Those are friggin amazing! I want one!

No, check that. I want ten!

Lightbulb the size of a bean with the power of a streetlight and near-perfect color temp? They don't specifically say how hot they get on the outside, but with that kind of efficiency you know they're not converting much electricity into heat so it can't be that hot.

I love technology.

Plasma is definately the next big thing in lighting, anyone who is wasting there time and money on new LED technology is wasting both. I can't wait 'til these hot bulky HID set ups can be replaced by smaller cooler Plasma bulbs. Less trouble with heat, with the extra bonus of saving you atleast a foot or two of vertical space. These bulbs will make it possible for many more people to enjoy the benefits of indoor horticulture. No one will have to waste all of there money on Hepa filters if we can just bring more of the qualities of the outdoors inside.

I've been following this technology for some time, its very promising but there is one major technological hurdle holding them back. Your articles say that an "electric field" is run through the gas tube, but they neglect to mention the specifics. The gas-filled tube is bombarded with microwaves, and inexpensive, reliable long-term microwave generators are still on the technological wish list. We have great microwave generators in their namesake ovens, but these are not meant to run for 12 hour shifts day after day. Until this barrier is breached we won't be seeing widespread use of this tech. I await its arrival with every bit of anticipation that you guys do.

I went to their web site and checked the specs on their LIFI STA 40-series lights, and I must say that I'm a bit disappointed... 120 lm/W at the bulb, but goes down to only about 88 lm/W(80 CRI version) & 77 lm/W(96 CRI version) with the driver in place, and you still need additional power supply to connect it to the 120V outlet...

Here is a link that might be useful: Luxim LIFI STA-40 Series

Who cares?

Seriously, you're saying that the lumens per watt isn't that spectacular with the driver but you're forgetting all the other points of comparison. How many 1000w HID bulbs can you fit per square foot of reflector area? How many of these?

And how hot would that get?

You could stick a half dozen or so of these in the same space as a single HID bulb. Even if it uses more electricity than a 1000w HID you'd be getting tons more light, more concentrated, and less heat.

It's like LEDs without the weak lighting problem they have. As hautions says there's still some tech issues to be worked out before these things are practical anyway, so it's reasonable to expect the tech for the bulbs themselves will improve in that time too.

There's no reason at all to get disappointed about these things unless it's because they're not ready to use right now.