Luxury lux from this Buster + Punch LED
Have you ever oohed and aahed over a light bulb? Because you're about to ooh and aah over a light bulb.
- 10 years product testing experience with the CNET Home team
Light bulbs have a long utilitarian history, with forms drawn entirely from the function of the filament trapped inside. The "Buster Bulb" from the British design label Buster + Punch doesn't shy away from that bulb-shaped backstory, but it also puts form first with a high-end, modern build that's about as slick-looking as anything I've seen. Of course, at £40 each (about $60 or AU$80, roughly converted), that sort of luxury illumination doesn't come cheap.
The centerpiece of the design is the "resin light pipe" that runs the vertical length of the bulb's interior. Buster + Punch claims that the pipe diffuses the LED light into a warm, ambient glow while simultaneously providing focused spot lighting for surfaces below.
The Buster Bulb comes housed in a 120mm glass bulb tinted in your choice of crystal, gold, or smoke (not to be confused with silver, gold, or space gray). Each bulb is built off of an E27 screw-in base, with a power draw of 3 watts. Buster + Punch doesn't list brightness specifications on its website and hasn't responded to my inquiry, but at that wattage, I wouldn't expect much more than an accent light of a few hundred lumens, at best.
Buster Bulbs are fully dimmable and rated at a 10,000 hour lifespan. At £40 per bulb, I certainly wish that number were higher -- 25,000 hours is largely the norm for LED bulbs these days.
Buster + Punch claims CE certification throughout Europe for all of its electronics, including the Buster Bulb. The design label claims that it's working on UL certification as well, but can't sell the bulb in North America until that process is complete.
For shoppers in search of an even bigger splurge, Buster + Punch also sells the metallic screw-in fixtures shown in the product photos for £130 each ($195/AU$255). Like the bulbs, the fixtures offer three finishes: steel, smoked bronze and rose copper.