Your Guide to Lighting

Lighting technology has improved dramatically over the past 10 years. Due to major inefficiency, many governments are phasing out traditional incandescent bulbs, banning both manufacturing and sales. Consumers must now opt for more energy efficient forms including Halogen, CFL (Compact Fluorescent) and LED (Light Emitting Diode).

An improved form of traditional incandescent lighting, Halogen bulbs are considered slightly more efficient therefore remain widely available for purchase, but a significant amount of the electricity used to power Halogen filament technology is converted to heat rather than light resulting in a lot of wasted energy.

As Pictured Above: The Buds Table Lamp from Foscarini

Simple and cheap to manufacture, a Halogen bulb has a typical lifespan of only 750-1000 hours; however, A CFL bulb is 67-80% more efficient at converting electricity into visible light by energising a combination of argon gas and mercury vapour with an electric current, creating UV light energy that is then converted to visible light when absorbed by the phosphor coating of the CFL bulb.

Although expensive to produce and necessary to dispose of properly due to non-eco-friendly chemicals, CFL bulbs can last up to 10,000 hours making it a cost-effective light source in terms of output and long-term savings.

LED technology is widely considered the most energy-efficient and economical light source by far, using roughly 90% less energy than a Halogen bulb. Despite the high initial cost, LED is unaffected by frequent operation and has a lifespan of at least 50,000 hours.

Executed by an electric current passing through a semiconductor, this can be easily controlled to offer a variety of LED colour temperatures ranging from a soft warm white to a crisp bright daylight, providing a highly energy efficient lighting solution for any room of the house.