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There's something off about LED bulbs

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Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#281

Post by the_af »

whateveracct wrote: post #265
the_af wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why are you acting like you need a college credit in an LED survey course in order to buy incandescent-replacement LEDs? It's like a new vocabulary of like 5 terms/concepts that can all be summarized in a sentence or two. I hope by "you" you are also including TFA and the comment I was replying to, right? Your response directly contradicts TFA. I don't know who is right, I just know I'm not entirely satisfied with…

The article isn't some authoritative source. It's the Strategist, which can best be summed up as just some people with opinions.

Doesn't this also apply to people on HN?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#282

Post by Dave_Rosenthal »

reaperman wrote: post #176
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?

A misspelling of "SSI", Spectral Similarity Index, another color accuracy metric.

Basically the industry figured out how to win at the CRI game without actually creating the same underlying spectral distribution of light. So they same up with another metric to try to optimize called SSI (also TLCI, etc.) SSI is mostly relevant in the digital cinema space, where the observer is a digital camera, not a human eye, as they can't be tricked the same way because they have different underlying RGB spectral sensitivities.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#283

Post by lacrosse_tannin »

Arubis wrote: post #169
brodouevencode wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you told me you could make one room of my house consistently color-balanced with LED lighting that I would have no reason to hate, I would ball up a couple hundred dollar bills and throw them at you. (Edit: I’m also coming from buying Philips Hue bulbs for precisely this reason, so in fairness, it’s not as big a price jump.)

incandescent bulbs used to cost like $0.60 each

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#284

Post by nevir »

pkulak wrote: post #262
causality0 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything decent in the middle? Somewhere between one dollar bulbs and eighteen dollar bulbs?

I've been happy with my Cree leds. I can't seem to find them online, only Home Depot.

Home Depot has an exclusively agreement with em

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#285

Post by droopyEyelids »

organsnyder wrote: post #154
orev wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By cooling the issue is that LEDs and the driving electronics will become damaged with heat, while an incandescent has simple parts which can easily survive inside an oven. This matters when used in fixtures like recessed ceiling cans where there’s no ventilation. The LEDs just cook themselves while incandescents don’t care.

When my garage+office was built a few years ago, the electrician used a bunch of faux-recessed LED fixtures (the brand name is "I Can't Believe It's Not Recessed!", which is certainly memorable). They surface-mount over standard ceiling junction boxes, but appear similar to recessed lights once installed. We have ~20 of these fixtures, both interior and exterior. They're quiet, flicker-free, and have a great dimming…

The faux-recessed LED fixtures are a really interesting case because they're either going to be the most reliable LED in your house, or one of the least! This is because heat is the LED diode killer (as well as the power supplies driving the diodes)

Can lights have historically been an issue for insulation of houses, as they provide a channel for the warm ceiling air to enter the plenum space between floors or the attic. Thats bad for insulation, but actually amazing for a retrofitted LED light, because it's the only fixture that will provide airflow to cool it!

On the other hand, faux-recessed LEDs can also be installed directly on top of the ceiling drywall, without any penetration. Thats the worst case scenario for heat build up, as heat rises and it's completely trapped by the dish of the light and the ceiling.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#286

Post by AlanYx »

antisthenes wrote: post #126
dashundchen wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't many grow lamps emit UV? I would be slightly concerned about potential eye and skin damage over time.

So does the Sun. Also, you never look at the light directly.

The sun's spectrum is relatively smooth, whereas there are some grow lights that have a narrow, intense spike of UV designed to match chlorophyll B's absorption. Not all grow lights have this spectrum, but it's worth being careful. It's one of the reasons why some grow lights come with a warning about using eye protection.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#287

Post by bryanlarsen »

cogman10 wrote: post #222
JohnFen wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all LED bulb failures are because the power supply died due to overheating, not the LEDs themselves. I harvest the LEDs out of dead bulbs to use in hobby projects. With Edison-style bulbs, anyway, the orientation they're mounted in makes a huge amount of difference. They're last a lot longer if they're oriented upright (base down) than in any other orientation because it reduces the heat buildup in the power s…

This is the frustrating thing about LEDs that IDK we can change. If there was a "DC" light socket in the house we could have LEDs outlasting owners, and for cheap. Nearly all the expense of LED bulbs is the power supply. Everything else is dirt cheap. A single home DC power supply with ~200W of output could light an entire house, flicker free. What's even more frustrating is I think we could fix it. A national regula…

We've had 2 standard DC outlets for a while now: 12V cigarette lighter and 5V USB. You do often see them in odd places. But the voltage and wattage of those specs is too low to be useful, so they haven't evolved into DC power distribution.

USB-C PD is at a useful voltage & wattage level, and so is Ethernet POE. I wouldn't be surprised to see them start to be used for general power distribution in niche applications, like RV's and off-grid cabins.

I don't think we're going to ever get a bulb standard, though.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#288

Post by jsmith45 »

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…

> - Dim-to-warm is uncommon

Yeah, I love Alec's Technology Connections video on some bulbs with that feature, but he pointed it partly because some of the few bulbs that offered it seemed to be getting phased out.

Its much like a bunch of other points on the list. There are a fair few that would only add a small amount of additional cost, but because the companies can save money by not doing it, they don't.

It does not actually cost all that much more to add a few more diodes, to avoid severely overdriving the ones on the board, or to improve the power supply circuitry so that it will likely last longer.

But it really sucks that even if you chose to buy the more premium tier bulbs being offered at the big box store, they often don't fix some of these issues. They may have a better CRI, but are still often overdriven, with questionable power supply designs.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#289

Post by b112 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #177
amluto wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

10 hours per day sounds like a crazy amount of time to use a light.

I think the Alaska point is close. Yet even in (for example) southern Canada, the sun just doesn't get high over the horizon in winter. So you have 7 hour days, but those days are mostly dim and dark.

Even without clouds.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#290

Post by lacrosse_tannin »

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 the embodied energy of all those high tech parts?

An incandescent lightbulb is a piece of tungsten wire.

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