5 ms·

How a Philips light bulb uses blue LEDs to produce white light

31 points by maxko87 14y ago

Hoff 14y ago
Old news. Reads more like an advert for the Philips bulb, too. See http://www.marco.org/2012/07/31/two-new-led-bulbs http://www.marco.org/2012/07/31/two-new-led-bulbs (and the earlier review, which included this Philips bulb) for some views and pictures of the differences in the colors.
- jonknee 14y ago
  Your link doesn't cover anything about why/how blue LEDs are used.
  - Hoff 14y ago
    That's largely because I don't care if the bulb uses fresh-squeezed farm-raised unicorn milk. I care far more whether the output color of the bulb is close to incandescent lighting or maybe to sunlight (what folks are used to), and preferably better or closer than the alternatives. That the bulb does not produce some weird color shade. That the bulb is not too dim to be useful. That the bulb is lacking in other problems such as the classic fluorescent flickering, too. And that the payback for this bulb over the alternatives is sufficiently short for my budget. The use of a blue LED is at the bottom of that list. If Philips came up with a way to do that with a phosphor-shifted blue LED bulb (and probably because they can't find or couldn't find an affordable incandescent-colored LED), well, good on them. And in the event I was interested in what Philips did here for this bulb, I can look at their advertising brochures for this bulb, and (having read the Philips materials) which are better done than that Extremetech article.
- rprasad 14y ago
  Who would have thought that a technology aggregation site would include an article about how a particular item of technology works?
dman 14y ago
I am a bit intrigued by the number of extremetech articles that make it to the front page.
- coin 14y ago
  I really hate reading extremetech on an iPad. It loads up a mobile versio of the site, which is slow, unzoomable, and not back button friendly.
- mikexstudios 14y ago
  Yeah, it is quite concerning. maxko87's submit history is full of extremetech links...
  - benologist 14y ago
    maxko87 has an auto-submitter for extremetech stuff: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wMnxadUXbcIJ:https://github.com/maxko87/hn-submit+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wMnxadU... evo_9 is another weird account that does a lot of extremetech although he really looks like he's on Ars Technica's payroll more than theirs: http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=evo_9 http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=evo_9 They also have at least one employee submitting: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mrsebastian http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mrsebastian
rrrazdan 14y ago
And to think that yellow light is not a concern from where I come from(India). People associate it as the poor cousin of the 'better' bluish white light.

31 points by maxko87 14y ago

Hoff 14y ago

Old news. Reads more like an advert for the Philips bulb, too. See http://www.marco.org/2012/07/31/two-new-led-bulbs http://www.marco.org/2012/07/31/two-new-led-bulbs (and the earlier review, which included this Philips bulb) for some views and pictures of the differences in the colors.

jonknee 14y ago
Your link doesn't cover anything about why/how blue LEDs are used.
- Hoff 14y ago
  That's largely because I don't care if the bulb uses fresh-squeezed farm-raised unicorn milk. I care far more whether the output color of the bulb is close to incandescent lighting or maybe to sunlight (what folks are used to), and preferably better or closer than the alternatives. That the bulb does not produce some weird color shade. That the bulb is not too dim to be useful. That the bulb is lacking in other problems such as the classic fluorescent flickering, too. And that the payback for this bulb over the alternatives is sufficiently short for my budget. The use of a blue LED is at the bottom of that list. If Philips came up with a way to do that with a phosphor-shifted blue LED bulb (and probably because they can't find or couldn't find an affordable incandescent-colored LED), well, good on them. And in the event I was interested in what Philips did here for this bulb, I can look at their advertising brochures for this bulb, and (having read the Philips materials) which are better done than that Extremetech article.
rprasad 14y ago
Who would have thought that a technology aggregation site would include an article about how a particular item of technology works?

dman 14y ago

I am a bit intrigued by the number of extremetech articles that make it to the front page.

coin 14y ago
I really hate reading extremetech on an iPad. It loads up a mobile versio of the site, which is slow, unzoomable, and not back button friendly.
mikexstudios 14y ago
Yeah, it is quite concerning. maxko87's submit history is full of extremetech links...
- benologist 14y ago
  maxko87 has an auto-submitter for extremetech stuff: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wMnxadUXbcIJ:https://github.com/maxko87/hn-submit+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wMnxadU... evo_9 is another weird account that does a lot of extremetech although he really looks like he's on Ars Technica's payroll more than theirs: http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=evo_9 http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=evo_9 They also have at least one employee submitting: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mrsebastian http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mrsebastian

rrrazdan 14y ago

And to think that yellow light is not a concern from where I come from(India). People associate it as the poor cousin of the 'better' bluish white light.