Next 12 months: boring or exciting for leds?

What LED news will make the biggest splash over the next 12 months?

Will it be high end, consumer, or maybe a new mod?

What new product, company, or technology will create the biggest buzz?

Raven

I like the looks of the new Inova's, and I think the price will be good also.


Blades

Elektrolumens is in transition from 1W to 3W Luxeons. They will soon no longer carry 1W lights. This is the same trend the industry will follow, albeit more slowly.

I find it a bit funny that the 3watt LS came out AFTER the 5watt. Any chance we'll see a 10watt LS this year?

Surefire will release the U2 (hopefully within the next 12 months /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif), and that's about as much excitement as I can stand or afford at the moment /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I say the big winner will be consumer lights. The Inovas, TerraLUX, UKE 4AA eLED, Dorcy and others are entering the market quickly. Very good time to snap up Luxeon lights at a reasonable price level.

The upper crust stuff has adjustable output to the list. The Arc4 and Surefire U2 come to mind. 3W Luxeons will be around but they also appear in the Consumer market.

Mods
The Firefly with the high/low sandwiches will be a huge hit. Small, light, high power and a low power function for adjustability make it a must have. uFlex boards will start showing up in more mods as the CPF still hunts around for W and X bin 5 watters.

The only thing I know is, Future will still suck as a distributor.

I think the big players will begin to dominate the market. Mainstream companies, SL, Pelican, UK, Nuwaia, Dorcy, hell, everyone that makes lights, will get into LEDs in a BIG way.

And at some point, the sleeping giant, Mag-Lite, will BURST upon the market, with ????? I don't have a clue. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

I would love to have a listening device in M-Ls board rooms. They MUST be crapping BB's. Their market dominance will depend on doing SOMETHING, what, who knows.

It will be interesting.

Someone stole my prediction /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I think the big story over the next 12 months will be that Maglite finally releases an led flashlight.

The emergence of 3 watt luxeon stars would be my second choice.

Raven

To be a fly on the ceiling in a Mag Lite boardroom...I think they're more than {vulgar term for expelling feces} BBs. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Mag has to do something in the LED arena soon if they hope to remain a huge company. I wouldn't be at all upset (nor surprised) if Streamlight ate their lunch, though. They deserve it.
Unless Mag makes a big move soon, the SL TT series, the SL Jr (for the mini-mag market), and the Pelican M6-LED are going to push them aside in the consumer market. Great lights are available for under $40 now /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif If they can hook up with the big retailers they'll do great.

I'd love to see a SL TT with a Luxeon III instead of the xenon bulb. That would be a huge success.

Plus, Dorcy will soon be cranking out sub-$20 Luxeons that will impress consumers and further undercut M*g's market share.

Good point, PB. And Dorcy is already on the shelves in Walmart and Target. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
The bigger they sell, the less shelf space those stores will give to Mag.

Luxeon star bike lights and more waterproof luxeon star flashlights.

I forsee more innovative use of LED lights, due to their long runtime and flexibility. Check out smartlyte.com and their "floralyte" application. It's neat and a crowd favorite to bring home a small flower with an LED light. All the more mature folk wonder how it produces light for so long...

I'm waiting to see the LEDS based on nano technology. Yes, there is a project where they discovered that super fine particles can be used to control the color of the light emitted by a light source. The promise is that they can make super efficient LEDs that have exactly the color they want. Imagine a filter that allows a specific color to pass but instead of absorbing the extra light that is other colors, it transforms it. Agilent is working on this.

I'd love to see more high power LEDs with less heat. A 5 watt led that requires massive heat sinks just seems wrong.

Daniel