Greg In The Desert

I was surpised to see LED lighting at Lowes, a brand called PerformanceLED.

I’ve been watching LED lighting become more popular over the years but haven’t been impressed with the light output. The PAR30 PerformanceLEDs from Lowes claimed a 75 watt incandescent equivalent light at 16 watts. Since they were nearly $70 and were not dimmable, I didn’t buy any. However sitting next to them were florescent PAR30 lamps.

The florescent lights claimed 75 watt incandescent equivalent light at 18 watts for $12. Other than claimed longer life, I can’t see what the advantage of LED lights over florescent. Also, the LED lights had giant aluminum heat sinks on them. I would have expected LEDs to covert even more energy to light than florescent instead of outputting heat. Isnt’ that the reason incandescents are so inefficient?

Smarthome has pre-released a few of dual band Insteon devices. These devices use the wired Insteon protocol and also broadcast and receive the wireless Insteon protocol. These devices also double as as an Access Point.

The new LampLinc also comes in a new housing with manual controls.

LampLinc – INSTEON Plug-In Lamp Dimmer Module (Dual-Band), 2-Pin Item# 2457D2 Price: $49.99

The INSTEON LampLinc Dimmer (Dual-Band) is a full-featured plug-in lamp dimmer that can be remotely controlled by a RemoteLinc, KeypadLinc, or any other INSTEON controller. This simple-to-use plug-in dimmer has advanced features like an adjustable ramp rate that slowly brings the lamp on, a preset dim level that stores your preferred choice of 32 brightness levels when turning the lamp on initially, as well as local control, so you can still use the lamp’s built-in switch to turn the light on and off. This LampLinc is made to be plugged into any wall outlet. This dimmer can control incandescent loads up to 300 watts.

There is also a dual band PowerLinc (PowerLinc – INSTEON USB Interface (Dual-Band) Item# 2413U Price: $99.99). I have no doubt that the remaining Smarthome Insteon devices will become dual band as well. While I think this is a great development, I really wish they would release a ceiling fan controller.