Lighting Science -- a product update

Lighting Science Group (LSCG) was the subject of a post of mine on December 4th (you can get to the original post by clicking on the title to this post.) Today, I was in Home Depot and I went to see the product display for the LED light bulbs sold by Lighting Science in order to see if there was anything newsworthy there. The answer is yes!

First, it was interesting to look at the packaging that is being used for the company's products. The packages all say something like "lasts 46 years". In small lettering, they also estimate the savings in energy usage over the life of the bulb. Of course, for anyone who thinks about it, such an estimate is silly since energy prices will not stay the same over the next 46 years. While the packaging looks nice, there were no major positive in my opinion.

Second, the price point for the bulbs is a problem. Home Depot has manyy hundreds of different incandescent bulb choices and probably close to a hunderd flourescent bulb choices. There were eleven LED bulb choices (half from LSCG) and all of those eleven seem to be higher priced than every other choice. In my opinion, that confirms my view that the retail market for these bulbs will be limited to those who are environmental purists (much less energy usage, no light bulbs to recycle and no mercury pollution from the flourescents) or the very wealthy. The average person is unlikely to look at the total cost for a light bulb over 45 years when making a purchase. Hopefully, as volumes rise, the cost of these bulbs can come down.

With the price point high, the market for the bulbs will remain focused on commercial and industrial usage. The PAR bulbs (used outdoors) could be installed once, and then left untouched for decades. That will avoid all the labor costs for changing the bulbs as well as translating into instant energy usage reductions. Indeed, the use of the bulbs seems like something that the government could undertake in its facilities. for those who support the product, a few letters to congress explaining the benefits of using these bulbs in federal facilities would be a good idea.