Plug-in LED lights for house outlets that make pretty colors?

June 28, 2008 4:45 PM

Hive mind, do you know of a cheap, plug-in LED light that will wash the wall above it with pretty colors?

I seem to recall having an LED light that plugged into the wall and washed through different colors. I'm not talking about the Mathmos lights although those are similar; this one actually was more of a "wall washer" light and was fairly inexpensive, but the names I seem to recall for the company don't come up with anything any more.

posted by arimathea to home & garden (8 comments total)

Living Colors from Philips maybe ?
posted by McSly at 5:12 PM on June 28

Yes, so Living Colors is close to what I wanted. The company I was thinking of was Color Kinetics, which has now been purchased by Philips, but the lights have gone way, way up in price... so i'm looking for alternatives. The Living Colors lights aren't available in the US, though. :(
posted by arimathea at 5:28 PM on June 28

Most Color Kinetics lights are for professional use (convention booths, theaters, buildings). Their consumer line is (was?) called "Sauce." The LightOrb is probably the model you are thinking of. I found one for less than $20 here.

My understanding is that they own a patent on some aspect of controlling RGB LEDs to create other colors. I believe that the CK Sauce line was actually licensed to some other company to manufacture and market while CK focused on their industry customers.
posted by i love cheese at 8:01 PM on June 28

To answer the spirit rather than the letter(s) of your question, a cycling color wash that is cheaper and brighter than LEDs can be achieved using a fiber optic Christmas tree of the kind sold seasonly at discount stores. The ones where the tree changes color. Discarding the tree, the base usually has a bulb with a rotating color wheel, and by itself it will project a pretty nice moving color wash. Several set around a (low ceilinged) room can be quite effective. And this is coming from someone who does have a 200,000 bulb LED lamp in his bedroom, but I would never have paid the $50K that would've normally cost.
posted by StickyCarpet at 9:35 PM on June 28

I think I own exactly what you are looking for. It's a Color Kinetics "Sauce" nightlight. Vaguely wedge-shaped, with a plug on the bottom and the top contains six LEDs (two each RGB) that project parallel to the wall. It's got a button to switch modes (fade between colors/switch between colors/one color only/white) and a dial that changes fade speed, color, or brightness in those modes.

It's not very bright. Even in a darkened room, it only illuminates about six inches of wall brightly. LEDs weren't very powerful then, and even if they were the good stuff wouldn't be in a silly cheap nightlight.

I have no idea why I bought it, and I haven't used it in three years, nor do I have any plans to do so. I can send it to you for the cost of shipping. Email's in profile.
posted by meowzilla at 10:53 PM on June 28

Ikea has some called Dioder.
posted by idiotfactory at 1:28 AM on June 29

The thing I have is called a LightWasher.
posted by meowzilla at 1:19 PM on June 29 [1 favorite]

200,000 bulb LED lamp in his bedroom...

Say some more about that, stickycarpet
posted by the Real Dan at 4:54 PM on June 29