OLEDs have a lot of potential for awesomeness, like putting a flexible screen on your holiday sweaters. Well, maybe that’s a bad example. These prototype light fixtures developed by Philips, on the other hand, are significantly better ones.
As Dietmar Thomas of Philips Lumiblade explains:
OLED is the first light source that is a surface light source. All other lights sources are point light sources, starting with the flame, the candle and going up to the light bulb and the LED. For the first time you don’t need a system to spread the light. The system is built-in.
And that fact, along with the thin form factor allows for all kinds of weird installations you couldn’t (or wouldn’t want to) make with strandard light bulbs. Everything from pulsating light walls to fixtures that actually are your ceiling.
For the moment, OLED lights tend to be prohibitively expensive, especially if all they’re doing is acting like a light bulb and looking cool, but Thomas is confidant the prices will fall quite a bit in the next five years, making these kinds of setups far more affordable. The sooner we can all get trippy, flashing light displays for living room raves, the better. [Dezeen]