Hasta La Gadget!

Throughout the years, a lot of things have evolved, including light bulbs. The latest of these is the SlimStyle by Philips, which is different from all the others because it’s a flat light bulb.

It’s still shaped like the typical light bulb, only it’s not as three-dimensional as you’re used to anymore.

The SlimStyle is covered by rubber and has LED lights arranged in a horseshoe shape on the inside. This configuration disperses heat throughout the bulb more efficiently than conventional LED bulbs, eliminating the need for aluminum heat sinks. This makes the flat light bulbs cheaper in comparison to the non-flat ones, and they’ll be priced below $10 when they finally hit the market.

The SlimStyle will go on sale today, January 2nd at The Home Depot, with the first bulbs offering the equivalent of a 60-watt incandescent for only 10.5 watts.

[via Mashable via Dvice]

When the power goes out, it’s terrible. Nothing works, and for some reason it’s impossible to remember that: I always find myself doing things like “well if I can’t watch TV I can at least read this book, I’ll just turn on the light…” and then nada of course. With SmartCharge, a new Kickstarter project, that might actually work, since it’s an LED bulb with a built-in power reserve that remains on uninterrupted when the rest of your power goes off.

The LED bulb component of SmartCharge fits standard light fixtures and cuts power usage by up to 90 percent vs. incandescents, and should last 25 years under normal usage conditions, if everything goes as predicted. When the power goes out, the SmartCharge bulb has a reserve battery built-in that’s good for up to four hours of lighting, which should be enough to weather most storms and brownouts.

The key to SmartCharge’s magic is that it recognizes and remembers the position of the light switch before the power outage, and then continues on again after the power returns as if nothing had ever happened. This smart switch position memory even works with two and three-stage lights, but there is a downside: It only works with one light in a series controlled by a single switch at the moment, though the founding team is sorting out a way it can work with a single switch that controls a whole bank of bulbs.

Founder Shailendra K. Suman previously started a successful propane gas tank metering company, as well as a lost item tracking gadget startup, and he has worked for Northern State Power in the past and has two degrees in engineering, so he knows a thing or two about brownouts and building things.

SmartCharge is seeking $50,000 in funding, and has already raised nearly $15,000 of that with 42 days left in the campaign. Backers qualify for a pre-order of a single SmartCharge bulb starting at $35, which is actually very reasonable when compared to the price of even basic, non-smart LED bulbs these days. Suman anticipates shipping to backers will begin in April next year.

Sometimes, you need light bulb. Other times, you need a flashlight. Giving you the best of both worlds is the Bulb Flashlight. As its name implies, it’s a light bulb and flashlight in one.

It sounds like a concept but it’s actually a real product that’s being sold by New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

The light bulb can last up to 60,000 hours when it’s attached to a lamp. That’s 2,500 days, 357 weeks, or close to six and a half years. Out of the lamp and as a flashlight, the device’s internal battery will give you up to three hours of illumination at a time.

These Bulb Flashlights will no doubt come in handy, especially during emergencies. You might want to install a couple of these in random lamps around your house, so you can just grab one and go when disaster strikes. Assuming you can manage to unscrew a light bulb in the dark.

The Bulb Flashlight is priced at $45(USD).

[via Gizmodo via Dvice]

Ah, lighting solutions in the home could prove to be something that you might want to look into if home improvement is your hobby. After all, the usual array of bulbs and lamps won’t make the cut these days if you want to stand out from the rest, so it makes perfect sense if you want something else that is unconventional, such as the $19.99 Tuggit Pullbulb. Yes sir, by the name itself, you can more or less figure out the direction of where the Tuggit Pullbulb is going.

The Tuggit Pullbulb is a battery-powered LED lightbulb (now that ought to get those pesky Greenpeace activists off your back for siding with the environment) which has been attached to a 4-foot long nylon rope. Turning it on and off is as simple as giving it a tug. Should it be on, tug it to switch it off, and vice versa. Yes, it is that easy, and I don’t suppose there is a need for a user manual to figure everything else out. Thing is, you ought to make sure that your home has at least a trio of spare AAA batteries lying around at all times to power it just in case the current batch of batteries run out of juice. It would be best to rely on rechargeables if you want to go the whole nine yards.

[ Tuggit Pullbulb copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]