Comments on: The Next Apple Will Be Found In LED Lighting

By: Otis11

Otis11 — Mon, 27 May 2013 21:08:00 +0000

First, given that we know LED technology is going to explode, we still have to choose which company will be a success, so it’s still not an obvious investment deal.

Second, the major difference I see with LED lighting – LED lights last 25 years or more where as the majority of Apple users buy a new Apple product every 18-36 months, once someone buys all the LEDs for their house, it’ll be 25 years before they make another purchase.

The major other reasons have already been posted by others, so I’ll leave it at that.

Good article, but the premise of comparing it to Apple is severely flawed. Still worth the read though

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:57:00 +0000

I doubt you could keep others from building connectivity into their bulbs.

And I sort of doubt that many people would pay much extra for a bulb they could turn on/off with their phone. Most of us don’t call ahead when we go to the bathroom….

By: patb2009

patb2009 — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:51:00 +0000

i love LED lighting, but, i kind of doubt there will be a huge high margin, high growth company here. currently 90% of all lighting fits in 2 or 3 standard interfaces. (Edison, T-8 and Bayonet). That means while you can have a cool product, people can follow close behind. Apple sustained high margins because the iPod, iPhone, MAC, all had a closed eco-system. Also the cost of entry was low but the cost of exit was high. You could buy an iPod, but once you started buying songs on iTunes, you were sort of hosed.

the only possibility is if you put in super smart LEDs with a proprietary control interface, so all teh whizzy features were driven by a smart phone. There you would have a dominant interface.

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:29:00 +0000

LED technology will take over, right. It’s far from obvious that any one vendor will make a killing, since no company has a lock on the core IP. It could easily look like Wintel PCs and solar PV panels, low-margin quasi-commodities.