Will LEDs Eventually Replace All Other Illumination and Display Technologies?

Light-emitting diodes, or LED's, have been in existence for several decades, but only recently have begun to see common usage in numerous applications in an average person's everyday life. Their most noticeable uses are in televisions, computer displays, and household illumination, all of which are used very frequently. The main advantages of LED's over the older technologies used in those areas (CRT, LCD, incandescent, and fluorescent) are that they consume less electricity, generate less heat, and have longer lifespans than do the other technologies, and, most importantly, they are semi-conductors, meaning that they are not limited to a specific form factor (as are the other technologies) and also become more efficient as time passes, an advantage that they share with solid-state drives.

Currently, LED's still are not used as widely as the other technologies, despite their advantages, because the units are still expensive for initial purchase, but I expect that situation to change as the units become less expensive, and that LED's shall eventually replace all other technologies used for lighting or visual displays. What does everyone else say on this subject? Will LED's eventually replace incandescent and fluorescent lighting, and also LCD screens, and how long may it take for that displacement to occur?

i think leds are the wave of the future. especially with the newer ones that are bright enough to be used as headlights.

however, there is a whole lot more work involved in making a led bulb than an incandescent (ones that are powered by ac). so the price should come down, but they probably will still cost more than other types.

Another issue as far as household use is that the "temperature" is still not quite what most people want. It took a while for them to get the cfl's to produce light in the range that made people actually like them. We picked up some and while they are bright and efficient they produce a very cold bluish light. Most of our lights are cfl however my wife and I both prefer that nice warm glow of incandescents so that's what we use in the bathroom. Since the bathroom light isn't on all that much I don't feel too bad about it.

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Originally Posted by msmrx57

Another issue as far as household use is that the "temperature" is still not quite what most people want. It took a while for them to get the cfl's to produce light in the range that made people actually like them. We picked up some and while they are bright and efficient they produce a very cold bluish light. Most of our lights are cfl however my wife and I both prefer that nice warm glow of incandescents so that's what we use in the bathroom. Since the bathroom light isn't on all that much I don't feel too bad about it.

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I cannot speak for every homeowner, but I absolutely prefer "daylight"-colored lamps in my residence, as I find that they provide far better illumination than do any "soft white" lamps. I do not understand why some people prefer "warm" light over "cool" light or why devices that provide warm light far outnumber those that provide cool light, but I will always use cool light (i.e., 5000K or greater color temperature) over warm light (i.e., 2700K to 3000K color temperature) in my own place of residence.

you can get led bulbs in the warm white, but the ones i have are the cool white and it makes for a neat eery effect. so i love em.

I'm still waiting for OLED

People generally like the glow of incandescent bulbs because they give off a much wider spectrum of light. This means that the light can reflect off of everything and show its real color instead of distorting it because the color was never in the light in the first place.

To get this high quality light, however, it requires expensive phosphors. That expense isn't going to change anytime soon. Also, brightness has been a huge issues. LEDs don't like to be high power, so their lifetime is greatly reduced by shoving enough power to actually brighten them up to usable brightness. Still, innovation can solve that problem.

There are some LED bulbs that do a decent job at reproducing full-spectrum light in the same temperature as incandescents. This Philips bulb in particular won some prizes for being really efficient while producing high quality light.

The other issue with LED bulbs is that each bulb has its own power supply to convert AC to DC. This is more a legacy issue than anything. We've had AC bulbs for so long that it's just what we have. Houses aren't wired for DC, but the bulbs could get much more efficient if we planned for DC lighting in our new buildings. Nobody will, it would take a whole industry to adopt new standards, so I don't see it happening in the private sector anytime soon.

As for displays, I see OLED being a much bigger deal.

not to mention that ac is more efficient to transfer than dc. which as we all should know is why our power grid runs on tesla's ac instead of douche-bag edison's dc power.

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Originally Posted by xr4man

not to mention that ac is more efficient to transfer than dc. which as we all should know is why our power grid runs on tesla's ac instead of douche-bag edison's dc power.

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I don't disagree at all, but you could have a large AC to DC power supply in your house, then have DC for all your lights.

I'm not saying all outlets be DC, but you could have DC light fixtures, or more efficient DC conversion in a lamp base than in the bulbs themselves. Something that would be ready to just take a DC bulb.

Not to throw the discussion off track too much, but here's a slightly NSFW (language) video discussing the history of Tesla. Be warned, there are a few F-words, but it's so funny. Also, barf.

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Originally Posted by d_stilgar

I don't disagree at all, but you could have a large AC to DC power supply in your house, then have DC for all your lights.

I'm not saying all outlets be DC, but you could have DC light fixtures, or more efficient DC conversion in a lamp base than in the bulbs themselves. Something that would be ready to just take a DC bulb.

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I believe they are already doing this. I saw something on DIY or HGTV where all the light fixtures were 12V DC. They were running a combination of 12V incandescent and LED bulbs, but primarily incandescent. What I found extremely cool was how they interfaced the fixtures. All the low voltage lines when back to a central relay panel, along with all the switches. This allowed the home owner to configure any switch to control any light or group of lights. Also they talked about a control module that could interface with the system for home automation purposes. Cool stuff indeed.

That wouldn't be a bad idea. Having the AC mains coming to your house, then DC transformer in your breaker box.

I've got some outdoor LED fixtures that have a yellow-ish tint to them. But they're definitely white by design. Probably wouldn't mind those in the house.

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Originally Posted by AmEv

That wouldn't be a bad idea. Having the AC mains coming to your house, then DC transformer in your breaker box.

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No worse then having ac to dc converters at the wall plates, but in this case the DC panel is completely separate from the AC panel.

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Originally Posted by DemonDragonJ

I cannot speak for every homeowner, but I absolutely prefer "daylight"-colored lamps in my residence, as I find that they provide far better illumination than do any "soft white" lamps. I do not understand why some people prefer "warm" light over "cool" light or why devices that provide warm light far outnumber those that provide cool light, but I will always use cool light (i.e., 5000K or greater color temperature) over warm light (i.e., 2700K to 3000K color temperature) in my own place of residence.

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Believe it or not, we're all affected by the light around us. In nature, the only real source of light is the sun. Sun light is warm in the morning, cool during the day and then warm again in the evening. We evolved with the natural daylight cycle. Our brain expects the sun to set at certain times in the evening. When it sees "daylight" when it's preparing to wind down for the night, it disrupts the natural cycle. This can result in lower quality sleep, insomnia, and other disorders.

We don't tend to have lights on in our house during the day, but "daylight" bulbs (6-6.5k) would be appropriate at this time. At night, warmer light (~3k) is more appropriate. Whether most people are conscious of it or not, this is why they prefer "warmer" light at night.

I thought about implementing custom LED lighting that fades from 6.5k to 3k over a couple hours throughout my house, but it's just one more massive project on the heap of projects.

As far as LED taking over: Slowly but surely they will replace incandescent and CFLs...until something comes along to replace LEDs.

I have some full spectrum 4500k bulbs in my kitchen that replaced some CFLs that took far too long to warm up. They look great, sip energy, and are much, much brighter than the CFLs they replaced. Says on the box they last up to 22 years...they're a year old now, and I'm counting! The price needs to come down significantly before I purchase more though. They were about $30 a piece...I don't think they'll ever pay for themselves, but technology has to start somewhere.