LED Lights At Home

The LED Beginning Inventory November 11, 2007

Posted by ledguy in The Basics.
Tags: consumer reviews, LED, led lights, solid state lights
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A few months ago when I first started hearing about LED lights, I was fascinated. I read that they are in mobile phones and other gadgets as the light source for the displays. And I thought that was cool. Then I started to look around my house and saw them already here:

• Booklights — you know, those little lights that clip on a book so you don’t wake your spouse when you want to read for a few minutes before going to sleep? Who can forget the original Itty Bitty Booklight, a miracle of its time and it only took 4 C cell batteries in a special battery pack and a cord that ran to the light. Now, almost every booklight I see has switched to using LEDs, and are smaller, brighter, and often use button cell batteries.
• Barbecue light — I love to barbecue (I sadly just cleaned out the Weber today to put it away for the winter here in New England). For those fall nights, it is dark when I am cooking so a couple of years ago, as almost a joke gift, my wife gave me a light to clamps on to the grill and has a dozen LEDs.
• Flashlights — Over the past few months I’ve noticed an accelerating evolution: more and more flashlights are LED-based, not traditional bulbs. Maglite sells replacement bulbs that use LEDs. Given the rate of this change, I wouldn’t be surprised if in a year or two from now, all flashlights are LEDs.
• Camping lights — Not long ago, there was a revolution away from alcohol lamps to fluorescent. Now they are switching to LED. A year ago I bought several small lamps to use when we picnic at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony. Now I’m seeing them in full-size lanterns.

Look around your house and see how many you find and let me know what kinds of applications you find them in.