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Weekly Innovation: A Light Bulb That's Also A Flashlight

When charged, the Bulb Flashlight can stay on for three hours.
Courtesy of the MoMA Store
When charged, the Bulb Flashlight can stay on for three hours.

Each week, we highlight a design or product innovation that you might not have heard about yet. Many of them come through your submissions (here's the form), but this week's idea came to us from our NPR Two-Way blogger, Eyder Peralta, who thought this was pretty cool. We did, too.

The Bulb Flashlight sells for $45.
/ Courtesy of MoMa Store
/
Courtesy of MoMa Store
The Bulb Flashlight sells for $45.

With this dual-purpose device, you won't have to fumble around for a flashlight for trick-or-treating or the next time the power goes out. The Bulb Flashlight is a low-heat, rechargeable LED bulb that doubles as a handheld flashlight.

The bulb charges when screwed into a light fixture but works as a torch for up to four hours without a battery. Extend the handle after screwing off the bulb and you have an instant source of portable light.

The product is eco-friendly — using just six watts of power to produce light equivalent to a 40W incandescent bulb. But it's not cheap. The New York Museum of Modern Art's online store is selling it for $45, with 10 percent off for members.

We've been searching for the designer, which the MoMA store lists as Lin Guohui. I called a Lin Guohui who teaches computational biology at the University of Alberta, but he says, "I know nothing about it." So Lin Guohui, designer, if you are out there, we'd love to hear from you.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Elise Hu is a host-at-large based at NPR West in Culver City, Calif. Previously, she explored the future with her video series, Future You with Elise Hu, and served as the founding bureau chief and International Correspondent for NPR's Seoul office. She was based in Seoul for nearly four years, responsible for the network's coverage of both Koreas and Japan, and filed from a dozen countries across Asia.