Environment

Has fluorescent still got it? The Baby Plumen 001 certainly thinks so

Has fluorescent still got it? The Baby Plumen 001 certainly thinks so
The Baby Plumen is better suited to regular lightbulb duties than its elder sibling
The Baby Plumen is better suited to regular lightbulb duties than its elder sibling
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The Baby Plumen is better suited to regular lightbulb duties than its elder sibling
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The Baby Plumen is better suited to regular lightbulb duties than its elder sibling
The Baby Plumen 001, naked as the day it was born
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The Baby Plumen 001, naked as the day it was born
The Baby Plumen 001 in Muuto's Cosy Lamp
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The Baby Plumen 001 in Muuto's Cosy Lamp
How the Baby Plumen measures up to the original
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How the Baby Plumen measures up to the original
The Baby Plumen is better suited to regular lightbulb duties than its elder sibling
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The Baby Plumen is better suited to regular lightbulb duties than its elder sibling
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With the release of Baby Plumen 001, a shrunken version of its award-winning Plumen light bulb, Hulger is making a clear statement that the humble fluorescent light bulb isn't ready for the trash just yet.

Shrunken down to 158 x 74 x 70 mm (6.2 x 2.9 x 2.8 in) the Baby Plumen puts the range nearer more comfortable lightbulb territory, so that the bulb can be used in combination with shades and fittings. The original Plumen 001 was billed more as a complete light fitting in itself.

"The Baby Plumen 001 works like any other high quality low energy bulb, saving you 80 percent on your energy bills and lasting 8 times longer than a standard incandescent bulb," claims Hulger, as if all energy-saving lightbulbs are the same.

As for performance, Hulger puts it this way:

"It is a 9w bulb, which is the equivalent of a 40W incandescent (so 435 lumen)."

Rather than an absolute statement of lumen output, the 435 lumens may be a ballpark figure based on the assumed 9-W fluorescent equivalency to a 40-W incandescent lightbulb. Obtaining precise lumen output information can be a big ask for smaller manufacturers.

If on the money, this would give the Baby Plumen 001 an efficacy of about 48 lumens/W, which falls short of the best LED light bulbs of recent years, such as Switch Lighting's with its performance of 100 lumens/W.

The Baby Plumen is better suited to regular lightbulb duties than its elder sibling
The Baby Plumen is better suited to regular lightbulb duties than its elder sibling

Still, the Baby Plumen is not the high-powered workhorse that a 100-W-equivalent LED lightbulb is intended to be. A 9-W power consumption is small by any yardstick, and lumen count is less of a deal when it comes to the sort of mood lighting to which the Baby Plumen is best suited.

Its lifetime of 8,000 hours may also fall short of LED technology, but it's by no means unhealthy.

The Baby Plumen was developed with input from designer Samuel Wilkinson, and will be launched in a 220-V version in Europe later this month, priced at £18.95 and €28.95 (US$37). A 120-V version for the USA will launch later this year.

Source: Hulger, via The Guardian

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4 comments
4 comments
Pikeman
If you are generating the electricity with coal fluorescent light bulbs might put less mercury into the environment but the light is lousy and compact fluorescent light bulbs have been demonstrated to have voids in the phosphorous allowing the release of dangerous levels of UV radiation.
It would have been so much better to have just universally adopted nuclear electrical generation and used cheep safe incandescent light bulbs
Yusuf Khan
@Pikeman That is not the solution and neither is the Plumen. We need to think about sustainable living so LEDs are the way to go becuase they last so long and the efficiency of an incadescent is embarrasing. Even though I believe nuclear energy is the key to the future, we will still need to save energy after the world is being powered by uranium because it is not an unlimited resource(yes I know that there is billions of tons of it in the sea but people once thought fossil fuels were plentiful as well.)
Hopefully the price of LEDs will drop so they can be seen as a more reasonable alternative but one problem LEDs will always have is the uni-directional light.
bergamot69
I think the way forward is Induction Lighting- which is electrodeless and is extremely efficient, and is claimed to be the longest-lived light source. Only problem is possible electro-magnetic field issues in it's vicinity, but that could easily be overcome by using it to power fibre-optic lighting- which has the advantage of being able to be placed anywhere, such as under water or in parts of the ceiling that are likely to become almost inaccessible.
Pikeman
re; Yusuf Khan
There are more nuclear fuels than just uranium and more benefits to cheap power than safe cheap light bulbs. It could easily provide the power to transition to a truly long term power source such as orbital solar.