Rambus: From dark to light (bulb)

1/12/2013 10:33 AM EST

From high-speed IO king to bulbs???

1/12/2013 2:36 PM EST

Companies have to market the products they can to compete. If they really have an advantage in their bill of materials, they will become a market leader in the LED bulbs. As soon as they are as cost effective as the CFL, I will be a customer.

1/12/2013 6:53 PM EST

Nice LED bulb. I'm all for them. Reducing the BOM is indeed what it's all about, when it comes to LED lighting.

But let's talk about that tablet, and how supposedly I would need it, along with a peer-to-peer protocol running between tablet and some extra box attached to the TV (or some other smarts in the TV set), to make my TV into an Internet TV. Come now. Less is more.

With a PC acting as set-top box, or alternatively a processor and browser built into the TV itself, I am able to do what was being demonstrated, without the tablet, without the peer to peer protocol, and without whatever extra box was needed, connected to the TV, to allow the tablet to talk to the TV. Sure, I'm using a PC as STB, because the CE companies give me no choice. But why insist on a rube goldberg design for something that's so simple?

I watched your video full screen, on my HDTV, sitting on the couch, and am now typing this, with wireless keyboard on my lap. If I had that tablet's software in the PC, or something similar, I could use nothing more than the wireless mouse for all the searching and browsing he was doing by pawing at the tablet. What could be easier?

And it was instructive to see all those greasy fingerprints on the tablet's screen! Paws off my TV, please!

1/13/2013 1:55 AM EST

Interesting to know that the product would cost less than any other bulb on the market. I really hope they will launch the product world-wide rather than limiting the release to North-America.

1/13/2013 11:07 AM EST

Interesting that a newcomer sees ways to significantly reduce cost. I hope it's not a "grass is greener over there" solution.
Open top to reduce thermal sounds strange, normally hot air flows up and most of my lamps are pointing down (although I would like a 70-ies style disco floor).

1/13/2013 9:46 PM EST

" to license technology and patents when appropriate, but also to bring that into product"

In my mind, this takes Rambus far outside of the patent troll world. Whether they are successful or not remains to be seen, but actually making use of patents fits with their ultimate purpose. That's a lot different than buying up someone else's paper and then trying to find people to bully into paying a license fee.

1/14/2013 10:38 AM EST

"how to make a better light bulb!" If and when fluorescent bulbs are banned in the US, LED will become even more prevalent. For the moment, fluorescent bulbs are quite inexpensive (50 cents each or so). Can LED bulbs compete? Well, if the 50 cent flashlights are an indicator, the answer is yes! Their "light pipe" looks to be quite inexpensive. If that's the area of their IP, then perhaps they have something... The demo was very good (obviously dimmable)

1/14/2013 10:40 AM EST

Never doubted they have good engineers.
Just did not want to buy anything from them with such a dirty business model.
Maybe they decide to change their habits having seen light!

1/14/2013 10:41 AM EST

WRT tablets. Talking about Google TV using an IPAD. lol. Also, it was humorous that the camera angle showed so much finger smearing on the screen.. Definitely needs to get to a TV!

1/14/2013 10:57 AM EST

Paint 'em any way you want, they will always be a patent troll at heart.

That aside, When I see anything LED in commercial lighting products, all I think of measured amounts of arsenic, lead, and mercury being dumped into our landfills. Yet these "green" lights are shoved down the public's throats under the guise of being "environmentally responsible".

I would venture to say that by definition of "LED", there must be these toxic materials in this new bulb,unless Rambus re-invented that too, but there is no mention of it so I assume not. I will stick with traditional old fashioned bulbs until they either don't make them anymore, or until a truly non-toxic, more efficient form of lighting evolves.

I doubt that even making a convenient waste collection method would stop the majority of people from just tossing non-functioning bulbs in the trash can. As far as I know, not much of an attempt has been made to educate the public about this, other than printing a warning on the bulb's packaging when new (which gets discarded at the beginning of the bulb's service life so is not of much use).

1/14/2013 1:28 PM EST

Light bulb standardization committees you have been warned ...

1/14/2013 10:47 PM EST

RAMBUS wants to present the idea that they are just wanted to be helpful but the reality is they make money by creating patents on anything they can slide by the patent office. There are numerous other players making LED lighting and I am sure the others are smart enough to persue minimal part count as a cost savings measure. Light guides are nothing new, everyone is looking at how they can get to light generated out to the space to be lit.

RAMBUS is trying to make sure they have patents on any method someone might use to improve LED lighting so they can make money off the companies who are actually doing real engineering work and producing real products. LED lighting is not going to be most cost completitive by adding licensing fees into the mix.

1/14/2013 10:58 PM EST

I see one significant issue: dust. If the bulb faces upwards, this open bulb will be a dust collector. Traditional convex bulbs get a little dust that either rolls off or offends the homeowner enough to dust it off. Here the dust will be hidden inside in the heat generating cavity... At best it will insulate and cause overheating. At worst?

1/15/2013 2:36 PM EST

Oh great, yet another light bulb .... How many companies think they can actually be successful in this market? How many companies, established and otherwise are already competing for space on Home-Depot's shelf?

Big market? Yes. Commoditized quickly with rapidly falling margins ... yes too. There are so many more interesting markets for LED lighting.

1/17/2013 12:32 AM EST

Replace the common light bulb is not the best use of LEDs as it make heat dissipation a real challenge and as DrQuine points out with RAMBUS's design the dust will get into the places you can't get it out of.

New Fixtures with plenty of room to dissipate not only the heat from the LEDs but from the controlling circuits would promote greater reliability without resorting to patented (added cost) methods. But every LED based fixture I have seen on the market of any substantial light output is substantially higher in price than other fixtures of a similar capacity.

I currently have 20 LEDs bulbs of various types running in my home. Every time a bulb burns out it gets replaced with an LED light. But I have had two failures that occured in less than 6 months. The latest one lasted about 3 weeks and damaged the light socket from the heat when it failed and produced enough smoke and smell to make my wife feel unsafe with the bulbs.

If a lower voltage and lower maximum current flow power source were available in the home (say 48VAC 10A MAX) to drive the LED lighting it would make the electrics for the fixture more reliable and reduce the potential damage in cases like I experienced.

Rewiring houses with 48VAC may not be cost effective but new business buildings where lighting costs are a major concern and the cost of wiring the fixutres is already substantial may be a feasible.

I would rather pay licensing fees for more efficent LEDs than for specially shaped housing that a manufacturer claims will improve light output.

1/18/2013 1:27 PM EST

Everyone is chasing a market that does not exist until these bulbs become commodity priced.

and then the margins avialable will not light up the eyes of investors at companies like rambus.

2/3/2013 9:47 AM EST

how does this compare with price to other LED bulbs? www.tradexguru.com