A wired house, consumes less electricity?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pengwuino
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Electricity
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the concept of a wired lighting system for homes, exploring its potential benefits in energy consumption and convenience. Participants share ideas about existing technologies, personal preferences regarding lighting, and the efficiency of various types of light bulbs, including compact fluorescents and linear fluorescents.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • One participant proposes a wired lighting system that could allow homeowners to monitor and control lights from a central panel, suggesting it could save energy.
  • Another participant mentions existing smart home technologies that can control lights and appliances, indicating that such systems are already available.
  • Some participants express skepticism about the practicality and cost-effectiveness of rewiring a home for such a system.
  • There are discussions about the efficiency of compact fluorescent lights, with some participants arguing they are not very efficient and suggesting alternatives like T5 and Super T8 lights.
  • Concerns are raised about the quality of light from fluorescent bulbs, with participants sharing personal experiences regarding eye strain and depth perception issues associated with fluorescent lighting.
  • Some participants challenge the claims about fluorescent lights, suggesting that the issues may not be as pronounced for everyone.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a mix of support and skepticism regarding the proposed wired lighting system. There is no consensus on the efficiency of compact fluorescent lights versus other types, and opinions vary on the subjective experience of fluorescent lighting quality.

Contextual Notes

Participants reference various lighting technologies and their associated costs, but there are unresolved assumptions about the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed systems. The discussion also highlights personal preferences and experiences that may not apply universally.

  • #31
Is it just me, or does anyone else here look to see if a light's on or off before leaving? That's like those women (you know who you are) who ***** about falling into the toilet because a guy left the seat up.
 
Computer science news on Phys.org
  • #32
Nah, only the older generation does that. The younger ones like me are brainwashed early on to turn everything off before leaving the room. It's like second nature. I love it :biggrin:.
 
  • #33
ShawnD said:
Nah, only the older generation does that. The younger ones like me are brainwashed early on to turn everything off before leaving the room. It's like second nature. I love it :biggrin:.

I guess I am impervious to brainwashing based on how much crap is left on downstairs. It really helps on those nights where you accidently fall asleep on a couch or something for a few hours and wake up at 3am and have eno idea what is going on. Going upstairs groggy and stupified as hell wouldn't be that bad if you just had one panel that you could just slap to turn everything off instead of hopin gto have hte presence of mind to turn everything off on your way up.
 
  • #34
I don't really understand the difficulty of turning off the lights in each room as you exit it.

I have similar trouble as ShawnD with things not looking right under fluorescent lighting. Everything looks dim to me...maybe it's a lack of contrast, I don't know, but I don't like dim lighting. I don't like those incandescent lightbulbs that make everything look blue either. I don't notice any flicker except on ones that are going bad, but then it drives me bonkers.
 
  • #35
I wonder if ShawnD's and Moonbear's problem might be a form of colour-blindness. Fluorescent lighting has a somewhat different spectrum from incandescent. Maybe something's missing that decreases their observed luminosity.
 
  • #36
I would highly doubt it's any form of color blindness. If anything, I think it might be that I'm very sensitive to subtle variations in colors (I'm one of those people who can look at 30 shades of beige and tell you the differences between every one of them). I also don't like incandescent lights on a dimmer that turn everything slightly yellow. I'd rather turn the lights completely off.
 
  • #37
I was actually thinking of perhaps missing one extreme or the other, or both, of the normally visible spectrum. For example: if you can't see indigo, and a light source of 'x' luminosity was missing red, then you would see it as dimmer than another source of 'x' luminosity that includes red. You're right that it probably isn't applicable, though. (Come to think of it, I'm not even sure that it makes sense.)

edit: Ooops, there goes my watch beeper. Time to log off, cash out, and go party. Catch you tomorrow.
 
Last edited:
  • #38
There have been studies done which show that school children perform much better at just about everything when the classrooms use all natural full spectrum light.

Are there any affordable full spectrum fluorescents on the market??
 
  • #39
Wavelength peakiness vs color temperature

ShawnD said:
The reason fluorescent lighting seems artificial is because blue light [...] isn't natural.
That is not true.
sizes.com/units/color_temperature.htm

While fluorescents across a broad spectrum of color temperatures can be selected from, those with low CRI ratings tend to be more peaky in their wavelength distributions. One solution to peakiness is to select a fluorescent lamp with a high CRI rating.
sizes.com/units/CRI.htm
 
  • #40
hitssquad said:
That is not true.
sizes.com/units/color_temperature.htm
While fluorescents across a broad spectrum of color temperatures can be selected from, those with low CRI ratings tend to be more peaky in their wavelength distributions. One solution to peakiness is to select a fluorescent lamp with a high CRI rating.
sizes.com/units/CRI.htm
Those two pages of that link seem to support ShawnD's claim, not refute it. On the second page, it says, "Natural daylight and any light source approximating a blackbody source (see color temperature) is assigned a color rendering index (CRI) of 100." Then in the table, it again shows that incandescent lights are rated 100, and the highest rated fluorescent light in that list is rated 86 (others are as low as 55). Hardly comparable to natural daylight.
 
  • #41
CRI is not a measure of color temperature.
 
  • #42
hitssquad said:
CRI is not a measure of color temperature.
But the color temperature page had nothing to indicate fluorescent light was the same as natural sunlight either, and instead made the contrast that it is not as continuous a spectrum as natural light. It was saying different sources of light are different in temperature.
 
  • #43
CRI vs color temperature

There is no such one single thing as "fluorescent light".


Moonbear said:
the color temperature page [said fluorescent light is] not as continuous a spectrum as natural light.
It does not say that. It says, "fluorescents [do] not resemble black body radiation."


Moonbear said:
It was saying different sources of light are different in temperature.
Yes. It has a table indicating that sunlights (contrary to ShawnD's claim, and except for low-azimuth instances) are bluish, that incandescents are orangish, and that fluorescents of varying designs run the gamut (from bluish to orangish: 6300K, 5200K, 5000K, 3400K, and 2950K).

ShawnD said that both daylight and incandescent lights are easy to see by at least partly because because neither are very blue. He was correct about the incandescents not being very blue.
 
  • #44
You people argue too much :-p
 
Last edited:
  • #45
What? You mean they have the flu?
 
  • #46
hitssquad said:
ShawnD said that both daylight and incandescent lights are easy to see by at least partly because because neither are very blue. He was correct about the incandescents not being very blue.
I thought he said fluorescents made things more blue, not less blue. :confused:
 
  • #47
Fluorescent lamps and incandescent lamps are different things

Moonbear said:
hitssquad said:
ShawnD said that both daylight and incandescent lights are easy to see by at least partly because because neither are very blue. He was correct about the incandescents not being very blue.
he said fluorescents made things more blue
That is correct. Fluorescent lamps and incandescent lamps are different things. Typically, fluorescent lamps are more bluish than incandescent lamps, and ShawnD said bluish light is hard to see by.

Fluorescent lamps look like this:
images.google.com/images?q=fluorescent+lamps

Incandescent lamps look like this:
images.google.com/images?q=incandescent
 
  • #48
I just went and got a burrito at the local 24hr Mexican drive thru. While I was sitting in line I looked up and saw the long flourescent tubes. they also had a fan above the door and from where I sat in my truck I could see through the spinning fan blades to the lights. outside the fan blades the light looked white, but through the fanblades it was blue, slowly changing to orange then slowly back to blue. first time I've ever seen a spinning fan give a prismatic effect.
also the first time I've ever been told that I owed cinco y cinco. which I thought was $5.05, but turned out was $5.25. I'll have to think about that for a little while.
 
Last edited:
  • #49
Just an addon here:
The bulbs used in the lamp I love so much are T3 78mm halogen bulbs. This light doesn't reflect too well. My room is sort of dim, and very relaxing :smile:
 
  • #51
Penguin, you bastard! I knew I should have quoted you before. Now my post doesn't make sense.
 

Similar threads

  • · Replies 13 ·
Replies
13
Views
6K
Replies
6
Views
4K
  • · Replies 30 ·
2
Replies
30
Views
6K
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
4K
  • · Replies 31 ·
2
Replies
31
Views
8K
  • · Replies 9 ·
Replies
9
Views
3K
Replies
11
Views
4K
Replies
11
Views
6K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
3K
  • · Replies 10 ·
Replies
10
Views
4K