A (LED) Lighting Revolution & Giveaway
A few weeks ago, I was invited to the Philips Design With Light event. I admit I don't think much about lighting (do you?) but its such an important element in room design so when they aimed to inform me about the new innovations in LED lighting, I was intrigued.
Samantha Pynn, previous host of Pure Design and current host of the HGTV's web series The Mix, spoke at the event. She talked about all the different uses of LED lighting in this room:
Can you believe those are all LED lightbulbs? I guess I'm behind the times because when I think LED, I still think coil-shaped bulbs that give a cold blue light. That's no longer the case, obviously. Here's what Philips LED bulb* looks like today:
Yeah, its a bit different, isn't it? This new advanced LED technology has a few tricks up its sleeve:
- long life and kinder to the environment - lasts 25,000 hours or more than 15 years!
- energy savings - saves 80% in energy costs when compared to a 60W incandescent bulb
- mercury and lead-free construction
- quiet (no hum) operation
- emits virtually no heat
- non-breakable
- dimmable!
I decided to give it a little test and lucky for me, one of the bulbs in my dining room chandelier was out. You can see that the bulb has a yellow casing. The Philips representative told me that this is because the bluish diode inside the bulb plus the yellow casing produce the cleanest white light.
My chandelier had two lightbulbs in each of the shades. I kept the three existing 60W incandescent bulbs and installed the LED (in the second photo above, its to the right of the metal vertical post in the first shade. I was pleased to see that you couldn't notice the yellow casing whether the light was off or on.
The light produced was very white but not glaring. You can notice a slight difference when the LED is put against an incandescent lightbulb. Not so noticeable in the photo above...
but much more noticeable when the light is dimmed. All the wattages are the same (60W incandescent = 12.W LED). The incandescents on the right shade give a yellowish cast while the LED is more pure white. This wouldn't be a problem though if you used the LED in a single bulb fixture like a table lamp.
Overall, I like the whiteish light of the LED bulb much better. I'm typing this at the dining table right now and I find I'm straining my eyes less under the white light. They are a bit more expensive at the outlay, ~$30, but save you money in the long run. As the bulbs go out around our house, I'll give a second thought to replacing them with LED ones.
Now here's the part where you get to test the Philips LED lights for yourself. Sorry, this giveaway is only open to Canadian residents!
One person will win a collection of lighting products courtesy of Charlene Magnaye at One Voice. Valued at $100, the winner will receive two 12.5W household bulbs (like I used above), one chandelier bulb, and one globe bulb. To enter:
- leave me a comment about anything fun!
- become a follower of my blog by clicking here
Contest closes midnight Dec.1st. I'll announce the winner on Dec.2nd. Good luck!
*Disclosure: Philips did provide me with the bulb but I was not otherwise compensated for this review. I just wanted to share with you my opinions on a product I really do like!
*Disclosure: Philips did provide me with the bulb but I was not otherwise compensated for this review. I just wanted to share with you my opinions on a product I really do like!
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