Has the Energy Saving Light Bulb surpassed its Reputation?

Do you remember those old energy saving light bulbs?

It is not long since when the energy saving light bulb was launched onto the market as the saviour which would dramatically reduce of electricity bills and pave the way for the future. There was much hype over the new invention  from the government, eco friendly societies, retailers and manufacturers and the story seemed too good to be true!  A light bulb which will only use 20 percent  of the energy of a conventional incandescent light bulb seemed simply amazing. This would mean that we could change all the light bulbs in our houses with relative ease and would not have to worry any more about the children always leaving the lights on. The price was high at around  £10 for each energy saving light bulb but that seemed a small price to pay when you could see the potential advantages.

However all that glitters  is not gold. We did indeed purchase some of these radical new inventions and placed them in prime positions in our homes but unfortunately it was at this stage that the honeymoon was over. Firstly, they were kind of ugly being a linear cylindrical tube design and looked like something from a 1950’s science fiction movie. But that was not all they were incredibly dim, well at least when you turned them on and that is no understatement. When initially switched on they only gave out about one quarter of the light they were meant to but then in the fullness of time gradually git brighter and brighter until the room was lit to its correct level of illumination. Now that is all fine if you leave the lights on all day but was highly unsatisfactory if you were moving room to room and abiding to the well preached energy saving principle of turning the lights off.  So all in all these first energy saving light bulbs simply did not work and many people still have these original examples in their homes now.

The Advancements in the Energy Saving Light Bulbs

Things have certainly moved on a great deal from there early days. If we take a modern compact fluorescent lamp – CFL then the technology has advanced tremendously. They do not come on instantly but good quality examples  will reach 80% brightness in a few seconds and after around a minute will be up to full illumination levels. For sure this is not the instance responce we have been spoilt with from the traditional filament bulb but for the vast majority of situations this is highly adequate. Also the designs are more aesthetic with the spiral shape  and the technology has advanced to make energy saving light bulbs far more compact so that they do not stick out the tops of lamps or simply do not fit into the light unit. Then if you still do not like the spiralling twirls of the CFL then they cam be cased in a large globe to create the globe energy saving light bulb globe energy saving light bulb.

The consequences of these first Energy Saving Light Bulbs

Now the poor performance of these early energy saving light bulbs actually has been counter productive in the whole movement to eco friendly lighting. This is because people purchased them originally and because they were so unpopular then they have refused to move forward and purchase later more suitable products which have advanced and moved forward to alleviate the deficiencies in the early units. So all in all it looks like the product launch was too early and it would have been better to wait until the product was ready to meet the demands of the consumer. Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing!