X
Business

Dutch startup unleashes cutthroat LED bulb pricing

Lemnis Lighting is offering its 200-lumen Pharox BLU bulb, which gives off less light than a 40-watt incandescent bulb, for about $5.
Written by Heather Clancy, Contributor

ZDNet sister site SmartPlanet is reporting that a Dutch LED technology startup, Lemnis Lighting, has started selling some of its bulbs for around $5.

The bummer, as Kirsten Korosec reports, is that the current 200 lumen Pharox BLU bulbs at this price range are pretty weak: they give off less light than is created by a 40-watt incandescent bulb. Plus you have to buy it off the Web site, so you'll have to pay for shipping. Still, you have to appreciate the company for trying this out, since most of the mainstream LED bulbs right now are priced at 8X that $5 number.

To be clear, there isn't an apples-to-apples comparison you can make on the pricetag, because the Lemnis offering is weaker than those offerings. But this could be an important development for an industry that is struggling to find the right pricepoint with consumers. When I conducted a quick poll about this topic a few weeks ago ("Are LED lightbulbs priced too high?"), 52 percent of the respondents indicated that bulbs needed to be priced below $10 to get their notice. Another 29 percent said the pricepoint needed to be less than $20.

Related stories:

Editorial standards