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

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#171

Post by elil17 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:41 PM UTC

Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #155

elil17 wrote: post #132

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.

Lots of people live in areas where for half a year, the days are short, cloudy, and cold.

Outdoor light is pleasant (to me at least) even when it's overcast. And, yeah, if you live in an area with polar night or whatever I don't think society should begrudge you an incandescent bulb if that's what gets you through the winter.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#172

Post by sgregnt » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:41 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #113

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.

Simpler and better light, but bad energy efficiency. Although, as was pointed out to me at some point, because LEDs are more efficient, people feel less guilty about having more of them; replacing 1x40 watt bulb with 8x5 watt LEDs means the net result is the same. I've got like 7 cute LED spotlights in my TV closet for example, I wouldn't have had that setup if I was forced to use incandescent lamps.

Energy efficiency wise, in cold weather it warms the apartment which is desirable in my case.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#173

Post by CalRobert » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

This article discusses indoor lighting, but it's worth noting that cheap, efficient outdoor LED lighting is destroying our night sky, bathing everyone nearby (including animals!) in light that screws up their circadian rhythms, and makes the city at night a harsher place.

savingourstars.org

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#174

Post by strictnein » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #157

Not mentioned in the article are the LED replacements for full-size fluorescent tubes (i.e. 48in tubes). I got a bunch for my basement. The LED tubes really are a million times better than the fluorescents. For one, they aren't enormous fragile glass tubes filled with toxic mercury vapor, and two, they give off good light (for a basement work area) with very little power.

Interesting. I have some of those fluorescents in a storage room and I hadn't even thought about there being an LED replacement option. Thanks for posting that.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#175

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

brodouevencode wrote: post #147

doitLP wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can’t imagine sitting in a room with the color temperature of a gas station bathroom with random flickering and fading out every couple of years.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#176

Post by reaperman » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

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…

What is "SSRI" in the context of LEDs?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#177

Post by oh_sigh » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:45 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…

Where exactly would you mount a light like the one you linked?

10 hours per day sounds like a crazy amount of time to use a light. I think we use some lights in our house maybe 4 hours per day on average max. Maybe I just have a lot of windows and don't live in Alaska in the winter.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#178

Post by mhb » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

thfuran wrote: post #142

mhb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Occasionally. And I would use a non-dimmable lamp for that.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#179

Post by davidy123 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

Incandescent generate heat, they're great if you need heat and one tone of light and that's it.

LEDs are part of a progression to everything being addressable, think of them as pixels. There's a decreasing incentive to not make everything addressable and support not just dimming but also colour. This is ultimately a completely different approach to environments. Transitioning from "the lights are on and I can easily see my broccoli" to very fine relationships between sources and qualities of light and their interpretation. Some of the benefits will be emergent, which sounds like hand-waving, and sometimes it is. (-:

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#180

Post by throwaway173738 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #150

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 th…

The problem is, as always, the MBAs.