A year ago, a Spanish company presented a promising commitment to sustainable development: a non-perishable light bulb. The company OEP Electrics has just launched an improved version of its revolutionary product, which, although it has been on the market for a long time, has only received modest orders. The new IWOP bulb represents an energy saving of 96.5 percent and has a 10-year warranty, as well as being repairable at a very low cost. This surprising invention is included within the movement “Without programmed obsolescence”, which combats the supposed programming of electronic devices during their manufacture so that they break down on a certain date. The scientific community remains skeptical of such an advance, considering that it meets all the requirements of a miracle product.
The IWOP bulb is an LED bulb (light-emitting diode), whose efficiency is around 214 Lm / W, compared to the 150 Lm / W that this type of lighting system usually provides, which every day increases its market share due to its longer useful life and its low energy consumption, among other advantages. In addition to this amazing performance, the bulb produces the warm light of classic bulbs, and consumes only 3.5W, which represents unprecedented savings compared to incandescent technology, and of up to 50 percent compared to other lamps. LED technology on the market . According to the manufacturer, Benito Muros, the IWOP bulb, although it is a little more expensive than the conventional LED bulb (around 40 euros), far exceeds its performance, in addition to not needing replacement, which limits the environmental impact which means that each year 47 million light bulbs are thrown away in Spain.
The “eternal” light bulb, however, has not convinced the bulk of the scientific community, which finds in this invention a common light bulb immersed in a powerful marketing strategy that takes advantage of the media pull of “programmed obsolescence”. From Muy Interesante, we have consulted an expert from the Electronic Power Systems Group of the UC3M Department of Electronic Technology about whether it is really feasible to manufacture an “eternal” lighting product. According to the professor, the product technology is not an innovation in itself: for years it has been possible to manufacture more durable LED lighting systems at a high cost, since the driver may have more critical components from the point of view of time. life than the LED itself. However, the expert affirms that the durability and light output of the IWOP bulb are extraordinarily high, so the company should specify the technical characteristics of the type of LED it uses to prove these values. These data are also estimated under certain conditions that it is necessary to know in order to evaluate what they are far from the real application. “If someone is going to buy a product with these characteristics, they must make sure that the real technical characteristics coincide with what is offered in the advertising, asking the manufacturer for detailed and independent information about their product,” concluded our interviewee.
In short, there is a reasonable doubt about its efficiency due to the absence of detailed information on the technical characteristics of the product and on the analyzes that support it. The IWOP light bulb is part of the movement against “planned obsolescence”, a theory that maintains that large manufacturers deliberately shorten the useful life of products to ensure their renewal. The most critical voices assure, however, that the reduction in the durability of electronic devices is due not so much to a global collusion, but to the user’s own behavior , which demands products at very low cost and a constant update of the same in based on fashions, making it unprofitable for companies to make durable products.
