There's something off about LED bulbs • Hacker News Board

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#131

Post by bob1029 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:24 PM UTC

szoszon wrote: post #110

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 prob…

I've trashed over 30 flush-mount LED lights in my house and its 2018 construction. It wouldn't be so offensive if we didn't buy into our own marketing bullshit so much. Pretending like 20 years is a realistic timeframe for a semiconductor to survive in that kind of environment is fantasy, but then you go about constructing homes and businesses like it's true.

This kind of scam is getting really old for me. LED lighting isn't the only one being pushed on us.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#132

Post by elil17 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:24 PM UTC

Lots of people here are arguing about whether LEDs actually look worse. Who cares? Even a modest environmental benefit is worth it. If you want nice-looking light, just go outside - it's free.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#133

Post by SoftTalker » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

LED bulbs suck. CFLs suck. The light is poor and though they cost an order of magnitude more than incandescents did, they are built so cheaply that they don't last any longer. And they qualify as hazardous waste when they need to be disposed of. At times I've seriously considered trying oil lamps.

The only LED bulbs I buy now are the "filament" types. Their bulbs are filled with helium so heat transfer is good, and they have a close-to-incandescent warm light color. I have had good luck with their longevity so far, but haven't really used them long enough to judge.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#134

Post by castlecrasher2 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

its-summertime wrote: post #94

Feels like a different world to my experiences: while the cheaper lights we have are a bit more dim compared to what I'd like, we also have stupidly bright LED lights installed (really need to do a clean sweep and get all the sockets onto 1 kind), We also have dimmable downlights (some of the first LEDs in the house, due to water damage messing up the prior lights) which are dimmer than I'd like, but they were bought…

>But I really can't think of more than 1 or 2 failures over more than enough years.

It's bad luck for us. We've had at least 10 bulbs die within the past two years, at least half of which had been installed just months before. I'd guess they were a poor quality batch in the box we bought at Costco.

Meanwhile, the Philips Hue led lights we bought ages ago are still working perfectly.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#135

Post by DougN7 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

amluto wrote: post #74

formerly_proven wrote: post #24

There's a lot wrong with LEDs in general and retrofit (E27 bulbs) in particular. In no particular order - LED emitters driven hard for cost reasons, age and fail quickly - Power supplies driven hard for cost reasons, age and fail quickly - Poor CRI and SSRI - Flickering - Dim-to-warm is uncommon - Poorly designed power supplies that age and fail quickly - The same light quality is vastly more expensive to achieve wit…

> The same light quality is vastly more expensive to achieve with LEDs, even if you account for high electricity prices. In a screw base, maybe. But compare: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/luminus-devices-i... $25 for an excellent 700mA driver, 86% efficient. https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/bridgelux/BXRH-30... $3.45 for a very nice, ~2000lm 97 CRI LED, about 99 lm/W. (Efficiency goes up quite…

This is just an anecdote, but I’ve had multiple “10 year” LED bulbs fail after just a year or two. I suspect much of the claims for these bulbs are theoretical as they just don’t hold up, probably for reasons the grandparent poster is pointing out.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#136

Post by zokier » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

LED lighting is just another victim of the general malaise of consumer goods that is just unbounded race to the bottom, and making it impossible for consumers to make informed choices and instead having market flooded with lemons all around.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#137

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #56

formerly_proven wrote: post #24

There's a lot wrong with LEDs in general and retrofit (E27 bulbs) in particular. In no particular order - LED emitters driven hard for cost reasons, age and fail quickly - Power supplies driven hard for cost reasons, age and fail quickly - Poor CRI and SSRI - Flickering - Dim-to-warm is uncommon - Poorly designed power supplies that age and fail quickly - The same light quality is vastly more expensive to achieve wit…

"Good indoor lightning" Man I'd love me some indoor lightning, no matter the cost.

Tesla coils aren't that expensive; go live your dreams:)

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#138

Post by davidmurdoch » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

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,…

Perhaps it's the 50 year old house I live in, but lots of Phillips brand, also whatever the Lowes and Home Depot in-house brands are. I bought Kree in bulk for my last house about 10 years ago and that was a huge mistake.

As for the color reproduction issue... you do experience it, I imagine you haven't done color critical work under incandescent and then under LEDs?

I do have some stupidly expensive $29 D-50 compliant LEDs in my office that don't bother me at all. One failed after about 9 months, but the company replaced it for free.

Anyway, I'm highly sensitive to LED flicker, and my wife apparently can hear the buzz from rooms away.

At risk of sounding like a consistent theorist...The market factors that led to the lighting industry forming a "cartel" 100 years ago are certainly alive and well today. I think it's likely that these manufacturers are only selling energy efficient lightbulbs to make more money than they otherwise would -- it's certainly not to save the planet.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#139

Post by ghaff » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #118

ghaff wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or because, as with many products and services, many people go into Home Depot or wherever and buy whatever is cheapest--especially in a world where higher price does not necessarily equate to higher quality or longer life.

> especially in a world where higher price does not necessarily equate to higher quality or longer life. There's the kicker; how can you tell when something is better quality anymore? Qualifiers like "is this device run at max capacity or is there leeway" are never listed on packaging or product features.

It's often hard to know, especially for items you're not going to individually research in great depth, whether you're actually paying for quality or for a name on the package even though it actually came off the same assembly line in China as any number of knock-offs. And, even if it is higher quality by some standard, does that really affect consumer outcomes?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#140

Post by DoneWithAllThat » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #92

userbinator wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the limits of their ratings. They could make LED bulbs last many orders of magnitude longer and be more efficient, but they don't (unless forced to[1]) because they prefer planned obsolescence. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27093793

Or because, as with many products and services, many people go into Home Depot or wherever and buy whatever is cheapest--especially in a world where higher price does not necessarily equate to higher quality or longer life.

I do not, nor will I ever, excuse penny-pinching by companies by agreeing that they’re forced to do it because people will always buy the cheapest thing they can. It’s trotted out as the lame excuse for bag check fees and other declining flying services, cheap consumer goods, cheap electronics, you name it.

To accept the premise is to believe that anything made of quality will never get bought/used which is manifestly not the case. And it strangely completely ignores the incentives companies have to make things as shitty as possible, namely lower expenses and planned obsolescence.