Closer to "All LED, All the Time"

I have been writing, albeit sporadically, about LEDs since 2008.  I've been super nerdy and calculated the payback on LEDs for daily outdoor lighting at my house.  Based on that post (and the fact that it is more than four years later), LEDs have been good to me.

I've wanted to get to the point where I only had LEDs in my house, but I've been limited by four problems (1) the under-cabinet bulbs in my kitchen and (2) the landscape lights in my backyard (3) I had found fluorescent replacement lights to be very common or inexpensive and (4) I had halogen-based light fixtures.  Slowly, I'm getting past all of these barriers and making progress toward only LED lighting in my house.

Here's how my solutions to the four issues has gone.  By the numbers, see below.

(1) I recently found some good candelabra base corn-cob LEDs on Amazon.  They are bright and I've ordered another 5 after the first 10 have worked out.  Now, I just need to figure out get the bread box lit in the corner.

Under-cabinet lighting!  (see the dim area in the corner that used to be the bread box).

Hard to tell they are corn cob from this view, but quite easy to see in the reflection with your naked eye.

(2) I found a good T10 replacement that was svelte enough to fit into Cast Wall lighting fixtures that abound in my backyard.  Unfortunately, it was super expensive ($20).  Just recently, I found a package of 20 LED bulbs on Amazon for $50.  Given that I needed 19, this was perfect.  And $380 wasn't a particularly attractive purchase price.  My wall lights had been installed when the backyard was redone in 2012, but most of the bulbs have burnt out by now.  (I had originally thought that the wiring was bad, but it turned out to be the simpler problem of just burnt out bulbs).  LEDs should basically last forever and limit my need to do awkward replacements.  And they are 2.6 watts instead of 40 watts.  So now I'm contemplating adding some more lights with all of those spare watts that I have on my transformer.

Bright indirect landscape lighting.  Only beware that many of the LEDs of the T10 size are really designed to work via DC.  If you run them in an AC circuit (as is my landscaping lights) there will be a 60 hz flicker.  This isn't too annoying for indirect lighting

(3) Fluorescent replacements are readily available and quite good.  I bought four two foot units and six four foot units.  Both are well-rated on Amazon.  Most of the bad feedback is stupidity on the part of the customers.  Just be sure that you are ready to do some (very simple) rewiring of the units.  I pulled out and threw away the ballast on all of the units that I replaced.  See pictures and descriptions below.

Very well-lit upstairs hallway

I removed the diffusers on the 4' units - they are being used in an indirect application already, so I figured it would just dim the light.  I also stapled Aluminum foil on the sides of the trench they are sitting in to help reflect light.

The 2' LED bulbs lighting up the (very messy) loft

By removing two screws, you can easily remove the diffuser on the 4' bulbs that I installed.

I don't know where the external diffuser is for this light in my laundry room, so I left the integrated diffusers on these 4' LED bulbs.

(4) I had some Ikea wall sconces and a bathroom light that used halogen bulbs (for which there is no ready LED replacement).  I ended up replacing the Ikea sconces because a past renter had broken the glass piece on it.  I replaced it with a $40 LED only fixture that I expect to last the lift of the house.  The one remaining bathroom fixture will be replaced over the next week with a light fixture that can take LED bulbs.

Old, Ikea halogen-based wall sconce

The new unit on - hard to get a sense of the relative color temperature between this picture and the last, but the LED is closer to daylight (preferred by me).

Further notes on LEDs:

• I've had bad experiences with LEDs five years ago from low light output (lumens) or flakey electronics that die reasonably early (days).  
• Light output has gotten uniformly better.  Just keep an eye on color temperature and make sure you are getting what you want.  On Amazon, color temperature and lumens are always available.  If you are skeptical of light output, check out how many watts it's using.  Compare to other bulbs who claim the same lumens.  Nobody has super fancy proprietary LED technology right now, if it seems to good to be true, it is.
• With respect to the early end-of-life on cheap LEDs, I now always do a 24 hour test of the bulbs.  This is nothing complicated, just keep the LEDs on for 24 hours.  All of my recent bulbs have passed the test with flying colors.
• I still have six 4' and two 2' fluorescents in closets around the house.  And two 8' units in the garage.  Most will be harder to rewire due to the restricted working area, but not too much of a problem.  They don't get used much, so there isn't a hurry, but I would like to see them go at some point.
• I still have CFLs in my garage and furnace room sitting in porcelain light fixtures.  I think that there are about 8 total.  I'd like to replace them with high output corn cob LEDs at some point, but I'm not finding any compelling options at the moment.  At that point, I will reach full LED saturation (excluding inaccessible bulbs, such as in my oven).

The (Second) Vive Report

So since my initial post, several things have changed:

1. My son built me a new windows PC with a 980Ti
2. My sons and I have spent many more hours in virtual reality

Thus, I wanted to provide an update on all things Vive.

Titles

I'm not terribly impressed with the titles available for the Vive so far.  There appear to be many on the horizon, but I'm not sure that the situation will be ideal until it is standard practice that all new first-person oriented games are released with VR support from the start.

I am in the camp that believes that VR will help usher in a new wave of puzzle-based games (a la Myst).  They will be fun to play (and likely quite challenging, too).

Gaming in VR

I love it.  Plain and simple, it is so much more engrossing to play a game like this than staring at a screen.  Vanishing Realms is probably a very mediocre game if on a screen, but it totally sucked me in.  I put my headset on in the morning to play and am suddenly transported to night.  The world is less interactive than I assume that they will be eventually, but it is still fun poking around and finding new bits lying around.  And swinging a sword through an ogre is great fun (and will elevate your heart rate).  I can't say that I've been reduced to a sweaty mess that others have, but it is still feels like good, active fun.  I have experienced a sense of vertigo standing on the ledge.

I'm looking forward to many more hours of gameplay.  Though, my youngest has so solidly run up the Space Pirate Trainer high score list that I'm not sure I'll be placing there any time soon.  Not to say that I won't be trying.

One Step Beyond

I still have a few things that I haven't tried yet and problems for the VR developer community to solve.

1. 360º videos:  Not expecting too much here, have watched a few on a flat screen and didn't think that they were that interesting.
2. Building something in VR:  I think the tools lag here.  Perhaps virtual graffiti will be my thing?  More interesting would be building 3D models with tools that are well-suited for the task.  I need to research this area further.
3. VR Tourism:  Looking forward to it, but need to find the right experiences.  Any recommendations?
4. Movement:  sticking a controller in my pants doesn't seem ideal.  But, then again, neither does instantly teleporting around a game area.  It's easy to dodge fire and the blows of ogres when using the teleportation method.  Also, Vive needs to figure out how to allow the playing area to be larger, or use tricks to make my brain think that it is bigger.  This is likely going to be a big challenge for all of the VR manufacturers.
5. Additional sensors:  HTC and Steam should let others build specific purpose sensors or gaming implements to be used.  An obvious first option - a gun (rifle not a pistol, the normal controller works well enough to fool me there).  Such things exist, but I'm looking forward to widespread usage and support in games.
6. Social VR: maybe this comes much, much later when households have 3 or 4 headsets, but it would be fantastic to play cooperative games in VR with friends and family.
7. 3D Sound: I'd love to be playing in VR with one of the Ossic headphones, but they are best case shipping them next February.  And I'm not sure that I'll be willing to pay $300.  But, I can imagine that they will matter in providing an even fuller experience.  You will be sucked into the other (VR) realm 100%.  At least I'm guessing here (I've not demo'd their headset). 

The Vive has Arrived!

Finally, despite ordering within 30 minutes of the window opening.  And HTC charged my credit card several days before they shipped.  Not awesome, but the Vive did arrive.  And it's pretty cool.  I will be upfront that my view of the Vive is very much in line with Cnet's review.  I'm a fan.

First, let me describe my rationale in buying this device.  My initial thought was that VR is very likely to come into its own in the next couple of years.  I want to be understand early the implications and the limitations of the technology.  And, I would be pretty excited if my boys were to be inspired by the technology and then do something fantastic.  They both have a lot of potential; but at the moment latent potential.  If I decide that I don't really think the technology is that cool, I reasoned that I could just sell my Vive quickly while it is still difficult to come by, for basically full price.  So I'm giving myself only a month to evaluate it.

Second, let's talk about the games available right now.  The Vive comes with three games included.  Job Simulator, Fantastic Contraption and Tilt Brush (less game and more 3D paint/sculpture application.  Reviews indicate that Fantastic Contraption is the best of the bunch and I'll admit that I haven't had time to play it yet.  Job Simulator was fun, though I only played for 15 minutes and it'll need to pick up the pace to keep me interested.  I have a real job, so I know how it tends to go and don't need a simulator.  Tilt Brush was fun to use as a platform for Pictionary.  My two boys and I played for about 45 minutes last night.  Painting in 3D is pretty sweet and the controls are reasonably intuitive.  The most fun I had, though, was with an early release game.

Space Pirate Trainer is a fantastic game.  Almost just worth it for the guns themselves and how completely your brain maps the VR gun to the controllers that you are holding in your hands.  It is amazing if simple game that kept me interested for an hour and I plan on spending much more time with it.  I'm very much looking forward to additional FPS-type games that have been successfully mapped to VR space.

Third, let's look to the future.  I'm a proponent that VR could be a very useful tool for expanding people's perspective about the world.  Want to go to Machu Picchu but not cause any damage to the historic site?  VR will be by far the best way to make that happen.  I think that there are a number of business opportunities here: games (obviously), virtual tourism, emersive learning (3D "hands on" lectures), and emersive entertainment like NextVR.  I'm always thinking about what is next for me - maybe there is something here.  If not, perhaps I can enjoy playing some very cool games and seeing my boys do the same.

Finally, I'm tightening my timeline for making a decision as to keep the Vive or not.  At the end of this weekend, I'll be pulling out my credit card, or I'll be listing one very lightly used Vive on Craigslist.  I'll keep you updated.

My Goals

[This post was a mistake]

Sweat Tracking

I would really more information about my fitness levels and performance.  One aspect that I'd like to deal with is going into a workout properly hydrated and being able to track hydration throughout the exercise.  There doesn't appear to be much out there in terms of commercially available equipment.  But this article discusses much of current state of the art and the ongoing research in the field.

My preferred usage of the device would be:

1. Slip moisture tracking device on around 11am.
2. Around 11:15 or so, get email or text advising me to drink a certain amount of water before I workout at noon.  The amount and timing is sufficient to ensure that when I start my workout, I will be adequately hydrated.
3. I begin my workout shortly after noon.
4. Throughout my workout, either at specified time intervals or hydration intervals, I'm updated to my body's hydration status.
5. After my workout, I'm advised on the idea amount of water to consume to ensure a speedy recovery from the workout I've just done.
6. Information is tracked and easily integrated into fitbit and other data.

I think that while this could eventually be integrated in an all-in-one tracking device (like the Surge), I don't think that it needs to be to be a successful device.  Here's why:

• I don't need to track hydration all of the time.  Certainly not while sitting in my office chair.
• Accurate hydration likely requires a fairly large area patch of skin to get useful measurements.  Not ideal for continuous wear.
• Athletes will be willing to pay a fair bit in both money and inconvenience to get this information.

Those are my thoughts for now, more may be added as it comes to me.  Let me know what you think!