I think this conversation is interesting because incandescents can improve so very much, and that improvement will remove a lot of what is being touted as being of benefit.
If, for instance, you have a glass-coated, insulated filament inside a bulb, the life of that filament, and therefore the bulb, barring mechanical disruption, is greatly increased because it isn't subject to the rapid temperature swings of a conventional incandescent filament. But in so doing, even though the efficiency of the bulb might improve by 40%, it would cease to be such a great heater.
Personally, I disagree with the use of the word "better" in this context. Not that I hate on incandescents, obviously. But I have known since I was a little child that the electric baseboard heaters weren't good because they used electricity, which was expensive, and that even the pot-bellied iron stove was better, though you couldn't touch it when it was on, because it ran on
wood, which you could get right outside, for a little forethought and elbowgrease.
A stray thought that occurs to me is that if it were a possibility to get a red-light LED spot to check your
cattle, you could do so without ruining your nightvision, and the way most of these things are constructed, it basically wouldn't make sense to build one that doesn't also have a white light switch, for purposes of startlement (the predators, not the cattle, although I don't see it working much differently). Adding to this, I honestly wonder what the comparative output potentials are, considering comparative cost outlay. Perhaps not for the units, but those bulbs and setups can be freaky expensive, too, but honestly, if you had an LED system pumping the same power as your HIDs or mercury vapour bulbs, what kind of output could we be talking? Because the way I understand it to work, that's a lot of
fucking lumens. That's "careful not to blind the cattle" bright. That's "put a lens on it and fry the coyotes" bright.
Well maybe that's just a bit of hyperbole, but honestly, what other -bole is any fun at all?
But they do
advertise those (probably illegal, probably not a bright move, considering how often I momentarily blind myself with normal flashlights) "self-defense flashlights," which for the
footprint I would bet are extreme-high-output LEDs (they fit in what appears to be a conventionally-sized to large flashlight casing). So perhaps a cattle-defense model with a red-light mode might exist.
Either way, in most every application except as heating, incandescents still far outpace what came before them for most applications, and retain niches into modern day in which they excel. The technology has room for theoretical improvement that would lend it even more versatility through gains in efficiency, at the cost of their efficacy as space heaters.
I would, without a doubt, agree that incandescents are better
inside my oven than anything else I can imagine. Mercury, circuitry, nonsense. Don't mix that with my much-better-half's baked deliciousness.
-CK
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
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