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posted by martyb on Thursday May 28 2020, @02:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the GE-We-bring-good-things-to-light dept.

GE switches off light bulb business after almost 130 years

General Electric has finally found a buyer for its lighting business and will be selling off its last consumer-facing business after more than 120 years of operation.

Boston-based GE said today it would divest the lighting business to Savant Systems, a smart home management company also based in Massachusetts. The companies did not disclose financial terms of the deal, but sources told The Wall Street Journal that the transaction was valued at about $250 million.

Savant specializes in full smart home systems for the luxury market. Acquiring a lighting business directly will allow it to take advantage of vertical integration and take more control over the physical equipment it installs in consumer' homes. Savant will keep the business's operations in Cleveland, where it is currently based, and will receive a long-term license to keep using the GE branding for its products.

The lighting business is GE's oldest segment, dating all the way back to the company's founding through a series of mergers with Thomas Edison's companies in the late 1880s and early 1890s.


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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @02:53PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @02:53PM (#1000167)

    At 60 cycles per second, though he would have preferred DC.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @04:29PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @04:29PM (#1000191)

      Would he not currently be consolidated?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @03:24AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @03:24AM (#1000391)

        He's resisting answering and the suspense is electrifying.

  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday May 28 2020, @03:06PM

    by looorg (578) on Thursday May 28 2020, @03:06PM (#1000171)

    Fantastic. Just what we need, more IoT smart lightbulb bullshit. Yay!

    Never heard of the company tho, guess I'm not really in the luxury segment of the market. Is that where they pay the extra (stupid-) premium costs for basic products but with the right branding? Like suckers.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @03:26PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @03:26PM (#1000176)

    What caused the decline over the past 5 years when most other stocks were rising?
    (Too lazy to check motley fool)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @04:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @04:19PM (#1000187)

      Financial fuckery? And most recently, the drop in air traffic and associated technical services.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by turgid on Thursday May 28 2020, @07:22PM (1 child)

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 28 2020, @07:22PM (#1000251) Journal

      Too much Six Sigma and MBA spreadsheets probably.

    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday May 29 2020, @03:34AM

      by RS3 (6367) on Friday May 29 2020, @03:34AM (#1000396)

      Purely speculating, but incandescent bulbs are fairly simple, needed replacing, so were a good income flow. LEDs not so much, and there's probably (significantly) less profit in them. I've bought perfectly good ones at the Dollar store, so again speculating, but GE probably sees it as a dying market, best taken up by smaller companies, esp. ones like Savant who have a wider market. Savant probably sees using the GE name as an easy path to getting the Savant name out there.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @04:23PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @04:23PM (#1000189)

    Places like Home Depot and Lowe's that used to have a good selection of LED bulbs at 2700K, 3000K and 5000K from different producers, with declared lifetimes at 20 years have most recently been stocking only GE bulbs in 2700K and 5000K at much lower lifetimes.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @05:28PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @05:28PM (#1000205)

      I buy Philips bulbs from those big box stores because I think they are a bit better made, but even they make cheap, lower lifetime bulbs just like every LED bulb manufacturer.
      It's the inevitable lifecycle of a technology. It starts off expensive but high quality but eventually turns into a commodity where manufacturers compete on price alone. Eventually the cost cutting gets to a point where you cannot help but sell a junky product. Let's hope the lights don't get *too* junky...
      just "basic."

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @06:31PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @06:31PM (#1000232)

        "All products eventually turn into cheap commodity shit"

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 29 2020, @12:34AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 29 2020, @12:34AM (#1000336) Journal

          The only product that doesn't turn into shit is.... shit.
          I don't know if there's a business opportunity there.
          I mean, without planned obsolescence, how can one generate revenue?

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @07:20PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @07:20PM (#1000250)

        What annoys me more is the color temperature. I had been happier with 3000K, and all they offer me now is yellow shit.
        They are also playing around with "Watts"/lumen conversion factors, as in claiming a 40W incandescent equivalent is actually a 60W equivalent.

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @09:44PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @09:44PM (#1000295)

          I hear you man.
          2700K is regular old fashioned incandescent color.
          3000K is halogen (i.e. the "incandescents" you are allowed to still buy).
          5000K is just too blue for the house. It's pure institutional.

          3000K was a great, usable light that wasn't too harsh.

  • (Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @04:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @04:33PM (#1000193)

    Fuck Edison and his scummy thieving bullshit, and especially for murdering animals to sell his ideas.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by aristarchus on Thursday May 28 2020, @05:38PM (7 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday May 28 2020, @05:38PM (#1000209) Journal

    I can remember reading Gravity’s Rainbow and marveling at the imagination on display in the famous “Byron the Bulb” section, in which a very chipper, eternally burning lightbulb (yes, that’s our Byron) finds himself in the crosshairs of Phoebus, a nefarious lightbulb cartel intent on controlling the life span of every bulb in the world.

    From Planned Obsolescence, in The Paris Review [theparisreview.org], 2014.

    He's still out there, somewhere!

    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday May 29 2020, @03:38AM (6 children)

      by RS3 (6367) on Friday May 29 2020, @03:38AM (#1000398)

      Reminds me of automotive batteries- they die right around the end of the warranty.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @04:54AM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @04:54AM (#1000414)

        Around the same time as the lead-acid battery, a nickel-iron battery car battery was developed.
        It never took off because it had several downsides;
        - a self-discharge of 2 to 3% per day,
        - 1.2V per cell, requiring 10 cells instead of six
        - lower capacity because the cells had to be smaller (mitigated by being able to use the full capacity)
        - required regular top-ups of distilled water
        - lasted forever

        The advantages were all on the consumer side;
        - incredible tolerance for abuse
        - overcharging just broke down the H2O, refill the water and it was fine.
        - running it to completely flat did no damage, charge it and it was fine
        - every five years or so (depending on just how well distilled the top up water was) you needed to replace the cheap potassium hydroxide electrolyte.
        - other than top ups and electrolyte change it lasted forever.

        Naturally, the battery companies hated it. The few people who got them, kept them even when the sold their cars, and transferred them to their new cars.

        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday May 29 2020, @05:51AM

          by RS3 (6367) on Friday May 29 2020, @05:51AM (#1000428)

          Some years ago I knew someone who had a bank of Edison cells- nickle-iron- exactly what you described. He loved them, for all the reasons you described.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 29 2020, @09:50AM (3 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 29 2020, @09:50AM (#1000470) Journal

          a self-discharge of 2 to 3% per day

          That's a huge disadvantage for me. I've gone a month without starting my car.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @10:00PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @10:00PM (#1001176)

            It's not always all about you khallow.
            Or just add one of those parcel-shelf solar chargers to keep it topped up.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 31 2020, @05:18PM (1 child)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 31 2020, @05:18PM (#1001430) Journal
              Don't be a dumbass. It's a common usage situation.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @07:20PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @07:20PM (#1001832)

                Most people who only use a car 12 times a year work out that it is cheaper to get a taxi or hire a car than to own one.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @06:10PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @06:10PM (#1000225)

    ...delightful!

    I'll get me coat...

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