The Light that Never Dies: Jake Dyson's 40-Year Lightbulb

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Over the last few years, rapid technological advances in the space of electronics and electrical devices has seen the emergence of a large market of consumers of electronics and electrical goods. However, the flipside to this is the staggering increase in electronic waste -- while global electronic waste generated was estimated to be around 33.8 million tonnes in 2010, by 2019 that figure had reached an alarming 53.6 million metric tonnes. Apart from electronics like computer equipment, discs, hard drives, and so on, another almost-overlooked contributor to electrical waste is the light bulb -- especially CFL lights, fluorescent bulbs, and tubelights, which although require less energy to run than the incandescent bulb, also contain mercury and need to be disposed of carefully and in a responsible manner.

But what if we didn’t have to change light bulbs periodically? What if we could have a light bulb that never fails, that lasts a lifetime? That’s exactly what Jake Dyson has accomplished with his invention, the Ariel LED light that is designed to last upto 40 years before anything in it needs to be replaced.

Revealed in May 2015, the Ariel LED light was an invention that Jake Dyson had spent countless hours perfecting. Dyson wanted to create a light solution that would be built to last a long time, with minimum external interference. Using unique heat tube and advanced optics technologies, the Ariel LED light directs light towards a particular focus area, with minimal heat dissipation and minimal shadow generation. However, what is truly impressive about the Ariel LED light is its efficiency and capacity for rigorous use -- currently, Dyson estimates that the Ariel LED light can run at full power for roughly 180,000 hours, which is approximately 40 years of 12-hour usage. This is a feat that Dyson achieved by studying and experimenting with the behaviour of LED lights in certain temperatures, through which he found that the longevity of LED lights can be drastically improved by maintaining a particular constant temperature. This is why the Ariel LED Light militantly operates at a constant temperature of 55 degrees Centigrade, which is achieved by employing pipes to redirect heat away from the light source.

While Jake Dyson’s motivation to create a long-lasting lighting solution was to disrupt the current practice of designing LED lights to fail after 5-7 years of use, the environmental effects of the widespread use of the Ariel LED Light seems to be an immensely promising and sustainable lighting solution. By doing away with the consumer pressure of replacing light bulbs periodically, something that is truly difficult to do regularly in commercial settings such as airports, museums, stadiums etc (which is where Dyson hopes to find an eager market for the Ariel LED Light), the Ariel LED Light could also significantly reduce the amount of e-waste generated annually, with older, less efficient lighting solutions and bulbs being phased out entirely.