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

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#141

Post by titzer » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:26 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…

Your comment is just regurgitating tech specs. In reality, the bulbs that are at hand vary so much in quality, that tech spec discussions are almost useless. The flickering is a real issue. I'm not aware of any standard way of rating the flickering of LED bulbs; they can vary from really bad (literally dark 50% of the duty cycle because one stupid diode) to decent (bidirectional diodes), to very good (full voltage regulator).

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#142

Post by thfuran » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

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.

And you never want even more lighting than you currently have? Not even so much as a lamp to adjust lighting in a room?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#143

Post by tzs » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

alanbernstein wrote: post #107

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…

I'd guess that the arguments 100+ years ago over incandescent bulbs would have compared them to candles, fireplaces, torches, kerosene lamps, and whatever else people use when sunlight was not available since that would be what incandescent bulbs would be competing with.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#144

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #140

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.

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 manifestl…

>To accept the premise is to believe that anything made of quality will never get bought/used which is manifestly not the case.

I disagree. It is a ratio of quality to price. People have different opinions about what the acceptable minimum ratio is, and it varies by product, and by time. For example, many people find Costco to hit the right ratio most of the time.

For example, I have been using LEDs and dimmable LEDs from soft white (~2700K) to cool white (~4000K) with no problem, all purchased at Home Depot/Lowes/Costco. Some have failed earlier than anticipated, but nowhere near enough to cancel out the cost savings.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#145

Post by Dowwie » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

I haven't had an LED bulb that didn't go out within less than a year of use, not even 300 hours.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#146

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

I think just like CFLs and incandescents before, quality is going vary and people will need to stick to a brand that works. I've had a lot of success with Cree light bulbs. They seem to have much better light quality than some of the hardware store brands.

They definitely cost a bit more, but I had one fail 5 years out and I was able to call Cree up for a replacement. The rep collected a few questions - model, when it was bought and what type of room and fixture it was installed - and then sent me a new one. Despite being a different model, it matched the temp and tone of the old set of bulbs.

I empathize with the author, but at the end of the day, a lot of people seem completely unaware of lighting to begin with. Walk down a US street at night and look inside, you'll see clashing warm and cold color temperatures in the same room, sterile cold bulbs in entryways and living rooms, dreaded boob light everywhere.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#147

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

doitLP wrote: post #68

aardvarkr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s an example of what you consider to be a high quality led? I’m pretty happy with everything that I have in my home but I’m curious what you’re talking about

Check out https://www.waveformlighting.com/ for some very high quality LEDs and education about how they work.

I can't imagine paying $150 for a six pack, when Home Depot's private label LEDs are $12 for a six pack. I could replace it 10 times before I hit that mark - not sure it's worth that.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#148

Post by timetraveller26 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

jgalt212 wrote: post #3

LED bulbs make me made because I can't yell at my kids to turn off the lights like my dad used to do to me.

I on the other hand hate when people yell at you to turn off the light!

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#149

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

We can only imagine what the lightbulb world would look like if the Phoebus cartel didn't hamstring R&D.

Some might be tempted to believe that we'd have discovered what technology they suppressed, but they are insufficiently pessimistic. Technology gets worse all the time, and lightbulbs are a great example of that happening on purpose.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#150

Post by tomatotomato37 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:31 PM UTC

I hate how many of these things aren't limits of the technology but rather the result of cost optimization and general apathy towards the customer. We know how to mass-produce quality LEDs to the point entire TVs are made of the things. We know how to mass-produce rectifiers pretty much ever since diodes existed. We know how to cool mass-produced objects in compact spaces. But because we apparently can't have nice things, we don't get the product of all that knowledge; instead we get whatever cost optimized bullshit gets shat out of a factory run by MBAs.

This same reasoning is why I'm not bullish on AI; what the potential is and what we peasants get to use are vastly different