It was always nice to have a four or five color string of C7 Christmas lights (red, orange, green blue, and sometimes white, but in time, we only used white for the star). When I was a kid, I used to always switch bulbs around, figuring more of this color was needed over here, or less over there. Seeing other trees, Color combinations looked nice too. White by itself could look nice. Red and green of course. Or red and blue. Or red and white, red and yellow (e.g. Saks 5th Av. window); etc. A tree using a higher temperature white (like the mercury lights) is somehting I have never seen, but would look really nice.
For a few years, I had imagined a set of full color LED Christmas lights where of course, you would have much richer colors than incandescents, and you could control the colors on each bulb; so no more screwing in and out. Not only that, it would be nice to have an LED device where you could mix your own colors. Current full color LED toys, including CarpenterDecorations' Intellishine LED C7 bulbs, are programmed to flash only red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, magenta and a high Kelvin white. It would be nice to try to simulate incandescent white (basically turning down some of the blue and even less of the green), as well as orange, a darker purple. And to even try to simulate the dullr blue f the incandescent bulbs.
I had no idea whether such a thing was even possible now (perhaps too complex or somethng, as each bulb would have to have its own address; would the cord be too thick with pairs of wires for each bulb? etc). It was taking long enough for strngs of single color bulbs to come out. It was just a few months ago, when I was on the site of ColorKinetics, makers of those color wash lights at the Discovery Channel store and other similar outlets, that I found they had a whole line of other LED products, including a programmable string of lights!
ColorKinetic iColorFlex
It is not designes specifically as a Christmas set, but could be used as that. They can be used for outside graphic displays and even set in rows and columns as a sign. With only a three wire cord, and a computerized program, it is able to have fully adressable nodes. With a table listing each node, you can easily set the color of each, and sequences, timing; etc. It is the holy grail of all Christmas lighting! (and at that price, I would use it all year round. Set the color for any occasion!)
I'd really like to have this; except for a few issues.
Price: I called, and they are about $450 for a set of 50. I still wanted it, but then also, what killed that was:
The primary red color is listed in the specs as being 617nm. That is well into the orange range. The spec even calls it "amber" [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img] This would make a nice Christmassy red impossible, and throw all of the other colors off. (I'm real picky about this!)
Plus, the shapes are not really good. The dome shape may be too short to be very visible unless the node happens to be facing you, and the long one looks too odd for a Christmas light.
So what does everyone else think of this?
Does anyone have one?
Does anyone know of something else like it, but cheaper? Better shape? Purer red?
The ultimate Christmas light string!
Linear Mode
