As LED technology matures, it’s being embraced in a way unlike anything before it. The diodes last longer and draw less power than other light sources. Technical benefits aside, LEDs can also be implemented into unconventional forms much more easily than incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. Get ready for some crazy lighting designs.
Although there are some wonderful industrial features, such as the way the lamp moves along the X and Y axes, Jake Dyson’s LED lamp design is actually built around the concept of maximising the lifespan of the LED light. Spanning the length of the horizontal bar is a copper heat pipe which takes heat away from the LED components, the most common life shortener of the diodes. Image: Jake Dyson
When you have a newish technology, why not revisit an old form? Switch lighting’s beautiful bulb is all about easing us into the future. Not only it fit in a standard socket and emit a light comparable to incandescent bulbs, the form is something familiar to us all, which makes change easier to accept. Image: Switch Lightbulbs
Can you imagine shoving a bunch of tiny incandescent bulbs in Rux’s tree-inspired Stickbulb lamp? Anyone interested in the current trends of furniture design will surely appreciate the angular lines of this one. Image: stickbulb
One of the best things about LEDs are how flat you can make a light fixture and still have it emit a sufficient amount of light. Peter Stathis’ Symtra Lamp may not be paper thin in its final form, but each of its panels show what LEDs can be compressed down into. Light wall, anyone? Image: mocoloco
OLEDs are to LEDs what human beings are to neanderthals. Simply put, it’s an evolution of the technology, which has added benefits, such as the ability to more easily fit in a flexible form factor, exemplified by Gergő Kassai’s Motion Lamp. Image: behance
Because LEDs use considerably less power than other light sources, a solar panel is actually a realistic way to power a lamp. Ikea’s Sunnan lamp is a perfect example as to how one goes about creating a product for normal humans that’s also tech-forward and good for the planet. Image: IKEA
Zwei21’s strips the lamp down to its most essential components, using a spidery wire attachement to prop the light up and letting a couple of extra power outlets hang off the fixture like a hydra. The LED-specific tech may not be anything innovative, but the fixture does get bonus points for its tasteful use of copper. Image: zwei21