I had the opportunity to talk about .5W+ LEDs with a local manufacturer the other day, and I think that is what the Leaf is using. With a 5mm LED (typical generic LED) no heat sinks are really necessary. With a resistor in line, they are never going to produce enough heat to reduce the life expectancy. However, with the powerful .5W+ LEDs, heat makes a big difference, and the resistor will not necessarily be enough protection.
In one of this companies products they went so far as to have a new board designed here in Canada which measured the temperature and altered the current to each LED accordingly to maintain a decent life. Although, this means the thing will put out half the light in the Mohave as in Canada, but the life will be the same.
In short, the heat sinks are not to protect the customer, they are to protect the LED.
I checked this lamp out at NEOCON when it was released, and had a run down of the lamp with a HM Rep I was going through the showroom with.
The touch sensitive dimmer and color adjustment are by far the best part of the design, they are really pleasing. The ‘wonky’ and jerky motion of adjusting the lamp really bothered me, and I brought it up since the models on display were supposedly pre-production. I was told that the swaying and jerky motion was intended by Mr. Behar to be plant like and was intentional; if so its not very pleasing, at least personally. I’m not wild about the aesthetics of the form, but it does have some very good engineering behind it. The LED head unit can be replaced I believe, and the heat sink does its job and the touch sensitive elements really work well. The light color was pretty nice, at least the nicest I’ve seen from LEDs.
The fact that all the elements can be pulled apart at the end of the product life and that the components can be replaced over time are the green bits- for the price they want you to keep this lamp for a long, long time. Worth $500? Well it has the Herman Miller warranty and engineering…you just have to really love the aesthetic. I think the designer was perhaps trying to make too much of a statement with it for it to be a successful product, but it might get a page in a book someday.
Nobody mentioned the efficiency of LEDs. Conventional lights generate heat which is energy wasted from the intended use. Flourescents generate very little heat but from what I have read LEDs are way more efficient. Considering the high cost of being on the leading edge, $500 does not eliminate it from being green.