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Dean Kamen's Home: 'LED Nation'

Posted by on 08 December 2008
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I came across this article on the NY Times in which they describe that Dean Kamen, last year's speaker at the Front End of Innovation Conference, has transformed his 3-acre island off of Connecticut into what he calls 'the world's first LED nation.'

Just this past June we posted on Dean Kamen's invention of the human-like robotic arm that will give veterans from the war enough precision to grab grapes, but this project takes innovation to new levels. Dean Kamen wanted to have the island produce its own power through wind and solar, but since energy consumption was high, he had to reduce energy. This is when he decided to turn to LEDs.

With the aid of Philips Color Kinetics, they were able to remove all incandescent fixtures in the house and replaced them with Color Kinetics products. As a result of this, the total energy consumption used by the house went down by 50 percent, and so they were able to take the island off the grid. Prices for LED lighting are still too expensive for residential use, but it is dropping rapidly. I'm sure that it will only be a short matter of time before all households will soon turn to LED lighting to help reduce energy consumption.

Slide Show of Dean Kamen's "LED Nation"

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