Look For the Mark: Energy Star and Light Bulbs

Those Energy Star labels aren’t just for refrigerators! Did you know that light bulbs can be Energy Star rated as well? But not all of them are. Consumers looking for inexpensive alternatives in the course of making the shift to LEDs or CFLs may find themselves sold short by sacrificing quality for price. These bulbs are typically a bit more pricey than the incandescents and traditional fluorescents that buyers have grown used to, but they have two built-in benefits: with normal use, they can more than make up that difference in both longevity – meaning less frequent replacement; and energy efficiency, meaning lower power bills.

Energy Star bulbs are tested and certified to meet certain efficiency and lifespan requirements. If an unapproved, off-brand bulb burns out too soon, it’s not given a chance to pay back those extra dollars through 10 or more years of electric bill savings. Energy Star-approved bulbs also emit less heat, which can help lower home cooling costs. One further caveat: as newer bulbs hit the market, they may meet Energy Star standards, but not bear the approval yet. This is because bulbs need to be tested to meet minimum usage benchmarks, which for some of the latest models can reach into the hundreds of thousands of hours. This testing obviously can’t happen overnight, but once the standards have been met, these bulbs will receive approval. Your best bet? Visit our home page, and be sure to get in touch with any questions!

Earth Day and The July Bulb Switch

July is a way off, Earth Day is a bit closer, but it’s never too early to start planning – and we advocate energy efficiency year-round. Planning for what? As you’ve probably heard by now, you’ll be seeing some changes on the shelves when you shop for light bulbs, starting this summer. It’s a gradual phase-in, but something to be aware of. As a first step, companies will be ending production of traditional 100-watt incandescent bulbs in July, meaning that some of your options will be changing shortly after that.

GE’s website has all you need to know about replacement options, and we’ll sum them up here.

•  CFLs: Energy-efficient and long-lasting, these bulbs use 75% less power than incandescent.
•  Energy-efficient Halogen/Incandescents: Meet federal standards for efficiency while providing the closest light output to old incandescent.
• LEDs: Premium energy efficiency – these can last up to 22 years in your home!

Of course, we’re always here at Bulb Direct to answer any more questions you may have – just get in touch!

The Big Move: Just Another Challenge

Stop by Bulb Direct’s warehouse on any given day any you’ll see that we’re not just in the illumination business, we’re in the problem solving business. A medical lab needs lamp replacements in 2 days, a retail outlet is interested in switching over to CFL lighting but wants to learn more, and a home contractor is asking what’s going to happen to their 60-watt bulbs come July. Oh, and it’s lunchtime and the office was expecting sandwiches. Luckily, that’s just another day on the job for us, and our experience and ingenuity allow us to usher each challenge through to a timely and successful completion. Which keeps everyone happy, from our surgical customers to our hungry workers.

Earlier this year, we faced a different kind of challenge: after years of growth, we’d finally outgrown the warehouse we had called home since 1996. It was time for a move. As you might imagine, moving office equipment, computers, and people is hard enough, but we had one other issue to deal with: transporting our full inventory of over 100,000 light bulbs from the old warehouse to the new one. Although the move was just a few miles, it might as well have been cross-country: there’s no halfway solution for transporting fragile light bulbs, whether three miles or 3,000. We came up with a few ideas, but nothing that seemed time-effective, cost effective, or bulb-protective enough.

That’s when Tom Taylor, our Shipping and Purchasing Manager stepped in. As you can imagine, the guy in charge of shipping and purchasing might know a thing or two about moving bulbs. And sure enough, Tom came up with the elegant solution that we ended up choosing: treat our inventory racks themselves as giant shipping modules, lining the shelves with the plastic air pillows that have replaced bubble wrap as the insulation of choice. This way, the bulbs were well-protected and kept intact, and we didn’t have to go through the trouble of taking bulbs from the shelf, packaging them, moving them, and then re-shelving them – which may have led to a few breakages before the move even started. Using Tom’s method, we moved the entire warehouse without breaking a single bulb!

As we’ve settled in to our new facility, we haven’t missed a beat, and as always, we’re here to answer all your lighting questions!

More Than Lighting: A Look at Li-Fi

Most of our blog discussions here at Bulb Direct focus on issues of illumination – lumens, wattages, and the like. Of course, we’re also interested in the evolving technology of lighting, from CFLs to oLEDs, to name a few of the bulbs you’ve become familiar with over the past several months. This article  describes a completely new use for LEDs – not for illumination, and not for electronic displays. A German engineer has figured out a way to use LEDs to access the internet.

Of course, we’re lighting specialists here, but this development is just downright fascinating. And who knows, maybe one day you will, in fact, be planning your wireless connectivity and your home lighting hand-in-hand. The root of the technology is fairly simple, making use of the rapid and uniform on-off capabilities of LEDs: by rapidly flicking the diode on and off, binary code (the strings of “1”s and “0”s that make up the base of all data transmission) can be replicated and read by your laptop, cell phone, tablet, or other enabled device.

One of our biggest suppliers, Osram, actually supplied the LEDs used in similar research by Siemens: data was able to be transmitted over 5 meters (around 15 feet). A research facility in Berlin last year achieved 800Mbps transmission speeds using the technology, known as VLC (visible light communication). Your wireless at home likely hovers around 100Mbps. The speed is certainly impressive, but that first figure – the distance – may have given you pause. Fifteen feet is hardly enough to cover your whole home or office the way a wireless router can, and that’s one of the limitations of VLC – data can only be transmitted as far as the light is visible.

Li-fi, as it is called, will likely not completely replace existing wireless infrastructures. Rather, it can ease bandwidth burdens in homes and offices that are wired for it. One promising application of the technology is airplanes: rather than miles of hard-wiring within plane fuselages, li-fi could provide for less hardware, and lighter aircraft. It could also be the only option for planes constructed modularly, without the option for wiring.

This is a technology that we’ll definitely be keeping an eye on at Bulb Direct. We’ll be the first to let you know when we’re covering not only your lighting needs, but your internet access as well!

Rare Earth News Update, February 2012

Paydirt … the new refinery for rare earth metals being built
in Kuantan, Malaysia.  Photo: The New York Times

It’s been a little while since our last blog update on the rare earth crisis, but our regular readers – and bulb industry insiders – are probably familiar with the implications of limited access to those materials, like europium, yttrium, and dysprosium, and its effect on CFL manufacturing. The situation was thrust back into the spotlight recently, with the opening of a rare earth refinery in Malaysia finally occurring after months of delay, and news coverage from a number of outlets such from The Australian to the New York Times.

With this plant opening – and the reopening of debate over the viability and sustainability of rare earths – comes a perfect time to re-examine the importance of these materials to our industry. This article lays out some of the difficulties facing U.S. rare earth importers until at least 2015. With increasing interest in energy-efficient bulbs – and legislation to phase in a shift to CFLs on the horizon for the next several years – this predicted shortage most likely spells a crunch leading to lower supply and increased demand.

The opening of the Malaysian facility may provide some light at the end of this tunnel, as its goal is to increase competition with Chinese rare earth suppliers and ease some of the price burden on bulb manufacturers. As most articles about the opening have pointed out, though, there are significant questions about the safety and environmental responsibility of the refinery. Of course, Bulb Direct would not sacrifice price in favor of unsustainable and unsafe operations. Until the situation plays itself out, be sure to follow our social media sites and our blog to learn more about rare earths, CFLs, LEDs, and other illumination options. And as always, contact us with any questions!