Finally Brings a Warm Alternative to LEDs, CFLs, Finally

I hate to say it, but I’ve been around long enough to have fully experienced the transitions from incandescents to compact fluorescents and now to LEDs. I’m a bit OCD about lighting, and, if at all possible, I try to make sure we’re up to date with the technology that will help save electricity. You might call me a lighting early-adopter, which hasn’t always been a good thing.

Some of the biggest challenges with getting into CFLs and then LEDs early has been their limitations, compared to incandescents, like there actually being a lag for CFLs to come fully on after flipping the switch, to issues with dimmability, to cold color temperatures, and weird shapes that sometimes won’t fit with existing hardware. Many of these issues have been slowly worked out over time, but I still haven’t seen a solution that gets us the full functionality, look, and feel of classic incandescents, with the energy savings available in the newer tech.

And now, there’s a new technology on the market trying to hit the sweet spot. Or rather, it’s a technology that’s been around about as long as incandescence, but which they’ve updated to take advantage of modern advances, and which can deliver what we love from an incandescent bulb, with the energy savings somewhere between that of CFLs and LEDs. They call it “Acandescence” but it’s really an evolution of magnetic induction lamps that use a generated magnetic field to stimulate a phosphorescent coating on the inside of the bulb.

So, the company pushing these new bulbs, Finally, sent me one of their 60 watt equivalent bulbs to try out (they’ll also have a 100 watt equivalent available soon). As you can see in the photo above, we put the bulb in a reading lamp. The color is very warm; downright comfortable, in fact. There is no hum or buzz, no flicker, and just a very brief lag and warm-up period after switching it on. It does an excellent job of replicating the incandescent experience.

Finally’s 60 watt equivalent bulb costs $10 (there are discounts for bulk purchases), which makes it cost competitive with current LED technology. The energy savings is closer to what you get with CFLs ( and the Finally bulbs do contain mercury, so they have to be recycled the same way as CFLs). If you’re very particular about how the lighting in your home looks, but you still want the warmth and functionality of incandescent bulbs, you might want to check these out at the Finally website.