Tag Archive: bright

When it was announced in January last year that the European Union was banning incandescent light bulbs – the ones we’ve traditionally been used to – a lot of people in Britain were hopping mad (please note I resisted the temptation to say ‘incandescent with rage’). They didn’t like those new fangled compact fluorescent (CFL) energy saving light bulbs, not least because it was someone in Brussels trying to shove them down our throats, screw them in place and light up our mouths with them! (Not literally of course). But for one thing, they come in funny shapes that stick out of the top of lamp shades, and they don’t shine as brightly as proper light bulbs, and they have to warm up before they get to full brightness – surely that’s a step in the wrong direction!

All this fuss led to a light bulb buying frenzy, with people stocking up on traditional light bulbs, and the Daily Mail newspaper even giving away 25,000 incandescent light bulbs to its readers! But despite all this commotion, energy saving light bulbs were here to stay, so thank goodness someone took up the challenge to make them better! Witnessing the outrage felt by the people of Britain at being force fed oddly shaped bulbs (not literally), the nice people at Ledon had a bright idea, a light bulb moment you might say (groan). And so they set out to replace the CFL energy saving light bulbs with something better, which is why they created… fanfare moment… the LED light bulb.

Not only are Ledon LED bulbs shaped like, well, like light bulbs, they whack out their full brightness the instant they are switched on – so at least we are back to where we started! But then there’s a whole bunch of other reasons to think LED bulbs are the bees knees. They are far more efficient than long life incandescent bulbs, at least 85 per cent more in fact. You can expect an average lifespan of 25,000 hours for LED light bulbs. That means that with typical usage your LED light bulb could have a lifespan of 25 years! It would last nearly three years without ever turning it off, if you are so inclined, although switching it on and off does nothing to shorten the lifespan of this amazing bulb. They also use five times less energy than the old bulbs!

LED light bulbs are also much more efficient than those CFL energy saving light bulbs everyone hates. While a CFL bulb might last 8-15 times longer than an incandescent bulb, its lifespan will be significantly shortened if it is switched on and off regularly. In comparison, an LED bulb can be switched on and off as often as you like, and it will still last 20 times as long as a traditional bulb. CFL bulbs contain mercury, which is bad for us and makes disposal more difficult, but LED light bulbs contain nothing but goodness and light, errr, probably. OK, the science part isn’t important, but they certainly don’t have anything nasty in them, and you won’t have to worry about disposal anyway because they will probably last longer than you do. Light quality is as good as traditional incandescent bulbs, and there are no health issues associated with LED bulbs, unlike CFLs which have been known to cause adverse affects on people with epilepsy, migraine sufferers, people with lupus and even autism. So the basic message is this – the only bright thing to do is get LED light bulbs in your home.