The Wizard's Light Show

By the time 1880 rolled around, Edison had his incandescent light bulbs pretty well figured out, and was on the lookout for a way to advertise them. Brian Murray's article "Christmas Lights and Community Building in America" [PDF] describes Edison's marketing trick during that holiday season. To display his invention as a means of heightening Yuletide excitement, he strung up incandescent bulbs all around his Menlo Park laboratory compound [PDF], so that passing commuters on the nearby railway could see the Christmas miracle. But Edison being Edison, he decided to make the challenge a little tricker by powering the lights from a remote generator eight miles away.

Two years later, an Edison crony named Edward Johnson displayed the first electrically illuminated Christmas tree at his home in Manhattan. The then-impressive 80-light display girded a very unimpressive Charlie Brown Christmas tree (I mean really, look at that thing). And as you might expect, Johnson's feat was also intended as an advertising tool [PDF].

The tradition of stringing electric lights may have started as a Christmas thing in America, but now it's a global phenomenon used for all kinds winter festivuses (festivi?). It's a practice we take for granted—come December, they're everywhere. The evolution of the Christmas light parallels that of the light bulb, with some remarkably ornate—OK, tacky—variations. But regardless of how they look, one thing's for certain: They're a much better option than sticking a candle in a tree.

In the Beginning, There was Fire

Today we look at Christmas lights and think "Oh, those are pretty." But the tradition of lighting lights in the winter months didn't start off with aesthetics in mind. December is the darkest month of the year with the shortest days. People living without central heating in the 12th century were understandably unhappy when the sun went down and plunged them into the cold depths of night. Brian Murray's article tells us that back during the winter of 1184 was the first recorded lighting of the Yule Log [PDF] in Germany. The burning log was seen as a symbol of the sun's promise to return. It probably didn't hurt that a big burning hunk of wood makes for a pretty good heat source.

The Christmas tree has a whole story behind it that we won't get into here, but if you want to know more check out this guide. (Fun Fact: they were originally hung upside down from the ceiling—hilarious!) Long story short, Christians had lights, they had trees, and in the 17th century, they decided to put the two together.

Unfortunately, the only way to add Christmas lights to a tree back then was with candles. Obviously, this was a pretty bad idea. So bad that, unlike today, the tree would only be put up a few days before Christmas [PDF] and was promptly taken down afterwards. Murray's article describes how the candles would remain lit only for a few minutes per night, and even then families would sit around the tree and watch it vigilantly, buckets of sand and water nearby. It's kind of like the old-timey equivalent of deep-frying a turkey: People knew it could burn their house down, but proceeded to do it anyway.

By 1908, insurance companies wouldn't even pay for damages [PDF] caused by Christmas tree fires. Their exhaustive research demonstrated that burning wax candles that were loosely secured to a dried-out tree inside your house wasn't safe. At all. Electric Christmas lights were becoming a viable option for some Americans. They weren't perfect—incandescent bulbs can get plenty hot, and sparks from malfunctioning strings can still light up a dry tree—but it was a much safer option than lighting multiple fires so close to their favorite fuel.

Keep in mind that by "some Americans," I mean the extremely rich. In 1900, a single string of electric lights cost $12 [PDF]—around $300 in today's money. It would take the magic of mass manufacturing to create the Clark Griswold-esque neighborhood light displays would become an American tradition.

The Dawn of Tacky Lights

In 1900, eight years after General Electric purchased the patent rights to Edison's bulbs, the first known advertisement for Christmas tree lights appeared in Scientific American Magazine. Like I said, these suckers weren't cheap. They were so expensive that the ad suggests renting lights for a holiday display.

Twenty-five years later, demand was up. There were 15 companies in the biz of selling Christmas lights, and in 1925 they formed a consortium called the NOMA Electric Corporation, the largest Christmas light manufacturer in the world.

Even though NOMA was formed three years prior to the Great Depression, their appeal was great enough to pull through, becoming a juggernaut that was synonymous with Christmas lights from the Depression clear through to the Civil Rights Movement. NOMA didn't just further Edison's vision, though. They worked hard to bedazzle, becoming the world's biggest manufacturer of the bubble light—arguably the first great mass-produced tacky Christmas decoration.

Though NOMA is no more, these psychedelic bubble lights are thankfully still in existence. As JimOnLight.com describes, the colorful round plastic cases hold an unseen bulb, while a candle-shaped vial of clear liquid protrudes upward. As the bulb heats up, the liquid—usually methylene chloride, a chemical with a low boiling point—also heats up, so that the vial would bubble, flickering like the candle it was supposed to replace.

Alas, in 1968 the NOMA Electric Company stopped manufacturing lights, and the bubble lights became more of a novelty, soon to be joined by a host of ridiculously shaped Christmas lights, including chili peppers, flamingos, and the ridiculous beer can lights and a miniaturized version of that leg from A Christmas Story as seen on JimOnLight.com.

With NOMA, the tacky Pandora's box had opened, and even people who didn't spring for bubble lights or their Tex-Mex successors have done wonders with the decidedly more standardized sets we all know today. Once they were weatherproofed for outdoor use, it was only a matter of time before they were stapled to every square inch of house, hearth, tree, even truck.

The Lights You Know and Love

Incandescent lights are the ones that started it all. Even though they're well over a hundred years old now, the technology largely remains the same. The shapes and sizes of the bulbs, on the other hand, have been in constant flux. Now we're left with three major types of incandescent Christmas light bulbs, as described by the excellent guide at JimOnLight.com:

The Mini/Fairy Light: This is the big kahuna. If you haven't seen one of these by now, then you've probably never seen Christmas lights. Traditionally, the set is wired in series, hence the age old problem where if one bulb goes out, the rest won't light. But it's not hard to find sets that are wired in parallel nowadays.

These guys also have a lo-fi twinkle method built in. That little red-tipped bulb that comes with each set is made in a way that as the filament heats up, it rises and breaks the circuit. That, of course, shuts of the rest of the lights. When it cools down, it falls again to complete the circuit, and the lights (wait for it...) come back on. Physics 101.

C7: Again, an incandescent light that comes in a different-sized glass housing. These are about the size of your thumb, and work in almost exactly the same way as a mini light.

C9: You get the picture by now. Same shape as the C7, but slightly bigger.

LED lights have been growing in popularity for the past few years. Regardless of what you think of their light output, there's no denying that they're much more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs, and give off less heat. And who knows, maybe someday they'll match the color temperature of good-ol' tungsten lighting. Until then, here's what you'll be looking at, again according to the guide at JimOnLight.com:

5mm: These are the LED equivalent of incandescent mini-lights. They're small LED bulbs in a plastic enclosure. Usually the "white" level is waaaay off from the "white" of incandescent lights.

G12 and G25: Just like with incandescent lights, you're going to find a whole lot of the same with LEDs, just in different shapes and sizes. These are globe shaped plastic enclosures, G12 is pictured.

C7: You've seen these before, except this time there's an LED inside.

You'll find a bunch of crazy light designs out there, but like Jim's excellent guide says, 99.9% of them are just plastic enclosures that are illuminated by these types of bulbs.

A Long Way From Candles

The basic foundation of the Christmas light, the incandescent bulb, hardly changed for nearly a century, and is only now undergoing is first major revolution, as we we start replacing our old tungsten lights with energy-efficient LEDs. Yet, in that same time, we've gone from sticking burning candles in a tree to creating massive, computer-controlled—and completely excessive—light displays like this:

One thing's for sure: No matter what the technology at hand, no matter what the reason to celebrate, the human desire to light up trees and houses in the cold darkness of the winter months will forever be a source for amazing—and often hilarious—innovation.

Editor's Note: One of the best resources I found for this guide came from JimOnLight.com. His is a six-part series, the first three of which I consulted before writing this article. If you want to read more about the subject, check out the following sources.
Part 1: History of Christmas Lights
Part 2: Modern Lamp Types and Sizes
Part 3: Form Factors of Christmas Lights
Part 4: Christmas Light Power and Safety (new)

I also cited the following resources within the article:
"Christmas Lights and Community Building in America" by Brian Murray [PDF] (a really cool read)
The NOMA Story
Timeline of American Christmas Lighting
Chronological History of the Christmas Tree
The History of Bubble Lights

And these sites I consulted while researching the piece:
The History of Christmas Lights
Invention of Christmas Tree Lights
Who Invented Electric Christmas Lights?

As you can see, we used multiple sources to create this article. But please see our apology regarding my mistake in not properly listing the sources used and referenced throughout.

Top image via jspad
Bubble light image via Corey Ann

The prize at stake: a Joby SLR-ZOOM Gorillapod plus the Joby Ballhead. (Joby was kind enough to write and offer to up the stakes of these contests a bit.)

For a little advice, check out this very apt guide on photographing Christmas lights.

The rules:

1. Submissions need to be your own.
2. Photos need to be taken the week of the contest. (No portfolio linking or it spoils the "challenge" part.)
3. Explain, briefly, the equipment, settings and technique used to snag the shot.
4. Email submissions to contests@gizmodo.com.

Send your best entries by Sunday at 6PM Eastern to contests@gizmodo.com with "Christmas Lights" in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs or GIFs at 800 pixels wide, and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Include your shooting summary (camera, lens, ISO, etc) in the body of the email. ALSO, AND THIS IS NEW FOR THIS WEEK, ATTACH A 2560x1600 JPEG AS WELL FOR PEOPLE TO DOWNLOAD AS WALLPAPER. [Flickr]

Gizmodo buddy Kate Greene interviewed QD Vision's Seth Coe Sullivan and the founder of the MIT spinoff explained the process as such:

The quantum dot lighting solution is relatively simple: Adding red quantum dots to a white LED makes the resulting white light appear warmer. Light from the LED gives electrons in the quantum dots an energetic boost for a short time; when the electrons return to their lower energy state, they emit a photon, a process called photoluminescence. (Photoluminescence is in contrast to electroluminescence, in which electric current, not light, excites electrons.)

Unlike filters, the method does not soak up light and hurt efficiency — they're taking "blue photons from the LED and outputting red photons from the quantum dots." QD Vision's tech got some press earlier in the year, but I hadn't noticed it before writing my ode to the classic lightbulb. And although the bulbs aren't out yet, they'll be $100 when they are. We'll have to take one for a spin when they come around. And if they work, and last as long as they say they should, I'm going to kiss the incandescent goodbye forever. [Kate Greene]

Send your best entries to me at contests@gizmodo.com with Xmas Decorations in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs or GIFs, and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Send your work to me by next Tuesday morning, and I'll pick three top winners and show off the rest of the best in our Gallery of Champions. Get to it!

We take the miracle of the lightbulb for granted. We've been doing this for probably almost 100 years now, within a generation or two after the world figured out AC was the way to send power over distance, and the subsequent widespread adoption. But as LEDs get better and studies are done, the old regular lightbulb is going to villainized as an energy hog. Which it is.

A study covered by the NYTimes today drives the point home even further. Done by lightbulb company (of the old and new kind) Osram, it went beyond the typical lumen-per-watt analysis and studied the entire lifecycle, from manufacturing to disposal. And it was damning. Even considering the relative complication of an LED lightbulb's design, the equivalent life of incandescent bulbs are not as green. Five times less green, they say.

I lament every study like this that passes the news wire. Some others are skeptical of LED lightbulbs today, even while believing in the future of them. Maggie Koerth-Baker at Boingboing covers LED lighting as a beat and says that the best lights are commercial—that the 20 dollar kind at Home Depot are basically, a big fat lie. The thousands of hours they're supposed to live are often off by factors of 20, and that throws the whole green equation off, if you assume Osram didn't do real testing of LED life. And I doubt they did since they're the manufacturer of bulbs, but have no data here. Let's believe that for a moment, ignoring the vague conflicts of interest that may exist in a company that sells lightbulbs, even if it sells both. No matter what you say, LED lightbulbs are efficient as hell. And the new and efficient must replace the old.

This desertion of technology where raw energy is being wasted has a side effect of eliminating the beauty that comes from devices closely harnessing and taming the most primal forces. In the last half century, I feel as if we've turned away from wanting to know where untamed power comes from, much like we stopped wanting to know where meat comes from. First the nuke plants went boom in Chernobyl, and then our dreams for a safe, nuclear-powered future go with it. And steam-powered devices, even in play, are ok, as long as we don't talk about the majority of steam powered devices being powered by ugly, sooty coal. Electric cars are seen as far more futuristic, efficient and cool than the muscular cars that harness fire—fire!—in blocks of metal, powered by sipping pickled dinosaur juice. Electric ranges are being used in the most tech'd high end restaurants for sake of control and efficiency, and although BBQ will never die, I would find it hard to argue with the efficiency of electric range if I were building a new home. We think "fire"—smoke or smokeless—is primitive and has no place in our future. Consider this all more man vs nature conflict, where man further tames the wild and natural. And another step in the suppression of an analog world by digital means. This decade, the lightbulb, driven by hot filament so ready to ignite if only it were given oxygen and a chance, finds itself under this same scrutiny. This coming decade will find it a relic and a terrible thing to have around, given a greener alternative.

Somewhere along the line, because of these treehuggers and the energy bean counters and studies obsessed with efficiency, we forgot about how wonderful lightbulbs look. The hot light you'd find in a blacksmith's forge as he hammered away at horseshoes. Or a miniature Sun, (although nothing alike) because of the way the yellow lights brand marks into your eyes if you stare directly at them. Like the fire of a hundred candles, on demand. I like this. But never mind that, the studies say. We will come leaps and bounds forward with LED lightbulbs. For efficiency!

Most of this does not concern me, or move me to object in any way to LED lightbulbs, as much as the thought of LED light itself, so alien, in my house. In wikipedia, we get a description, under the disadvantages of the problems of white LEDs that "spike at 460 nm and dip at 500 nm," causing objects to be "perceived differently under cool-white LED illumination than sunlight or incandescent sources, due to metamerism." I don't know what that means, exactly, but it's easy to imagine and be horrified by the thought of my home filled with the kind of blue/white lighting more appropriate for the bridge of a space ship than the place where my intimate life occurs. I cannot imagine and would not read, make love, bathe, have friends over, eat dinner, listen to music or play with my dogs under LED lighting blue enough to make hospital or high school lighting fixtures look as natural as skylights after sunrise.

The general trend is that LEDs get twice as bright/efficient every 36 months, but brightness is not the issue here. They should stop this research, and focus on whatever it takes to make LED lightbulbs look like they're powered by hot tungsten on the verge of incinerating itself to illuminate our private night lives. That kind of raw power and energy might be a wasteful relic of our past, but quality of glow is something we should be mindful of measuring, too. Lightbulb makers, you should not forget where we came from when building the future.

*OLED lights like this one are supposedly closer to traditional bulbs in quality but if regular LED isn't price or energy efficient yet, um, OLED lights like this one aren't going to be closer.

I think I would. After recovering from the heart attack, I probably would run into it, only to get electrocuted by Yochai Matos' "Flame (Gate)", which is what this spacetime fabric door really is: An art installation made with hundreds of fluorescent bulbs. [Yochai Matos and The Coolist]

Bonus morning post soundtrack: My beloved Kim Deal singing Into the White.

The design is a rough map of the city's neighborhood as distinguished by "air boundaries".
The data is collected from 27 air monitoring stations; every 15 minutes the map lights up in order of highest to lowest air quality. [Living Light via bldgblog]

A breed of night light and cup, I'm just not sure where this thing has been since I was 4 years old. Not only does it have a glowing light in its base that is activated in low light, but it "automatically seals once your lips leave the rim." Awkward wording aside, it is designed not to spill when you sip laying down.

I may mind the glowing light while I'm trying to get my beauty rest, but it has to beat stepping on broken glass in the morning. I'm buying this thing for £5.99 even if I have to go to England to get it. [Litecup via Switched On Set]

Apparently built by some Polish tinkerer, this clock uses LEDs and the hard disk's natural reflectiveness to create these crazy patterns and colors. It's remote controlled too, in case you need to switch to a different eye-piercing background color. It doesn't seem to be available for purchase, but let's be honest—would you really put display this in your house? If you answered yes, take the lights out of your mouth and go back to Burning Man. [Elektroda via Hacked Gadgets via Boing Boing Gadgets]

The Price

$30

The Verdict

It's handy, even if we'd like to see the price drop by $10.

Taking the Gorillatorch out of the box, my immediate reaction was that it was a bit smaller than I'd expected. Especially compared to their dSLR tripod, pictured here, it's a little guy.
But the small size isn't necessarily a bad thing. Coupled with bright light output (that will blind you head-on) and feet that will stick firmly to metal surfaces (seriously, if you twist the light, the legs flex while the feet stayed glued), it's incredibly multifunctional. You can wrap or stick the torch almost anywhere you need some extra light.
I also loved the six-shooter style AA battery compartment.

Of course, this is an LED light. And that means it's more of a spotlight than a warmly diffused bulb. Reading requires creative positioning to avoid the overexposed center. Luckily, the LED is on a dimmer, so you can tweak the output pretty aggressively.

My biggest qualm is the price. For $30, I'd prefer the LED to be removable so the tripod could be used to hold a camera as well. But if you've got a good job, then sure, the Gorillatorch will scratch that consumer itch. [Gorillatorch]


Magnetism in feet is quite strong

Extremely high quality, flexible Gorillapod legs

Useful, dimming LED

Removable head would be welcome

Sometimes harsh spotlight output

However, as has been noted, this rechargeable $80 gadget may have been designed with the best intentions in mind (i.e. protect you from becoming a bug on someone's windshield), but it looks a bit big and unwieldy for running. Perhaps the LED, which casts light a respectable 54 feet ahead, is more suited to the slightly more leisurely pace of the ambitious cave running circuit I'm currently selling incredibly hard right now?

In any event, it's due out in October. The headgear, I mean. [Black Diamond via BBG]

It's great for bedtime reading, either turning itself off after you fell asleep, or before, to indicate that you should go to sleep. [Yanko via Dvice]

On Saturdays, Dr. Dena Coleman and her husband Gordon claim they are imprisoned in their condo because the landlord went and installed a motion-sensing security light to save energy and money. As Orthodox Jews, they say triggering the light violates a Sabbath rule, so they sued. Which rule? The Promethean one:

[The couple] claim they cannot leave their holiday flat on the Sabbath because when they do they automatically trigger the light in the communal hallway - contravening a religious ban on turning on electrical items from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday because it constitutes 'creating fire'. They say their human rights are being breached and are now suing the flats' management company - their neighbours - for failing to accommodate their religion.

Of the 35 other owners in the complex, not a single one of them supports the Colemans' lawsuit or their suggested fix, which entails forcing the management company to install a custom override switch. Oh, and management and the other tenants must pay back all the legal costs too.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that this is just the couple's holiday flat.

The case is scheduled for later this year. May the management install even more motion-sensing lights in that span.

Editor's Note: The original headline for this post was insensitive, and I'm now writing, individually, to those readers who contacted me this weekend expressing their disgust.

I also regret that my personal feelings on organized religion influenced my writing to the point that the article ended up lacking core tenets of Gizmodo: Mainly, gadgets, technology, relevance and intelligence.

What started in the lead as a criticism of lawsuits and one couple''s attempt to push a belief on 35 other families was soured by the remainder of the post, and I appreciate the readership pointing this out over the weekend. In that short span of time I've learned a lot about insensitivity, tact and timing. Most importantly, however, I am reminded that while Gizmodo readers come to the site for many reasons, none of them are to hear me spout off ill-informed BS about religion. For that I apologize. - J.L.

[Daily Mail - Thanks, Sctoland]

Rather than twisting the sides around, on this version you push buttons and have the lights move. How unnecessary! What this does add is 5 additional games, so if you've ever thought that the Rubik's Cube could use that, here you go. Only $63! What a deal! [Boy's Stuff via Foolish Gadgets]

These new models are called Mappamondo (Globe), Bucco Bianco (White Hole), and Galassia (Galaxy). They are made of Via Lattea—italian for the raspberry-flavored Milky Way—a white fabric assembled around carbon-based black threads which they claim is indestructible.

The best thing about the Stardust light furniture is that it allows you to role play Austin Powers at night, while letting you be Howard Hughes during the day just by changing the space cakes with milk bottles. [Meritalia via Gearfuse]