LED lighting is a lamp or other light that uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as a source of illumination. Most lighting comes from an incandescent or fluorescent light bulb. Although they are different than the traditional bulb, LED bulbs are available that can be put into traditional lamps and used like most other light bulbs. They are much more efficient than incandescent or fluorescent options, however.
Light-emitting diodes are semiconductor devices that convert electricity to light by using the movement of electrons. They were invented in Russia in the 1920s and put into practical use in the United States in the 1960s by General Electric. In the late 1960s, Monsanto Corporation was the first to mass-produce LEDs, and Hewlett-Packard used them in its early calculators.
There are many consumer advantages to LEDs over incandescent or fluorescent light bulbs.LED lights consume much less energy: they are 300% more efficient than compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) and 1,000% more efficient than an incandescents. They have a very long life, with about 50,000 hours of use at 70% of their original power. This works out to eight hours a day for 13 years at 70% power. A typical 60-watt incandescent bulb may last about 1,000 hours.