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There's something off about LED bulbs

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Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#101

Post by orev »

mhb wrote: post #77
QuarterReptile wrote: post #2

Non-dimmable bulbs are the author's problem. First, bans on incandescent bulbs are foolish because they encourage defeatist foolishness like this article (as far as I can tell, for the sake of virtue signaling and modest acceleration of a change that was already happening.) The CFLs which preceded LEDs were really awful, especially for closets (where they'll linger for decades, given the low utilization of those bulb…

> Non-dimmable LEDs are right up there with running toilets and rodents in the pantheon of things to make homeowners lose their minds. Really? I've never understood the affection for dimming lights. Essentially always I want lights on or off.

Many people complain about sleep problems. Light exposure is essential to regulating sleep cycles, and going from full brightness to full darkness at night can easily contribute to those problems. Dimmers allow finer control of exposure.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#102

Post by noneeeed »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #70
davidmurdoch wrote: post #52

My pool pump and AC will cost me about $700 US this month. Switching from incandescent to LED bulbs might have saved me a few dollars. And for what? For expensive bulbs that flicker, don't reproduce colors well, last less than a year, and undulate and buzz when dimmed (yes, the dimmable ones)? I think we've been bamboozled by the light bulb industry.

Wow, what kind of awful bulbs are you buying? I have literally a house full of LED bulbs, some of which are on dimmers, and have experienced literally none of these problems. Just for starters, I haven't had a single LED bulb fail in the 8-odd years I've been using them in my home. But maybe there's an argument that you have to pay a significant premium to get a bulb that doesn't have the issues you've run into and,…

I'm reading these comments and thinking the same. While I have had a handful fail quicker than I think they should, on the whole ours are great. A bunch of them are dimmable, most are warm-white for a cosier light.

We can turn on every light in the house and it will use less than 200w. With incandescents and halogens (for gu10s) I'd be looking at more than that just to light the bathroom. The whole house would use about 1.5kw. Given that the lights are on a lot outside of summer (I'm in the UK) that's a pretty big saving.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#103

Post by weberer »

galleywest200 wrote: post #78
timw4mail wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention space constraints for power supplies, and cooling the LEDs enough. For all the benefits of LED lights, incandescent bulbs are infinitely simpler.

> cooling the LEDs enough Maybe I am missing something from this conversation, but all of my LED bulbs produce far _less_ heat than incandescent bulbs. The lamp in my bedroom no longer keeps me warm!

Yes, but incandescent bulbs don't need to be cooled at all because they're just tungsten and glass. High powered LEDs require a heat sink to not damage the diode.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#104

Post by Waterluvian »

eimrine wrote: post #95
QuarterReptile wrote: post #2

Non-dimmable bulbs are the author's problem. First, bans on incandescent bulbs are foolish because they encourage defeatist foolishness like this article (as far as I can tell, for the sake of virtue signaling and modest acceleration of a change that was already happening.) The CFLs which preceded LEDs were really awful, especially for closets (where they'll linger for decades, given the low utilization of those bulb…

Non-dimmableness is only one of the problems. For me the biggest problem is that all LEDs are blue, despite of any light-filters. I can not use it in bedroom when I use to read books before sleep and in bathroom when my aestetical needs of seing bare body have been not met. I have even changed my place of living since Sodium lamps have been replaced with LEDs on my old street. And if I need a really bright light or r…

My home is full of bright, warm yellow/orange LEDs.

I also have a lot of "sunlight" LEDs which I'll describe as "white" and I LOVE them for big rooms and making daytime feel like daytime. Great for my office.

I recall blue being a big problem when LEDs for homes were new, but when I bought a house 3 years ago and revisited it, I was delighted to find so many very solid options. Dimmable, non-flicker, warm LED bulbs. The Canadian government also chipped in with my tax dollars so they were about 50 cents each.

My one complaint is that even the fancier, pricier ones seem to burn out too. In 3 years I've had to replace 4 ceiling bulbs of about 50 (the builder went nutty with recessed ceiling lights). I think they're just driven really harshly by the A/C.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#105

Post by willchis »

nazgulsenpai wrote: post #86

This is weird. I buy the most basic Dollar Tree LED bulbs for every outlet in my home and I haven't had any of the problems in the article (for about 4 years so far). Occasionally one will blow then I just toss in another dollar bulb (maybe 4-5 so far). The light color and "quality" is perfect too. Granted, I don't have any fancy dimmer switches or anything but hey, maybe try the basic Dollar Tree bulbs :)

I was about to post the exact same thing. They even had a couple of warmth options and the 2700K ones seem to work just fine in lamps that I use every day around the house.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#106

Post by rini17 »

eimrine wrote: post #95
QuarterReptile wrote: post #2

Non-dimmable bulbs are the author's problem. First, bans on incandescent bulbs are foolish because they encourage defeatist foolishness like this article (as far as I can tell, for the sake of virtue signaling and modest acceleration of a change that was already happening.) The CFLs which preceded LEDs were really awful, especially for closets (where they'll linger for decades, given the low utilization of those bulb…

Non-dimmableness is only one of the problems. For me the biggest problem is that all LEDs are blue, despite of any light-filters. I can not use it in bedroom when I use to read books before sleep and in bathroom when my aestetical needs of seing bare body have been not met. I have even changed my place of living since Sodium lamps have been replaced with LEDs on my old street. And if I need a really bright light or r…

For reading in the bedroom I use RGB strip behind furniture, preset to yellow. Diffuse light, no blue at all. Of course poor color rendering but I don't mind for this use case.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#107

Post by alanbernstein »

Of course, the incandescent bulb spectrum is different from the sun's daylight spectrum. You can imagine people making similar arguments 100+ years ago as the incandescent bulb grew in use.

I wonder how much of this color quality complaint is due to familiarity and comfort with what you grew up with?

At the same time, I find fluorescent lighting unbearable over long time periods, so I completely appreciate that these differences can be important.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#108

Post by PaulHoule »

fsh wrote: post #87
eig wrote: post #6

The irony of this article is that the author is suffering from “too much choice”. LEDs have so much more capability than fluorescent and halogen bulbs that the burden has fallen on the consumer to sort out what dimmability, temperature, and lumens they need. It used to be that you only had one option so you didn’t have to think about it. Anyone who works in stage lighting or art knows that light is complicated. We sh…

It is quite interesting that 2700K is often considered to be a "normal" color temperature, even though it is much yellower than sunlight (around 5000K, depending on atmospheric scattering). This stems purely from a technological limitation of incandescent bulbs. The bulb filaments simply cannot withstand a temperature significantly above 2700K. Even though LED bulbs have no such limitations, a color temperature of on…

Most people have an expectation that residential lighting is on the "warm" (low color temperature!) side. I have a lot of Hue and Sengled bulbs in the house which are tunable and my son complains that they look "harsh" when they are set to a high color temperature. Myself I do art projects that require making fine sensory distinctions and it clear to me that I can do that better with more blue light.

I've seen high-quality incandescent bulbs however that do very well on my tests despite being "warm" but I think a lot of people like using daylight from out the north window for evaluating prints and it was was a revolution a few decades back when art museums realized that higher color temperature lights brought out colors better.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#110

Post by szoszon »

LED lights are unfortunately a big marketing scam. Remember when they promised that the will last up to 20 years? Well, when I renovated my house 5 years ago I installed LED lights over my kitchen island - they were so bright that you couldn't look directly at them and it was too hard to see somebody on the other side of the island.. This is no longer true - they are visibly dimmer. In a few more years they will probably have to be replaced.. The problem is that since they don't use bulbs, I will have to replace the whole fixture.. and the current lamps will end up in the trash. We're not going to save our environment this way.
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