It may be that OLED will be the future.

Flat panels that can be adjusted to any colour or pattern. At only 2-3 mm thick they can go on any surface. The only issue is getting the price down. Extreme mass production should help on that score.

CC

I bought some cheap energy saving bulbs. They took an eternity to warm up and the light they gave off was poor.

Having just moved into a new house I replaced all the old bulbs with energy savers - but good ones this time - and the results on the whole are much better. I tend to use the 7w bulbs mainly and although they're not quite as bright they suit me fine. Plus some of the light fittings are the multiple bulb affairs which helps.

My main problem is every fitting in the house is a dimmer which are now useless with the current bulbs I've fitted. I'd like to get rid of the dimmers anyway, one of them makes a buzzing a hive of bees would be proud of.

This topic reminded me of an offer in Dunelm. They had Phillips energy saving bulbs (might have been 7 or 11w, cant remember) and they were £1 each or 5 for 50p. WHAT???? Bizarre.

It truly is ridiculous to replace inefficient light bulbs with mercury-filled ones.



Yup. My PhD is on that theme you can get pretty much any definition of "white"out of the new polymers (the preferred CIE coordinates change with country, you have to produce a slightly different colour for each region!)

They're not 2mm thick; the active layer structure is only ~200 nanometres, the rest is the glass/plastic you print it on to.

We haven't noticed any reaction to TVs or monitors, but she does have a problem with the sun. Not sure about fluorescent tubes though. I'll ask her when I speak to her next.

That's the same issue we have with ours. But they cost a bomb so I'm not replacing them.

We're lucky that we have enough in each room to provide enough light once they've finally warmed up.

I've only had warming up issues with the cheap ones. The expensive I've found to be much better.

That may well be the case, but I'm in no financial position it kit out the entire house with new energy saving bulbs when they won't save any more money compared to the existing ones.
The only rooms that still don't have energy efficient bulbs are the kitchen and bedroom. Now I've been shown a long for warm (yellowish) white LED bulbs I can think about changing them. But that's still seventeen bulbs at at least a fiver each. I really wish the previous owner of our should hadn't used lots of down lights.