Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

designingwithleds.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 189 posts

Re: 60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

#151

Post by hellgas00 »

lutorm wrote: post #126
scurvy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most energy consumption in the US goes towards heating and cooling, not illumination. Making your house more energy efficient starts with your windows and doors, not your lightbulbs.

That depends -- the energy wasted by illumination needs to be cooled away (if you live in a climate where cooling is necessary, obviously), which not only uses energy but also increases the necessary size of the HVAC unit needed. This can be significant in places with a lot of lights so more applies to offices than residences. OTOH, if you live in a climate where heating is necessary, and even more if you heat with e…

It's a given that most bulbs are located on the ceiling, unless you have a fan to redistribute that heat to the ground you aren't feeling the warmth. Also, when lights are off you still need to heat the house. Unless you're using the bulbs during the day, your HVAC unit will need to be just as big.

Re: 60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

#152

Post by clauretano »

com2kid wrote: post #144
ajross wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without getting into the minutiae of lumens and efficiency metrics for different lighting technologies... It never occurred to you just to buy a second lamp?

> It never occurred to you just to buy a second lamp? I'd love to. 750sqft Condo, I have one outlet that is hooked to a switch, other outlets are either in some horrid location or already used up with a power strip attached. Not everyone has large open areas that they can just throw stuff in. What I need to do is get a better quality standing lamp that can take a slew of light bulbs! But even then, I am not going to…

I feel your pain. I'm also unable to go the ceiling light route (solid concrete floors and ceilings). The best solution I've found is sticking a wireless switch on the wall next to the regular light switches. There are ones that look like a regular modern style wall switch, just thick because there are AAAs in it. The one I have is just some cheap thing that was on Amazon, but for larger-scale applications Lutron has a whole line of wireless lighting control products (Maestro).

I was surprised how bright the 100W-equivalent LED unit from Philips is. It is rated at 1780 lumens vs 1600 for an incandescent 100W.

Re: 60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

#153

Post by clauretano »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #108
drakaal wrote: post #87

This is Spam. There are a few dozen of these with better economics on Amazon. And if you want to light a house on the cheap, the LED "ropes" are more efficient, and will last longer. Also a CFT would be 12W and cost $2 ($1.25 if you look around). Over 10 years in most markets that would be cheaper. PS: My Home is almost 100% LED's. I love them. But that doesn't mean they are always the cheapest, the most efficient, o…

I dislike the consistent color across dimming. The whole point of dimming lights is to lower the color temperature. It is impossible to get a candle like ambiance with LEDs. If you want less total light, it is easy to just turn fewer lights on.

Philips has solved this with "DimTone" http://www.usa.lighting.philips.com/lightcommunity/trends/le...

Re: 60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

#154

Post by mixmastamyk »

ajross wrote: post #89
com2kid wrote: post #76

I am unimpressed by 60 watt equivalent bulbs. A 60 watt equivalent is about enough to be a desk lamp, if I need to provide light for even a small room it is a useless amount unless I get a large number of bulbs together. Unfortunately 60 watt equivalent has become some sort of benchmark for new light bulb technology. If you really want to replace lighting in some meaningful way, start quoting 100 watt equivalent numb…

If only someone made a "fixture" for lighting with multiple bulb sockets in a convenient, attractive mounting that could be attached to the ceiling of a room. The 60W incandescent light bulb has been the "standard lightbulb" since before most of us were born. Honestly I don't understand this criticism at all. Certainly LED lighting is available in many form factors other than a 60W bulb...

1 x 100w is a lot more efficient than 3 x 60.

Re: 60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

#155

Post by kyzyl »

justin66 wrote: post #132
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the top-of-the-line CREE bulbs are only suitable for people who are color blind or habitually not paying attention. I once did an ill-considered change from halogen to LED bulbs in my kitchen, and having done so could no longer see the colors on my dishware. That was ridiculous. I went back to the halogens. My house is in a year-round heating climate anyway so I don't really worry about the waste heat from them.

I wonder if you've actually used one of the newest Cree bulbs? I'm not color blind and I found the color of one of their 2700k bulbs to be better than the CFLs I use in a few places. Come to think of it, they're a fair bit better than the g7power LEDs as well. This is why I'm wondering if the CRI is really a magical "light goodness" benchmark number or what. Some people certainly seem to be treating it that way.

cri doesnt mean too much absolutely, but it's the metric the standards associations chose to compare lights. after working with medical lighting for a while I've found myself paying more attention to the combination of cri and cct and/or cri and luminous flux. what people need to realize is that lots of other factors come into play such as ambient color mismatch and bleeding of adjacent colors. in some conditions even high cri lights don't appear to show color very well.

Re: 60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

#156

Post by moheeb »

ZeroCoin wrote: post #135

I just bought a 5k and 2.7k versions from Home Depot here in Canada for $15.97 CAD each. My only gripe is the ~22% markup over the US pricing when the Canadian Dollar is worth ~2% more than the American (and has been for some time now). I found it funny the way they had their lights laid out in my local store. There has always only ever been one aisle dedicated to twist-in bulbs. When I entered the store today, and w…

That is something I've never understood...how can the Canadian dollar be worth 2% more when prices are nearly always much higher in Canada?

Re: 60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

#157

Post by darkarmani »

dwiel wrote: post #145
darkarmani wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most interesting parts of lighting energy efficiency to me is that once lighting uses so little power, you can use battery backup for power outages. I'm surprised there isn't a push for low voltage LED lighting. Running low voltage cabling and electrical boxes is a lot easier and the LEDs run off of low voltage anyway. Outside of appliances, who needs 120VAC in most of their rooms?

I was going to do this in the house that I am building, but the building department has very strict codes for how often you need 120VAC outlets (quite often to prevent daisy chained power strips and similar unsafe behavior). The relevant code is from the International Building Code: "Receptacles shall be installed so that no point measured horizontally along the floor line of any wall space is more than 6 feet (1829…

Yeah, that is a common building code requirement in most states. It's going to be more annoying when everything starts having USB plug adapters and charges off 5v.

Re: 60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

#158

Post by qu4z-2 »

EliRivers wrote: post #114
dsfasfasf wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another simple explanation, your sight is not as good as it used to be. 10 years is a long time. Just saying.

That's kind of my whole point. In fact, not "kind of". That is my point.

Good response.

Re: 60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

#159

Post by qu4z-2 »

moheeb wrote: post #156
ZeroCoin wrote: post #135

I just bought a 5k and 2.7k versions from Home Depot here in Canada for $15.97 CAD each. My only gripe is the ~22% markup over the US pricing when the Canadian Dollar is worth ~2% more than the American (and has been for some time now). I found it funny the way they had their lights laid out in my local store. There has always only ever been one aisle dedicated to twist-in bulbs. When I entered the store today, and w…

That is something I've never understood...how can the Canadian dollar be worth 2% more when prices are nearly always much higher in Canada?

Because exchange rates and cost of living are two separate things.

The Canadian dollar is worth 2% more, meaning for one Canadian dollar you get USD$1.02. On the other hand, stuff in Canada is more expensive no matter whether you're paying in CAD or USD. Exchange rate is to do with currencies, independent of location; cost-of-living is to do with location [pretty much] independent of currency.

To see a much more drastic difference in cost of living, try going somewhere like Siam^WThailand.

Maybe someone else can fill in the details on the factors that influence exchange rate and cost of living.

Re: 60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

#160

Post by cjensen »

officialjunk wrote: post #27

Rant: when are we going to stop using watts as a unit for lightbulb "brightness?" The actual unit we care about is only implied by saying "60 watt equivalent." :(

Yep. 60W incandescent bulbs do not all have the same lumen output, which leads to LED makers claiming "60W equivalent" when they really mean "equivalent to a lousy 60W bulb".
Post reply on HN