Last week the Wall Street Journal noted that light-emitting diode (LED) technology has now reached the point that LED lights will begin to show up more and more in daily life. According to the article, "prices for LEDs on the market today can be more than five times what an incandescent bulb costs. However, the LEDs use about 85 percent less energy and last 30 times longer. They also use about half as much energy and last five times longer than compact fluorescent lights."
The article also offered an interesting look at how LED makers are managing the adoption curve on this promising yet still expensive technology. Quite rightly, they are first targeting commercial and industrial customers whose jobs-to-be-done involve leaving lights on most or all of the time, and have to pay time and labor costs to change bulbs. "Longer-lasting lights that use less energy thus offer them significant savings over time," notes the article. "Then, as sales increase, creating economies of scale and bringing down production costs and prices, the industry will expand its marketing to residential customers in a push that many observers expect will make LEDs the lighting of choice for years to come." The article's well worth reading, as it goes into much more detail about strategies for driving wider adoption of LEDs.
The illustration at top left shows one of the places in the consumer market LEDs have begun appear widely: Christmas lights. In the context of the adoption strategy the article describes, this makes perfect sense — people generally leave their Christmas lights on for long stretches of time and certainly don't want to have to change bulbs often.