Imagine lighting your house with LEDs? Well very soon you will be able to, after the introduction of new LED technology that can produce light energy equivalent to a household bulb. The new LEDs provides light output of more than 1,000 lumens (measurement of light output or brightness) which is the same as produced by any standard household bulb.
The single die LEDs from Cree, includes semiconductors and solid state lighting devices able to produce 1,050 lumens in cool white and 760 lumens in a warm white version when operated at four amperes. The Efficiency (output light energy per watt) is 72 lumens for cool white and 52 lumens for warm white devices. These LED’s provide higher efficacy levels than any of the other available light bulbs:
“Cree’s XLamp(r) LEDs are the best-performing commercially available LEDs, but we won’t be satisfied until light bulbs are obsolete,” comments John Edmond, Cree co-founder and director of advanced optoelectronics. “We’ve worked 20 years to achieve lighting-class LED performance, and we still have plenty of ways to advance the technology further.”
No details were given of how much the new LEDs would cost, but they will be available in 12-24 months. I’d imagine that they won’t cost less then lightbulbs. Regardless, I’m sure we’ll have some very bright Santa grottos to look forward to in the future!
