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Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

maurycyz.com

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Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#31

Post by toasty228 »

Hilliard_Ohiooo wrote: post #9
freediddy wrote: post #4

I've never had LED lights last anywhere near the purported 5-7 year timeframe. The worst ones are the small decorative ones with the tinier screw part that my house seems to have an inordinate number of. Those last maybe 6 months and then they start getting dimmer and then all the lights in the circuit get worse at once. I like LED lights immensely but the idea they last even 2 years is a lie in my opinion.

I bought all new Philip hue bulbs going on 7 or 8 years ago now and not a single one has gone bad. Maybe you're just buying cheap poor quality bulbs? A 100 out of 100 success rate after 8 years.

2 of the 4 philips hue I bought in 2019 died a few years back, a bulb and a led stripe, I'm not buying expensive ones next time

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#32

Post by sam1714 »

freediddy wrote: post #22
sam1714 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had a ton of issues with the original Cree bulbs. They underglued the glass bulb and it came off with thermal cycling. They also put the LEDs on a metal core PCB they bent into ~10-gon tower. On the bends, the traces apparently would crack which led to overheating and a burn spot. Cree is now no more; the bulbs are just a brand for FEIT who imports the same unreliable Chinese white-label bulbs.

Which brand do you suggest?

Philips Hue. I've had issues with color ones, the White + Ambience ones are fine. (Makes sense as they omit the color section)

Hue is basically the only bulbs not being sourced from the same couple of white label manufacturers. Philips/Signify's rapidly shrinking line of dumb bulbs are being sourced from there too.

Never buy filament style bulbs. They are universally unreliable because of poor thermals with the emitters.

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#33

Post by pigpop »

jsLavaGoat wrote: post #5

5700 is a terrible temperature for lighting unless that matches the daylight. Soft white and even reddish is much better at night. Presumably, most artificial light it used at night. 2700 is more like it. My LED lightbulbs change temperature based on the time of day and are dull red at night so you both don't wake up and you don't stub your toe. Show me a non-LED that can do that.

It's called a dimmer switch.

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#34

Post by tzs »

freediddy wrote: post #4

I've never had LED lights last anywhere near the purported 5-7 year timeframe. The worst ones are the small decorative ones with the tinier screw part that my house seems to have an inordinate number of. Those last maybe 6 months and then they start getting dimmer and then all the lights in the circuit get worse at once. I like LED lights immensely but the idea they last even 2 years is a lie in my opinion.

In mid 2016 I replaced around 25-30 incandescent bulbs (7 x 100 W, a couple or so 40 W, and the rest 60 W) with Walmart Great Value non-dimmable LEDs. Basically every incandescent bulb I could find around the house that was not on a dimmer and was A19 shape with an E26 base (except I forgot the attic and crawlspace).

There was some sort of deal between Walmart and Puget Sound Energy that applied an instant rebate automatically so that they simply rang up on checkout for $0.17.

They are all still working fine.

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#35

Post by krackers »

Hilliard_Ohiooo wrote: post #9
freediddy wrote: post #4

I've never had LED lights last anywhere near the purported 5-7 year timeframe. The worst ones are the small decorative ones with the tinier screw part that my house seems to have an inordinate number of. Those last maybe 6 months and then they start getting dimmer and then all the lights in the circuit get worse at once. I like LED lights immensely but the idea they last even 2 years is a lie in my opinion.

I bought all new Philip hue bulbs going on 7 or 8 years ago now and not a single one has gone bad. Maybe you're just buying cheap poor quality bulbs? A 100 out of 100 success rate after 8 years.

They have become cheaper and cut costs over time. LED bulbs bought around the l-prize time when the technology was new are heavy, you can feel their metal heatsink. New LEDs from the same reputable brand are comparatively cheap.

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#36

Post by wolfgangK »

BTW, I don't understand why having the driver converting AC to DC inside the LED spots is the default. For a new house, it seems to make sense to me to have at least one external driver for a ceiling of spots, if not one per floor (not one for the whole house because pf the drop in voltage). But 24V led spots seem much less common and I cannot find many reviews. Any idea why it's not more common ? It seems efficiency and thermals would be much easier to optimize without the size constraint, plus economy of scale with components. Any specific 24V led spots / bulbs to recommend ?

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#37

Post by HappyPanacea »

wolfgangK wrote: post #36

BTW, I don't understand why having the driver converting AC to DC inside the LED spots is the default. For a new house, it seems to make sense to me to have at least one external driver for a ceiling of spots, if not one per floor (not one for the whole house because pf the drop in voltage). But 24V led spots seem much less common and I cannot find many reviews. Any idea why it's not more common ? It seems efficiency…

It would be nice to have the driver and LED decoupled from each other with a standard socket between driver and LED even if there is one per bulb.

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#38

Post by lovich »

freediddy wrote: post #4

I've never had LED lights last anywhere near the purported 5-7 year timeframe. The worst ones are the small decorative ones with the tinier screw part that my house seems to have an inordinate number of. Those last maybe 6 months and then they start getting dimmer and then all the lights in the circuit get worse at once. I like LED lights immensely but the idea they last even 2 years is a lie in my opinion.

We have several hundred smart led lights from I want to say Lutron? In my home going on year 6 soon and we’ve had to replace only 3-4 so far. 3 of those replacements were on the same circuit as well so I question if the circuit isn’t at fault.

Plural of anecdote isn’t data and all that but I think the several hundred quantity adds some weight. Also about 90 of those are in outdoor lamps so there’s a good amount dealing with weather and we’ve not had to replace any of those yet.

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#39

Post by piva00 »

Hilliard_Ohiooo wrote: post #9
freediddy wrote: post #4

I've never had LED lights last anywhere near the purported 5-7 year timeframe. The worst ones are the small decorative ones with the tinier screw part that my house seems to have an inordinate number of. Those last maybe 6 months and then they start getting dimmer and then all the lights in the circuit get worse at once. I like LED lights immensely but the idea they last even 2 years is a lie in my opinion.

I bought all new Philip hue bulbs going on 7 or 8 years ago now and not a single one has gone bad. Maybe you're just buying cheap poor quality bulbs? A 100 out of 100 success rate after 8 years.

Same for me, have Philips Hue bulbs for the past 10 years, some 50 of them and only had one failure unrelated to the LEDs themselves.

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#40

Post by gucci-on-fleek »

Hilliard_Ohiooo wrote: post #9
freediddy wrote: post #4

I've never had LED lights last anywhere near the purported 5-7 year timeframe. The worst ones are the small decorative ones with the tinier screw part that my house seems to have an inordinate number of. Those last maybe 6 months and then they start getting dimmer and then all the lights in the circuit get worse at once. I like LED lights immensely but the idea they last even 2 years is a lie in my opinion.

I bought all new Philip hue bulbs going on 7 or 8 years ago now and not a single one has gone bad. Maybe you're just buying cheap poor quality bulbs? A 100 out of 100 success rate after 8 years.

> I bought all new Philip hue bulbs going on 7 or 8 years ago now and not a single one has gone bad.

I had a bulb go bad once (out of almost 50 bulbs), but I called their support number and they shipped me a new one for free without any hassle.

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