Newswatch – Is induction lighting a gamble worth taking?
The $19 million question is will the new entrant succeed where all other attempts have failed? The Finally Light Bulb Company has already accepted $19m from various venture capitalists to help develop what the company claims is the first energy-efficient A type light bulb that makes use of induction technology to replicate the popular glow of incandescent bulbs.
Finally’s 60 Watt, 800-lumen A19 light bulb, which claims to incorporate the same classic design of an incandescent bulb, provides for an affordable price tag the energy-efficiency performance levels consumers currently clamour for while producing light quality that LED and CFL bulbs seem incapable of delivering.
Initially it is hard to see why venture capitalists would not want to lay their money down on a product that claims to turn on instantly, just like a traditional incandescent bulb yet claims to be 75% more energy efficient than an incandescent.
Then consider the pedigree of induction lighting which was originally brought to life by German inventor Johann W. Hittorf who made the first induction lamp as long ago as 1884. Indeed throughout history some of the biggest names in science have contributed to induction lighting’s progress. In the 1880s JJ Thompson (yes the one who discovered the electron) developed induction lamps for use in studying electromgnetic fields while in 1893 Nikola Tesla (an enfant terrible of physics) illuminated the world of induction technology with his demonstration of an induction lamp powered by a ‘Tesla Coil’ electromagnetic field. Big names help bring in big money.
Add to this the fact that in the 1990s lighting industry stalwarts such as Philips (the QL series) and GE (the Genura range) attempted to introduce induction lighting to the masses and you can see that the concept has it attractions.
The Finally Light Bulb Company start-up also helped to attract investors by bringing on-board some experienced engineering talent including Dr. Victor Roberts, the former Head of Lighting Research at General Electric and Dr. Walter Lapatovich, formerly of Osram Sylvania. From an engineering perspective the downsizing of induction technology to fit within an A19 envelope has been impressive.
However, history has not been too kind induction lighting innovations over the years so why will The Finally finally succeed where others have failed?
Well the company claims that its exclusive Acandescence lighting technology uses a copper coil rather than a tungsten filament or an electrode to generate light and the new lamp initially looks a cheaper alternative to conventional LED alternatives. However, there are a number of niggling questions surrounding the Finally solution. A key one seems to be that the Finally bulb still needs a small amount of mercury in solid form to operate effectively. The amount of mercury is claimed to be so small that the bulb can be disposed of in landfills but if you were a retailer would you want to risk selling or handling a product containing any mercury?
Add to this a quick look at the photometric charactristics section of the new bulbs spec sheet is disappointing for a device that says it offers a warm, incandescent-like light. Finally’s lamp claims a CRI rating of only 83 which does not compare favorably with A19 60 Watt LED specs already available on the market Cree (CRI 93), Philips (CRI 92) and LEDnovation (CRI 94) to mention a few. Similarly the efficacy performance of the Finally product is 55 compared with its LED rivals’ ratings – Cree (CRI 59), LEDnovation (CRI 86) and Philips (CRI 94). Finally’s lamp has a Lumens rating of 800 which matches Cree but is a lot less than the Philips device which puts out 940 lumens.
Returning to the $19 million question, Finally seems to have done well to develop an induction light bulb with specs that are just about competitive compared with their much bigger LED rivals but will it earn a return on the investment? At the moment Finally obviously has an uphill struggle to break into the mass market especially as the big players in LED lighting market are working hard to bring prices down. With a relatively inexperienced management team it will be interesting to see whether this induction lighting entrant can improve its performance spec sheet sufficiently to remain competitive over the longer term. Otherwise it may remain a niche player and merely add another interesting footnote in the chequered history of induction lighting.
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