Touchless Soap Dispenser? Seriously?

[leehljp]

It's interesting that your LED bulbs are so much cheaper but the incandescent are 6-10x the cost compared to over here. Is there a surcharge on non-LED/CFL bulbs?

Japan is moving fast to eliminating the incandescent bulbs and they are trying hard to eliminate the fluorescent screw-in bulbs due to "ecological" or "green" issues. The ecological and green issues are driving this surge. Japan is very big on recycling, green etc and the government is pushing it hard too.

I can't go into even my small neighborhood home center without seeing more space dedicated to the LEDs than that the other two kinds combined. I think the mass producing plus the green and gov. push is what is driving the prices down. Now to be honest, there are some LED bulbs that are in the $20.00 range but I don't even bother to look at those.

EDITED: I just re-read your question. There is not a surcharge that I know of, but there could be. I don't want to cast a negative image on the US mentality but Japanese as a whole don't go for the cheap - replace every other month type of bulb that drives even good manufacturers in the US to cheapen their bulbs to be competitive. The average incandescent bulbs here have always seemed to be a higher quality and last longer. And these are the everyday bulbs from the local home centers. Until I replaced the bulbs in our US home with fluorescent screw-ins in 2005, even the good Wally world bulbs were replaced on an average of at least twice a year and often 3 times or so per year. Incandescents over here would go 2 years or more per bulb for us. I think it is the quality that drives the cost of the incandescents and fluorescents up over here.

[jackellis]

The incandescent bulbs produce mostly heat. LEDs produce mostly light.

We have track lighting with halogen bulbs. I like the track lighting and hate the haolgen bulbs. We also have ceiling fans in our great room with fluorescent bulbs. Three of the four in one fixture have failed in the last year. I need to replace the failed ones this week and am not looking forward to the task.

I don't know what Hank pays but at one point, electricity in Japan for a residence cost something like 24 cents per kWh. The average in California right now is around 16 cents. It's less in most other US locations. If you can save money on the light and on summer cooling, LEDs make a lot of sense.

I don't mind the light from CFLs but I do mind the risk of mercury contamination and the relatively high failure rate given how much they cost. By the end of next year, LEDs will likely become cheap enough to start displacing CFLs, and then I will start changing bulbs out.

[os1kne]

We have track lighting with halogen bulbs. I like the track lighting and hate the haolgen bulbs. We also have ceiling fans in our great room with fluorescent bulbs. Three of the four in one fixture have failed in the last year. I need to replace the failed ones this week and am not looking forward to the task.

I've had a similar experience of CFL bulbs not lasting as long as expected in ceiling fan fixtures. I'm pretty sure that the vibration of the fan is to blame (the other CFL bulbs in my home have lasted much longer than the incandescents, I haven't had to replace any due to normal use). I don't know if the LEDs would do much better in a ceiling fan fixture.