 1575 kilowatt-hours difference by this bulb.... if we take a rate of say, 10 cents per kWh, then that's a $157.50 savings in electricity over it's life, the bulb costs $119, so that's $38.50 savings over the entire life neglecting cost of replacement incandescent bulbs, because honestly what do they cost? 30 cents a piece or something low? So great, it'll save you money over it's life time vs regular incandescent bulbs ASSUMING that fucker doesn't burn out in 30k hours... how many people have had CFLs that have burnt out well before it's life time?? Yeah yeah? raise your hands!

Ok now lets compare this vs a 60w equiv CFL which uses 13 watts, now we only have a 5.5 watt difference, so that's 165 kWh less power over the lifetime, which ends up costing you a little over $100 bucks more to run these bulbs than CFLs.

Being as the large types of lighting typically of a HID lamp do run efficiencies quite close to that of CFLs, these are gimmick bulbs waiting for the price factor to drop before they're useful.
 
How are some LEDs, a heatink and a couple of misc components worth $119? Even $10 would be too much. Are they buying the LEDs from a car dealership one at a time? :p
 
"I do not know of any large company that doesn't already use flourescents and most have sensors and timers to only turn on when the areas are occupied."

? That was my point... they're not competing against incandescent bulbs. Its not a 7.5watt bulb putting out the same amount of light as a 60watt incandescent, it is a 7.5 watt bulb putting out the same amount of light that currently requires 8.5watts from a florescent tube... for 20x the cost.
 
This is a perfect example of taking advantage of the ecotards. I researched a few different companies' products last year for my town to replace sodium street lamps with LED. For about $3k, a city could replace one streetlight, and pay for itself in about five years with the power savings. The break-even point was further reduced by the additional life span (sodium bulbs run around $700), as well as reduced labor costs (think down-sizing) to replace multiple bulbs. The last point was the reason for denial, although it was billed as 'too much up-front money'.
 
pxc said:
How are some LEDs, a heatink and a couple of misc components worth $119? Even $10 would be too much. Are they buying the LEDs from a car dealership one at a time? :p
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Well these are not your typical LEDs you see in computer cases, etc, they're very high powered, require special drivers (i.e. you don't just hook up 3.3 volts to one and away you go). So yeah they're quite a bit more pricier than what most people associate with LEDs. Now I'm not saying it should be worth $120, but whatever they make a product they put a price on it, lets see if people buy them before you see them drop in price like a rock.
 
"For about $3k, a city could replace one streetlight, and pay for itself in about five years with the power savings."

5 years isn't bad. A guy I know contracts with companies to reduce waste.. any proposals that don't break even in 3 years are ignored. He always said 3 years was magic number... not sure if this has changed recently ( like within last few years ).
 
The Geobulb puts out less than half the light of a 60 watt incandescent; if you read the page carefully, you'll note they even admit this, but counter by saying it puts out more light in the "0-90 degree angle" that they claim is the most important.

Which brings up another LED problem: incandescent and CFL bulbs emit light in all directions, and most of your light fixtures are designed with this in mind. LED lights are much more directional (think flashlight). Put a Geobulb or Evolux LED light in your table lamp and most of the illumination will go straight up to the ceiling, with little left over for your book.

If you want to experience a modern LED bulb, the Evolux puts out more than twice the lumens of a Geobulb for $40 less. However, its only real use is in ceiling lights, aimng down.
 
OK, heres a question for you all...

If this is the best light bulb, how comes my Philips CFT bulb uses 8 Watts to produce 60 Watts of light? And the 12 Watt version produces 100 Watts. Those bulbs cost less that $15.

I thought LED lights where supposed to bring an order of magnitude reduction in power consumption compared to compact florescent lights?

This bulb sucks ass, and so does the Philips one that was announced a few months ago.
 
We just bought an 8 pack of CFL's, 60watt output at 13watts. Cost was $5.99 for the 8 pack.
 
Stimpy88 said:
OK, heres a question for you all...

If this is the best light bulb, how comes my Philips CFT bulb uses 8 Watts to produce 60 Watts of light? And the 12 Watt version produces 100 Watts. Those bulbs cost less that $15.

I thought LED lights where supposed to bring an order of magnitude reduction in power consumption compared to compact florescent lights?

This bulb sucks ass, and so does the Philips one that was announced a few months ago.
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nope. What they do is get almost a full order of magnitude over incandesents. Exact values vary from one bulb to the next, but incandesents are ~6% efficient, CF's ~25%, and LEDs ~40%. The power savings is chump change, you'll have to wait until the longer lifetime mostly covers the cost differential before they become economically viable for home use.


There's a reason why LED bulbs are only being mainstreamed in applications like traffic lights where failures cause major disruptions and the cost of making the replacement (the bucket truck + labor) is a major factor in the total cost (the bucket truck + labor + bulb) in replacing the bulb.
 
Leds are perfect for lighting the inside of refridgerators and freezers. They are also great if you live in a really hot area like Texas, California, or Florida.

BUT its completely a different story for Canadians.

Finally the local CBC (Candian Broadcast Corporation) did a realistic scientific view on just how much energy high-efficiency lighting saves us in Canada.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/03/04/mb-light-bulbs.html

"the reduction in the lighting energy use was almost offset by the increase in the space-heating energy use"

If you live in Newfoundland, for example, where many people use expensive heating oil “it might even cost you money" to use the new, cooler, efficient, CFL bulbs for lighting, Blunden suggested.

Its what I've been telling people all along.

BTW: I use 50 watt GE Neodymium coated halogens for most of my lighting, they cost $1.05 Canadian apiece. Absolutely gorgeous light - I highly recommend neodymium coated bulbs for anyone who does photography.
 
$119 ?

Not gonna happen.

Green sure is an expensive color, like we need THAT right now.
 
I have half-a-dozen or so of these tack-on multi-LED lights with motion sensors in them strategically placed in the bedroom and halways (basically, landing-lights to the bathrooms LOL). They really work nice. I get out of bed and the first one fires up, then as I walk along the fire up one at a time, lighting my path. They shut off automatically after 30 seconds.

It also lets me know when the new Puppy is off to cause trouble somewhere :)

They were 12 bucks each and worth every penny.

I ain't paying $119 for a light bulb though !
 
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