Lamp hijacks electricity from unused telephone jack

How many people still have landlines anyway?

I think there are a few concerns here:

1) It appears this lamp is made to work correctly on an analog phone line. That will provide either 48vdc or 90vdc at very low currents when the phone is not being used. This could certainly operate an LED lamp of proper design and low power.

2) When the line is engaged/off-hook, that voltage drops to low single digits. Can this lamp cope with this drop, or will the lamp extinguish?

3) Ringing voltage on an analog line is around 200vac, at 20Hz and pretty low current. Phonesets have a ringer equivalency number which compares the current required to make the phone ring to one of two "standard" phonesets. And analog lines have a not-to-exceed REN rating, beyond which your phone will not ring, or will ring intermittently. What is the REN of this lamp, and is it so high that you may not get calls?

4) It is difficult for a typical user to know if the jack they are plugging into is analog or digital. As opposed to the 90vdc on an on-hook analog line, a digital line would typically not exceed 5vdc. Will that power the lamp? I doubt it. Will it cause problems for the line card providing the phone signal? Potentially.

This is a very creative idea. But there is a valid reason that TPC employs more engineers than artists. Perhaps UxSight does, too, but my guess is not.

I still have a land line. I have no intention of giving up my POTS line till the standards of up time required of the major phone companies are also required of network providers. Many years ago after a hurricane, power was out from hours to days. The landlines in most areas were still up or recovered much quicker than the power. No power, no modem, no net phone. Cell phones lasted only as long as their batteries. I had one family member running their car just to power their cell phone to let family members know they were alive and ok. Of course lack of power meant no gasoline pumps were working, so the car would only last as long at the tank had fuel.
I can't tell you the times my cable company has had power outages so that my net was down. Only recently has it been more stable. Of course just a glitch in my power kills everything so on rare occasion I have to go through a round of additional power cycling to get the cable modem to sync up to the cable line so my network works again.

So what they really need to invent is a land-line trickle charger for cell phones...

it is illegal to plug any device into a telephone company line which does not have an FCC registration number. What is the reg num for this device?

This is a brilliant idea. All it needs is a little cooperative work with the telcos to make it "play nicely" with all types of phones, and a little alternative marketing, and it could become a superb emergency light. When the power fails, your landline phone still works, because it has line power; why not have a light that plugs into that same source? You could have a reliable blackout light, and it could easily be built to comply with telco requirements. Never mind about "hijacking" electricity, its eight LEDs won't draw much. This should be looked at like those USB lights and fans - using something that's available, not leeching "free power". Phone companies should embrace it, not fight it - maybe start selling them.

I agree with Chris. I have a desk phone that has a small light that stays on all the time and is powered by the phone line. It does not make a lot of light but it makes the phone easy to find in the dark and it flashes brightly when the phone rings. The keypad is also very well lit, and all this is powered by the line. I don't really see a problem with a stand alone light of this type.