Felix Stark's Bulb 2.0

I mentioned a few days ago in a post about Vincent Gerkens' Blight – the solar collecting, illuminating mini-blinds.  The contest that Blight is competing in, the Core77 Design Competition, has a good amount of lighting-related devices.  One of those devices is Bulb 2.0 by Felix Stark.  Felix's design is a compact fluorescent with a twist – a new shape, flat, innovative, and visually appealing.  It's certainly better than the plain ol' shape of the CFL, yes?

From the contest site:

Bulb 2.0 is an energy-saving lamp which goes far beyond the traditional light bulb. Thus it becomes a modern element of design outshining the ordinary energy-saving lamp often perceived as unattractive.

Now for the record, I enjoy the things I write about here on JimOnLight.com, and I like Bulb 2.0 – it's a design for a standard source that is different – I'd love to have a few of these in my space!  It's a source that really could be used without a shade in some applications due to its appearance – it appears designed for just that purpose!

I would ask the designer about his thought process about this lamp – without being terribly critical, the design of a typical CFL to this Bulb 2.0 CFL is like comparing a coiled coil filament FEL lamp and an older BTL lamp.  Notice the difference in filament shape and orientation:

FEL lamp – coiled coil filament

BTL lamp – linear coil configuration

There are two very important differences in these two lamps – one has a long coil that is coiled into a helix shape (the FEL) and the other has six small coils that are in a linear placement – also called a planar filament.  If you consider the surface areas in total between these two lamps, which would you assume would put out more light?

If you said the coiled coil filament, you'd be right – the simple physics of the coil put off more light in all directions – omnidirectional, if you will.  With the planar filament, of course you're going to get light in all directions – but with less accuracy than having a true omnidirectional filament, like the coiled coil.  With about 1/15 the filament surface area on the sides, you're not going to get much light emanating from those two areas on the sides.  CFLs are designed like the coiled coil – like a standard A type lamp, very omnidirectional. Bulb 2.0 is shaped like a planar filament.

Don't get me wrong – Bulb 2.0 is form.  It's interesting, it's different, and I like it.  It's not as functional as the standard CFL "corkscrew" shape – but perhaps the form has overcome the function in Bulb 2.0 – I'd be interested in pinning Bulb 2.0 and a regular CFL against each other in a lumens contest.  I'd still buy a few – I'm a lighting nerd.

Check out Felix Stark's Bulb 2.0.  Vote for him too, if you wish.