LED replacements are something that everyone *should* be interested in pursuing, simply because of their ridiculously long lamp life, color temperature, and lumens per watt to name a few reasons. The major issue right now facing the LED market for items like replacement lamps is the price point. Unfortunately, as awesome as LED replacement lamps are and for all of the “green” issues they solve, a major drawback to them is cost. Especially in our deflated economy right now, price point is something that can and will drive LEDs out of range until the cost to the consumer comes down.
A case in point, Lighting Science has a relatively wide variety of LED replacement lamps of all base sizes and shape flavors. Check out the Sol 38:
Now this is a very efficient, extremely cool looking LED R-type lamp replacement. Cooling fins keep the heat low in environments that need it, and is a 15W lamp at 800 lumens in cool white. It’s got a lamp life of 50,000 hours, and it replaces a 60W halogen. But – and this is a big one – it’s $145. That is a very, very high priced lamp. What the bummer would be would be convincing the budget people that it’s a great investment, even though it is a great investment. If you’re paying a couple of bucks for your R-lamps, trying to get these into your budget would be like getting AIG to stop having $400,000 “seminars.”
Lighting Science also has a replacement G11 base LED:
What a great concept – LED replacement G11 lamps! Long standing installs, hard-to-get places, these are PERFECT. They’re also $20 a pop – and if you need a few hundred of these…
I’m sure at some point in the future, LED replacements will be just as cheap as everything else that was once very expensive. Right now, LED replacements are still a bit far out of reach for a lot of consumers.
Lighting Science, no one is picking on you, by the way. Your products are quite frankly excellent.
Do want.
The price makes me frowny face, though.
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