The new Osram Ultra LED: 100-watt Equivalent Bulb
A new generation of LED bulbs is coming to the market with much higher brightness but very low energy consumption. The upcoming Osram Sylvania 100-watt equivalent LED Bulb is already on sale in small quantities and it will shortly be joined by other similar LED bulbs from other manufacturers.
Incandescent light bulbs have been around for decades but they are short lived, draw a lot of power and create a lot of excess heat. For that reason the U.S. government banned the manufacturing of Incandescent 100-watt bulbs on Jan. 1 2012. In 2013 will come the next step when 75-watt bulbs will be banned starting in 2014 both 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs will be banned as well. In other countries all types of Incandescent bulbs have already been banned for sale.
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For several years now we also have compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs), but research had found out that most of them were about a quarter dimmer before they had reached half of their rated lifetime (this is most probably caused by overheating).
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On the other hand LED (or light emitting diode) based bulb seem to be better than both Incandescent and CFL in many important respects. LED has a much longer life span and it is more likely to actually keep the light for a longer time (up to 8 times as much as CFLs). LED bulbs are more power effients and can be dimmed (something which most CFLs can’t do) and they also do not contain mercury (like most CFLs) which is highly poisons and can be dangerous if the CFL bulb happen to break (they are also harder to recycle for that reason).
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According to Osram the new Sylvania Ultra LED has the following properties:
- 1600 lumens – 100-watt equivalent omnidirectional LED Bulb
- Actual power usage – around 20 watts.
- A21 bulb which is a slightly larger version of the typical common light bulb.
- Color temperature of 2700 Kelvin (warm white).
- 25,000 hours rated lifespan (almost 3 years of nonstop usage and much more in a more typical usage scenario).
- Dimmable to 10 percent of max brightness.
- Price: around $50.
Besides the 100-watt equivalent LED Bulb Osram also has 3 other versions of advanced bulbs which it said should offer true substitutes for 40, 60 and 75 watt incandescent bulbs. Osram claim that its ULTRA LED bulb line provide up to 80 percent energy savings over traditional incandescent bulbs and last up to 25 times longer.
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TFOT covered many LED related stories in the past including: “LED light bulbs to take over?”, a cheap 100,000-hour LED light, and the rechargeable lightglobe. More recently we reported on Switch Lighting LED light which is also a 100 watt equivalent bulb which should also reach the market soon (but with a higher price tag than the Osram bulb).
