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Today, I want to show you a weird light bulb of the not-too-distant past.

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Ta-da!

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If you’re thinking,

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"that’s just a CFL stuffed inside a glass bulb
to look more like a regular light bulb!"

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you’re right!

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But that simple visual trickery isn’t what’s special about this bulb.

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Lots of manufacturers were doing that.

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This one?

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Well, for a brief while, GE was marketing a line of compact fluorescent lamps
with a trick up their sleeves which they called “bright from the start” -

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and this is one of those bulbs.

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They developed it to overcome one of the central
issues of compact fluorescent lamp technology:

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the rather slow warmup time of a cold CFL.

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And they did it by taking this already
light bulb-in-a-light bulb lookin’ light bulb

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and going full turducken on it

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by stuffing an incandescent light bulb in the middle
of the fluorescent light bulb inside of the faux light bulb.

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With two lighting technologies in the same package,

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this is literally a hybrid light bulb.

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Why does it exist?

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Well, about 15 years ago in the way back when known as 2009,

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we still hadn’t really figured out how to make decent LED drop-in light bulbs.

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If anybody out there remembers this
groundbreaking LED bulb from Philips

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with its yellow phosphor coating on the exterior?

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Yeah, this thing came out in 2010,
and adjusted for inflation, these were $60 a pop.

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We’ve come a long way in a very short time!

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But in the years prior to the LED bulb becoming feasible and cheap,

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we had gotten very good at making compact fluorescent lamps.

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These energy-saving wonders weren’t perfect by any means -

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the quality of light they produced was a downgrade from incandescent,

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unless of course you like deathly cold,
certifiably institutional daylight-balanced lighting

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in which case they unlocked that for the first time
in many household applications,

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but either way the mercury content of the discharge tube
was an environmental trade-off.

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Still, they used about a quarter of the energy
of their incandescent counterparts

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and the not-crap ones anyway lasted a very long time if used
correctly so they had their appreciators.

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Including yours truly.

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And a few models remain in production to this day.

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But even if you like or merely tolerate the quality of light
they produce and aren’t bothered by the mercury,

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they still have an Achilles heel:

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the bulbs themselves are pretty ugly.

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In some light fixtures this doesn’t matter at all but anything leaning towards decorative where you could see the bulb itself

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would be at least somewhat ruined by the presence of one of them twisty boys instead of a nice round light globe.

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And then there are the specialty bulbs like directional flood lights

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which use reflectors to direct the light they produce
in a more directed fashion.

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A CFL can’t do that.

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But those mid-2000’s engineers weren’t just gonna give up -

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they decided to stuff the fluorescent coil
inside something else to hide it

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or even alter how it releases its light.

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You could just stuff it into a light bulb-shaped
thing to make it look more like a regular light bulb,

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maybe even a sphere to CFLarize the decorative globes for a bathroom vanity.

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Or you could stuff it inside a reflector to... kind of anyway 
mimic a flood light in form and, to a lesser extent, function.

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And we didn’t stop there!

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The days of CFL dominance were a wild time in weird light bulbs,

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and IKEA was particularly fond of cramming
CFL tech into stranger and stranger applications.

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This small spot-light is one of my favorites:
just look at that wonky little zig-zaggy tube!

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It’s even two-layers deep!

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But while this technique improved the aesthetic
issue and made a few more form factors possible,

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there was a huge catch to doing it.

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CFLs did use quite a bit less energy than incandescent lights 
which meant they produced a lot less heat,

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but the discharge tube still gets pretty hot.

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The standard exposed coil design can rely on the convection currents from moving air to help dissipate that heat and cool the tube

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which means the operating temperatures remain pretty reasonable.

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But all of those decorative ones?

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They are deliberately sealing up their tubes
in some sort of cover which functions like an oven.

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The tubes inside these will run quite a lot hotter
than if they were left open to air.

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Which is actually a pretty big problem which would lead to poor performance.

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See, fluorescent lights work because of the ultraviolet light produced by the
mercury vapor discharge happening inside the glass tube.

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That largely invisible light is then converted by the phosphors
coating the inside surface of the glass into light that we can see.

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Those phosphors fluoresce under UV light
which is why they’re called fluorescent lights.

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But the effectiveness of that ultraviolet discharge is greatly influenced
by the vapor pressure of the mercury inside the tube.

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What is vapor pressure?

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Well, according to this website I found,

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“equilibrium vapor pressure is the pressure exerted by a vapor in thermodynamic equilibrium with its condensed phases (solid or liquid)

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at a given temperature in a closed system.”

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OK, so what does that mean?

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Well, mercury is a liquid at room temperatures.

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And just as room temperature water slowly evaporates
when left open to air,

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room temperature mercury does the same thing.

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Some of it will transition to the gaseous phase even at low temperatures.

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But when sealed up in a tube,

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every gaseous molecule that breaks free from the liquid phase 
increases the pressure inside that tube just a teeny tiny bit.

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And once the gas pressure caused by those
mercury molecules builds to a certain point,

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no more liquid mercury will evaporate.

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That equilibrium point is the vapor pressure.

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Now there are some wonky factors here which I’m skipping over.

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For instance, the vapor pressure of a fluorescent tube
is actually determined by the coldest spot of the glass

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because that cold spot will cause condensation
which returns some of the gaseous mercury back to liquid -

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which of course then lowers the internal pressure of the tube a bit, 
so some liquid mercury somewhere else will just evaporate again

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to replenish what just condensed and keep it in equilibrium.

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But anyway, the reason this matters at all

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is that fluorescent lights need a pretty specific
mercury vapor pressure to work well.

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If the vapor pressure is too low,

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the ultraviolet discharge that we’re looking for
just doesn’t work at all - so we can’t have that.

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But if it gets too high,

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well a higher vapor pressure means
more mercury molecules are floating around per given volume,

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and in those close quarters,
the mercury molecules start to absorb some of their neighbors’ discharge energy,

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so ultimately less ultraviolet light is produced
by the discharge when vapor pressure gets too high.

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For best results, then, we need the lamp to be operating
within a fairly narrow goldilocks zone of acceptable vapor pressure.

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Getting to that goldilocks zone isn’t impossible but it is tricky.

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Because even if you get the pressures just right when making the tube,

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you aren’t in complete control
of the ambient temperatures the tube will experience.

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And as temperature increases, so does the vapor pressure.

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High temperatures mean there’s more energy in the system

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which means that more liquid mercury will transition to the gaseous phase

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and then, because those molecules are trapped in a tube with a fixed volume,
we run into that too many molecules problem.

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In practice this means that if a fluorescent tube gets too hot in operation
it will actually start to lose brightness.

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Which for a thing which's whole purpose is to make light
is the opposite of desirable.

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In early fluorescent lighting designs, this was just a reality that we worked around
and a limitation that we accepted.

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So long as they were being used in an environment
somewhat close to room temperature,

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they’d work fine - and their internal pressure was
calibrated during manufacturing to meet that usage expectation.

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But we humans are never satisfied with limitations

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so we worked on figuring out how to make the technology functional
in a wider range of temperatures.

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In addition to tackling that functional issue, though, 
we also wanted to make the technology more energy-efficient.

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And it turned out that efforts to improve efficiency
would force us to solve the temperature problem.

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As we developed fluorescent technology,

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we found that increasing the intensity of the discharge
by running more current through a narrower tube

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could produce more light with less electrical energy.

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That's in part how a CFL can make so much light in this relatively small space

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and why fluorescent tubes kept getting skinnier as time went on.

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But those skinnier tubes dissipated similar power levels
as their predecessors through less gas and glass,

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so they got much hotter when operating

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which in turn elevated the internal vapor pressure well beyond the point
where the mercury discharge would produce much light.

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But clearly we figured it out.

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This light bulb is a lightin’.

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So what did we do to make this possible?

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Isn’t the answer obvious?

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Just amalgamate the mercury, Silly Billy!

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For the record, I don’t like this word.

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a-MALL-gum?

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AA-mal-gam?

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a-MAL-gum?

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[synthesized voices saying "Amalgam"]

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We’ll go with that one.

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If instead of just mercury you throw in an amalgam of mercury 
(which in simple terms means a mixture of mercury and some other metal or metals),

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you can bend the mercury’s
temperature vs. vapor-pressure curve

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to better fit your needs.

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Mix in a bit of indium and bismuth,

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or if you’re feelin' fancy some bismuth, lead, and tin,

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and you can run a fluorescent tube at much higher temperatures
without diminishing the discharge

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because those extra elements will sort of hold on to the mercury
and keep it from vaporizing quite so easily,

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which lowers the vapor pressure at high temperatures.

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Which is great!

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Oh - and remember that thing about the coldest
spot of the glass influencing the vapor pressure?

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Well, some CFLs have little bumps formed in
the discharge tube specifically to be a cold spot.

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This little pocket of glass

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sticks out beyond the confines of the discharge going through the tube,

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so it stays cooler than the rest of the glass

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and helps to regulate the internal vapor pressure when operating.

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But back to the amalgam.

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These new mercury amalgams for high-temperature
tubes are in fact solids at room temperature.

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Note that despite being a solid, some mercury will still evaporate
(or I guess sublimate) into the gaseous phase.

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The amalgam came in the form of little pellets.

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Which, you might have noticed these before in certain lamps -

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sometimes it seems like there’s a little ball rattling around inside somewhere

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[rattling]

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and there is, in fact - though usually it’s held captive in a special pocket

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to keep it in one place so it doesn’t roll around
and cause damage to the phosphor coating.

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Some designs like that weird IKEA spotlight
actually leave that pocket and the pellet visible,

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though most of the time it’s hiding near the electrodes
as is the case for this ordinary CFL.

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These solid pellets were much easier to deal with compared to liquid mercury
which was tremendously helpful for manufacturing these

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but of course the main reason for their use
is to lower the vapor pressure of the mercury when the lamp is running hot,

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as it will with narrow, high-efficiency tubes.

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Except, there was a trade-off.

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There always is!

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With these amalgam pellets, there's less available mercury 
to form the discharge when the lamp is cold.

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So when these high-efficiency lamps first start,
they only operate at partial brightness.

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It won’t reach full brightness until it’s at operating temperature

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and enough of the mercury in the amalgam has actually managed to vaporize

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and produce the correct vapor pressure inside the tube.

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This is why CFLs and high-efficiency fluorescent
tubes take time to reach full-brightness.

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The amalgam of mercury inside them is deliberately suppressing the vapor pressure when the lamp is cold so that it becomes optimal once the lamp is hot.

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Now, with most CFLs and high-efficiency tubes,
this effect is noticeable but not that extreme.

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The lamp produces a good deal of light right away
but will roughly double in brightness over the next minute or so.

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But if the tube gets very cold,

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say it’s being used outside or you stuck it in a freezer
for a few hours for the purposes of demonstration,

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then the vapor pressure of mercury in the tube
is far too low for it to do anything.

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To allow the lamp to start in this condition, a starter gas
(usually a mixture of argon and neon) also fills the tube.

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That gas doesn’t produce much light - just a dull, pinky-purple glow.

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But it does allow for a discharge through the tube to happen 
without the mercury contributing.

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And that will produce some heat.

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Therefore, the temperature inside the tube does increase with time,
most quickly at the ends of the tube near the electrodes.

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This heat helps more of the mercury in the amalgam to vaporize,

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increasing the vapor pressure in the tube,

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and once it’s correct that mercury contributes a lot of ultraviolet light
to the discharge and the lamp is operating as intended.

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And the key thing to this video is that how aggressive you need that amalgam to be depends on how hot you expect the tube to get.

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An ordinary CFL with its tube open to air
doesn't need a terribly aggressive amalgam.

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The tube doesn’t get that hot in operation with airflow to cool it,

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so the amalgam is fairly tame and at room temperatures at least
some mercury vapor is present throughout the tube.

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Therefore it produces a good deal of light right away unless it’s very cold.

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But if you expect the tube to get hotter in operation,

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you’ll need a more aggressive amalgam which will lower
the mercury vapor pressure even more.

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Which finally brings us back to bulbs like this.

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How aggressive do you suppose we need the amalgam to be in these bulbs?

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The answer is very aggressive.

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The discharge tube sealed inside these
is going to get MUCH hotter than usual once warmed up,

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so we need an amalgam formulation
which will drastically lower the vapor pressure of the mercury.

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That’s no problem - we know how to do that just fine.

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But the trade-off?

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There’s always a trade-off.

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Very, very little mercury vapor is free
inside the tube of these bulbs even at room temperature.

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So those decorative or specialty CFLs?

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They behave like the CFL kept in the freezer every time they start.

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This CFL flood spot thing is currently at room-temperature.

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Despite its relative warmth,

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it barely glows when switched on
and takes a solid minute or more to reach full-brightness.

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That IKEA spot from earlier?

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Yeah, it does the same thing.

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It’s pretty useless when you first switch it on.

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Most if not all decorative CFLs exhibited this behavior.

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They had to suppress the mercury vapor pressure a LOT
because the tube inside would get very hot once warmed up,

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which meant they had terrible light output
whenever they were first switched on.

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Which means they’re kind of annoying to live with.

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Although, shoutout to the decorative globe CFLs
in the bathroom vanity when I was a kid.

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It was actually pretty nice to have a very dim-at-first light
when making a bathroom visit in the middle of the night.

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Helps the eyes adjust.

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In most cases though, this behavior is annoying.

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Now, of course, the easiest solution is to just use open-air CFLs.

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They usually didn’t have this problem unless
you were using them outdoors in very cold weather.

217
00:16:38,160 --> 00:16:44,730
But if you just had to cover up the ugly factor,
or wanted to use a CFL in a specific application,

218
00:16:44,730 --> 00:16:50,649
you had no choice but to deal with the poopy
cold starts of an enclosed tube.

219
00:16:51,165 --> 00:16:55,440
Unless, of course, you do what GE did with these bulbs.

220
00:16:55,955 --> 00:16:57,610
What did they do?

221
00:16:57,610 --> 00:17:03,560
They just stuck a halogen capsule inside the fluorescent spiral,
added a timer, and called it a day.

222
00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:07,679
A halogen lamp will attain its full brightness in a fraction of a second

223
00:17:07,679 --> 00:17:10,807
(at the expense of using quite a lot of power).

224
00:17:10,807 --> 00:17:16,806
But if you’re just using it to fill in that gap that occurs when a CFL warms up,

225
00:17:16,806 --> 00:17:23,113
then you could just power it up for about a minute
and then switch it off once the tube had gotten bright.

226
00:17:23,113 --> 00:17:26,760
Which is precisely what this light bulb does.

227
00:17:26,760 --> 00:17:33,534
When power is first applied, the internal circuitry switches on 
both the halogen lamp and the fluorescent tube.

228
00:17:33,534 --> 00:17:37,750
That gives it plenty of usable brightness the moment you need it.

229
00:17:37,750 --> 00:17:40,365
And then, after about a minute of operation,

230
00:17:40,365 --> 00:17:42,622
the fluorescent tube has gotten plenty warm

231
00:17:42,622 --> 00:17:45,621
(with a little help from the halogen capsule, it should be noted)

232
00:17:45,621 --> 00:17:51,755
so it’s producing adequate light on its own, 
and the power-hungry halogen capsule is switched off.

233
00:17:51,755 --> 00:17:54,780
Take a look at this power meter while I switch on the lamp.

234
00:17:54,780 --> 00:17:57,717
At first, this is a pretty power-hungry bulb,

235
00:17:57,717 --> 00:18:03,453
pulling about the same power level as the 100W
incandescent light bulb it’s meant to replace.

236
00:18:03,453 --> 00:18:11,860
But before long, a large majority of its power consumption drops off
and it operates close to the 25W the package claims.

237
00:18:11,860 --> 00:18:15,929
It’s a very simple idea, but it’s very effective.

238
00:18:15,929 --> 00:18:22,461
This bulb gets all of the pros of a CFL
with the major con engineered out of the picture.

239
00:18:22,461 --> 00:18:30,479
And this particular GE Reveal bulb is among the best CFLs
when it comes to color rendering and incandescent-mimicry I’ve ever encountered.

240
00:18:30,479 --> 00:18:32,940
It’s a genuinely impressive thing.

241
00:18:32,940 --> 00:18:38,136
GE put this hybrid drivetrain(?)
 in several different bulb types,

242
00:18:38,136 --> 00:18:41,224
including this flood which I showed you earlier.

243
00:18:41,224 --> 00:18:44,569
And here, because the front is clear and not frosted,

244
00:18:44,569 --> 00:18:49,467
we can actually see the halogen capsule
resting in the middle of the fluorescent spiral.

245
00:18:49,467 --> 00:18:54,707
This behaves identically to the larger bulb but this is only a 65 watt equivalent

246
00:18:54,707 --> 00:19:01,110
so it uses less power both in the hybrid startup
condition and the CFL-only operation.

247
00:19:01,110 --> 00:19:04,186
And if you’re wondering whether they did this for cool-white bulbs,

248
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the answer is yes!

249
00:19:06,242 --> 00:19:08,882
And it’s really freaking weird!

250
00:19:08,882 --> 00:19:17,141
When first powered up, the CFL is hardly contributing
so it appears only slightly cool, like a very intense halogen lamp.

251
00:19:17,141 --> 00:19:21,135
But as it warms up, the light output shifts cooler and cooler,

252
00:19:21,135 --> 00:19:24,787
and then the halogen lamp shuts off with a very jarring

253
00:19:24,787 --> 00:19:25,799
BLAM

254
00:19:25,799 --> 00:19:29,597
and the light appears… well like that.

255
00:19:29,597 --> 00:19:33,520
I know some of you keep saying you like this but I’ll never understand it.

256
00:19:33,520 --> 00:19:41,979
And that jarring transition from a crisp white
to a very clinical dank cold white reveals the worst aspect of these bulbs:

257
00:19:41,979 --> 00:19:43,372
Which is...

258
00:19:43,372 --> 00:19:45,636
GE half-assed this.

259
00:19:45,636 --> 00:19:52,475
Like, the idea is simple enough so perhaps
justly they chose to perform a simple execution of the idea.

260
00:19:52,475 --> 00:19:56,070
But in my opinion, it’s much too simple.

261
00:19:56,070 --> 00:20:02,041
The halogen capsule is simply toggled off
with no thought given to a seamless transition.

262
00:20:02,041 --> 00:20:06,127
So even with the warm-white bulbs where the transition is much less jarring,

263
00:20:06,127 --> 00:20:10,908
you still notice a pronounced light drop-off when the halogen light goes out.

264
00:20:10,908 --> 00:20:18,779
Of course, cramming in the circuitry required to slowly dim the halogen light’s output as the CFL warmed up would add complexity and cost

265
00:20:18,779 --> 00:20:21,436
so it’s easy to see why it didn’t happen.

266
00:20:21,436 --> 00:20:24,953
But that’s not my biggest problem with this design.

267
00:20:24,953 --> 00:20:28,409
Consider the idea of temperature compensation.

268
00:20:28,409 --> 00:20:31,808
The halogen capsule doesn’t need to operate if, say,

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00:20:31,808 --> 00:20:35,783
the light had only been switched off
for a few moments then switched back on.

270
00:20:35,783 --> 00:20:42,240
In that case, the fluorescent tube will still be plenty warm
and it'll output full brightness right away.

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00:20:42,240 --> 00:20:47,480
If you test this, you’ll see that GE appears to have built this in.

272
00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:51,377
The halogen capsule illuminates very briefly but then goes out,

273
00:20:51,377 --> 00:20:55,411
which suggests the bulb is aware of the ambient temperature.

274
00:20:56,090 --> 00:20:59,059
Alas, they faked that.

275
00:20:59,059 --> 00:21:03,765
The temperature compensation circuit in here
is much like the one in modern toasters -

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likely using a capacitor which holds onto its charge for a while,

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00:21:07,506 --> 00:21:14,888
the runtime of the halogen capsule is influenced by how long it has been
since the last time it was powered on.

278
00:21:14,888 --> 00:21:20,803
If it was just on, that capacitor still has a decent charge
so the halogen capsule runs only briefly.

279
00:21:20,803 --> 00:21:27,230
But if it’s been a while, that capacitor has little charge in it
so the halogen capsule runs for the full minute.

280
00:21:27,230 --> 00:21:33,721
This works well enough but, ironically,
it fails when the lamp most needs the help.

281
00:21:33,721 --> 00:21:38,230
Consider what happens when you use this outdoors in cold weather.

282
00:21:38,230 --> 00:21:41,580
This one’s been in the freezer so the tube is very cold.

283
00:21:41,580 --> 00:21:48,960
Upon power-up, you wouldn’t really know that because
the halogen capsule is doing its job and providing plenty of light.

284
00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:55,120
But the circuitry in control of the halogen lamp
has no idea that the bulb is so cold.

285
00:21:55,120 --> 00:21:58,000
It just knows it hasn’t been used in a while.

286
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:01,834
So the halogen capsule shuts off near the
one minute mark like always,

287
00:22:01,834 --> 00:22:07,809
and the fluorescent tube is still much too cold
to produce meaningful light on its own.

288
00:22:07,809 --> 00:22:14,735
So, using one of these outdoors in a cold climate 
gives you a light which is bright *at* the start,

289
00:22:14,735 --> 00:22:19,840
but then suddenly gets very dim
and needs a few more minutes to reach full brightness.

290
00:22:20,193 --> 00:22:23,540
I mean I guess that’s better than not having the halogen capsule in there -

291
00:22:23,540 --> 00:22:29,746
especially since its heat could theoretically
help the CFL to start if it’s in extreme cold.

292
00:22:29,746 --> 00:22:31,616
But it’s far from ideal.

293
00:22:31,616 --> 00:22:39,009
And even more ironically, they only claim these will start reliably
down to freezing point which isn’t impressive at all.

294
00:22:39,009 --> 00:22:44,927
Lots of CFLs claimed reliable starts down to 5 degrees Fahrenheit, which is -

295
00:22:44,927 --> 00:22:45,750
ya know what?

296
00:22:45,750 --> 00:22:48,677
Ask a search engine for what that is in Celsius.

297
00:22:48,677 --> 00:22:54,147
You can do that every time one of us silly
Americans uses our silly numbers which, as a bonus,

298
00:22:54,147 --> 00:22:57,699
is a lot faster than complaining about it in the comments.

299
00:22:57,699 --> 00:23:00,188
But I will tell you it’s quite cold.

300
00:23:00,188 --> 00:23:08,043
Uh, anyway, the reason I find this particularly ironic is that,
when we’re talking about bulbs which are being used indoors,

301
00:23:08,043 --> 00:23:15,730
arguably the only reason this feature needed to exist in the first place
is that the tube is enclosed.

302
00:23:15,730 --> 00:23:20,879
If you don't care about that, an open-air CFL produces useful brightness right away.

303
00:23:20,879 --> 00:23:28,834
But either kind - enclosed or exposed tube - experiences 
terrible cold starts in cold weather.

304
00:23:28,834 --> 00:23:33,265
So if they had designed this with
actual temperature compensation

305
00:23:33,265 --> 00:23:38,127
which forced the halogen lamp to stay on longer in freezing conditions,

306
00:23:38,127 --> 00:23:41,830
they could have actually fixed a real problem with the technology -

307
00:23:41,830 --> 00:23:51,557
especially if they went the extra mile and disabled the CFL circuit
until the tube got enough heat from the halogen capsule to actually start reliably.

308
00:23:51,557 --> 00:23:55,781
That would have been a real game changer - 
if you remember the days of CFLs

309
00:23:55,781 --> 00:24:00,314
and experienced a cold porch light
being useless when you needed it,

310
00:24:00,314 --> 00:24:05,349
an actually well-thought-out implementation
of this idea would have been great!

311
00:24:05,349 --> 00:24:10,790
But these bulbs will only give you one minute
of full brightness no matter what.

312
00:24:10,790 --> 00:24:14,460
Which isn't the most helpful thing in winters like ours.

313
00:24:14,460 --> 00:24:18,880
Still, I very much admire the spirit shown here.

314
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:23,200
You may remember a video I made some years back on LED traffic lights

315
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:29,593
and the fixation some people have with their inability to melt snow, 
despite all their other advantages.

316
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:34,427
That “but sometimes!” way of thinking could be dealt with

317
00:24:34,427 --> 00:24:41,469
either by refusing to progress
as some rather annoyingly like to advocate loudly for these days

318
00:24:41,469 --> 00:24:49,975
or by applying one of my favorite parts of the human spirit
and actually making the effort to fix the sometimes.

319
00:24:50,165 --> 00:24:57,950
And much like LED traffic lights with heaters built-in or special covers which reduce snow buildup in the first place are now available,

320
00:24:57,950 --> 00:25:04,301
GE (and some other manufacturers from what I can tell)
decided to fix the sometimes of the CFL

321
00:25:04,301 --> 00:25:10,202
by cleverly integrating a bit of old tech
to quite literally fill in the gap.

322
00:25:10,202 --> 00:25:17,107
They didn’t quite do it with as much finesse
as I think they should have, but the idea at its core was pretty great.

323
00:25:17,107 --> 00:25:22,642
But of course now that LED bulbs have gotten so cheap
that you can pick them up for about a buck each,

324
00:25:22,642 --> 00:25:26,319
that sometimes isn’t even relevant in most applications.

325
00:25:26,319 --> 00:25:29,529
These don’t care how cold it is - they’ll just work right away.

326
00:25:30,262 --> 00:25:33,148
Oh, uh and carmakers?

327
00:25:33,148 --> 00:25:38,409
People keep sending me links to articles about
LED headlights not melting snow.

328
00:25:38,409 --> 00:25:43,976
Before I have to make another video,
add some defroster wires to the headlight housings why don’t ya?

329
00:25:43,976 --> 00:25:46,679
You’re already doing it on the rear glass.

330
00:25:46,679 --> 00:25:48,174
You can have that one for free.

331
00:25:48,337 --> 00:25:51,910
And stop it already with the red rear turn signals!

332
00:25:51,910 --> 00:25:52,774
Gosh!

333
00:25:52,774 --> 00:25:55,566
How is that not an obvious problem to you?

334
00:25:55,566 --> 00:25:59,487
And don’t just do a Stellantis and make the lamp color change -

335
00:25:59,487 --> 00:26:04,671
then you still lose the brake light on whatever side
you're using the turn signal on and that’s hardly any better!

336
00:26:04,671 --> 00:26:06,860
Why do I have to think of this crap?

337
00:26:07,401 --> 00:26:09,620
It’s because I have too much time on my hands.

338
00:26:09,620 --> 00:26:13,493
Anyway, these light bulbs show
that we can make things better

339
00:26:13,493 --> 00:26:17,850
even when new technologies present us
with new limitations and new problems.

340
00:26:17,850 --> 00:26:23,263
And oftentimes one way to do that
is to put a twist on the tech of the past.

341
00:26:23,263 --> 00:26:27,740
I mean, how do you think the CFL
became a thing in the first place, amiright?

342
00:26:27,984 --> 00:26:30,400
Ho boy, better just end this right now.

343
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:31,534
Thanks for watching!

344
00:26:32,276 --> 00:26:34,750
♫ initially smooth jazz ♫

345
00:26:36,461 --> 00:26:41,040
Hey there, I’d like to announce that I will be at Open Sauce 2024.

346
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:47,460
That’s happening June 15 and 16 in San Francisco,
and if you’d like more info visit opensauce.com

347
00:26:47,460 --> 00:26:49,590
(there’s a link in the description).

348
00:26:49,590 --> 00:26:53,234
Oh and if you’re going, be sure to wear
some flowers in your hair.

349
00:26:54,500 --> 00:26:59,260
But, in the years prior to the LED bulb…
and I’ve run too fast!

350
00:26:59,260 --> 00:27:06,104
…you might just stuff it into a light bulb-shaped
thing to make it look more like a standard light bulb or…

351
00:27:06,104 --> 00:27:09,298
you could lose your place in the teleprompter and need to back up.

352
00:27:09,298 --> 00:27:13,774
Lots of CFLs claimed relialblel ba.

353
00:27:13,774 --> 00:27:16,297
This is what happens when it’s a very long line!

354
00:27:16,297 --> 00:27:22,433
But then suddenly gets very dim and needs another few minutes to reach full brightness.

355
00:27:22,433 --> 00:27:25,579
I mean, I … another few?

356
00:27:28,864 --> 00:27:30,538
Oh don’t tell me you’re dead.

357
00:27:32,737 --> 00:27:33,751
Ha!

358
00:27:33,751 --> 00:27:36,809
Well hold on, then, I gotta get a different bulb.

359
00:27:36,809 --> 00:27:40,422
Some designs like that weird IKEA lamp…

360
00:27:40,422 --> 00:27:41,181
crap!

361
00:27:42,267 --> 00:27:46,218
So, I released this on April Fool's Day.

362
00:27:46,218 --> 00:27:49,733
Did you think this was an April Fools video?

363
00:27:49,733 --> 00:27:53,536
Because the topic does seem pretty off-the-wall.

364
00:27:53,536 --> 00:27:56,094
Unless you remember these, I guess.

365
00:27:56,094 --> 00:27:57,820
Pretty bright idea, though.