EvoLux EarthLED

We love Green products that let you maintain or improve your quality of life while reducing the quantity of energy, water or other resources that you consume.

That's why we have long advocated the switch from incandescent bulbs to CFL bulbs like the Sylvania micro-mini Twist. It's also why we're thrilled to find that the latest generation of water-saving showerheads (like the one from Moen that we reviewed last month) do such a great job of giving you a satisfying shower experience while potentially reducing your water use by 30%.

One of the nice things about technology and competition is that companies are always looking for the next big improvement in efficiency that will make their products stand out from the pack.

In terms of lighting technology, the next Green frontier is clearly LED light bulbs.

We had a chance to test the new EarthLED EvoLux™ bulb. Billed by its manufacturer Advanced Lumonics as "The World's Most Advanced Light Bulb", the EvoLux bulb apparently uses just 13 watts of power to create the same light output as a 100-watt incandescent bulb.

For comparison sake, let's note that Sylvania recommends using the 23-watt version of its micro-mini Twist in order to replace an old-fashioned 100-watt incandescent bulb.

According to these figures, switching all your bulbs from incandescent to CFL would deliver more than 75% energy savings, while switching from CFL to LED would yield more than 40% additional energy savings (or better than 85% energy savings in comparison to the original incandescent bulbs).

Furthermore, LED bulbs have a couple other benefits over CFLs:

- CFL bulbs contain mercury. LED bulbs like the EvoLux are mercury-free. (It should be noted that CFL bulbs don't contain very mercury as explained in our post on the micro-mini Twist, but of course zero mercury is better than a little mercury in a household product.)

- Drop an incandescent bulbs and it will shatter. The same thing will happen with a CFL. By contrast, Advanced Lumonics says its LED bulbs will not shatter. Less shattering is a good thing in our book.

- LED bulbs should last longer than CFL bulbs, which themselves last longer than incandescent bulbs. I couldn't find an authoritative average lifetime figure for a 100-watt incandescent, but apparently such bulbs are so inefficient that they've actually been banned by the U.S. Congress. Still, the ban has not apparently taken place quite yet since Lowe's still carries 100-watt incandescent bulbs with a rated lifetime of 750 hours. The 23-watt CFL has an advertised lifetime of 12,000 hours. The LED does even better - Advanced Lumonics claims its EvolLux bulb will provide more than 50,000 hours of illumination!

- LEDs are cool. Literally. Incandescent bulbs use most of their energy making heat, not light. As a result, a 60-watt incandescent in a metal lamp creates a serious burn hazard. By contrast, the same fixture is cool to the touch when housing the 13-watt EvoLux bulb.

So why isn't everyone rushing to the store pell-mell to switch over to LED bulbs? Why aren't we all slashing our lighting energy bills by more than 85%?

In a word: Cost.

You can buy a two-pack of those pretty much disposable (and thanks to Congress, endangered) 100-watt incandescent bulbs for $2.38. That's $1.19 per bulb.

CFL bulbs have come down in price nicely over the past few years, but a two-pack of the 23-watt micro-mini Twist bulbs from Amazon will still set you back $13.75 or about $6.88 per bulb.

Are you sitting down? Good, because we don't want you to fall over when you hear that the 13-watt EvoLux S bulb will set you back $79.99 (and that's on sale from its previous price of $99.99)!

Now, you'll certainly make some of your upfront cost back in lower energy costs. Advanced Lumonics claims that the EvoLux S will cost you less than $6 per year (though we're not sure how many hours of illumination that assumes...). But even knowing that your LED bulb will last practically forever and that your energy costs will be miniscule, it's still challenging to plunk down so many Yuppie Food Stamps for a light bulb.

If I were a rich man, I'd not only "biddy biddy bum" all day long, I'd also go out and buy some EarthLED EvoLux bulbs for every room in my chateau.

But since I haven't come into money just yet, for now I'll have to settle for a single LED bulb that lets me see just how bright the future might be.

("How bright is the future?" you ask. Why, of course it's so bright that I've gotta wear shades.)

Where to buy:

You can order the EvoLux bulb (with or without dimmer capability) directly through the EarthLED website or through ThinkGeek.