Comment Re:Why light bulb form factor? (Score 1) 314
Because
(1) you don't have to pay an electrician to remove and reinstall a lamp, but you do a fixture (2) you don't disrupt the flow of business and it takes a shorter time to re-lamp than replace a fixture (3) if you find that the LED sucks, you can go back to what you know works (4) In 10 years, when one (or more) of the 30 year life fixtures dies and they don't make that model any more, I can replace a lamp and the fixture will still look the same. If I have to replace a fixture, then I have an oddball looking spot in my ceiling. Not everything is a warehouse where aesthetics mean nothing.
Oh, and there are a good number of older consumer fixtures which either (a) anticipate a certain light pattern or (b) actually use the lamp as the structure to hold the shade. I you think it's hard to convince people to buy a $20 lamp instead of a $1 one, it's even harder to get them to buy a new $60 fixture to put it in.
But even with the same socket type and it's dimension limitations why does it still need to be round and bulb like? A spherical bulb is the worst case scenario for heat dissipation, other shapes would perform better. Many LED bulbs have a cluster of LEDs often with some lens over the top of them. To me that allows a lot of freedom for heat dissipation considerations. But it's not a lack of imagination from manufacturers, they are just are playing it safe by assuming consumers won't accept odd shaped lights.
I find LED spots and floodlights have less of a problem as there is room for a heatsink. Yet MR16's get so hot it scares me.