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There's something off about LED bulbs

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Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#301

Post by rusk »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #254
rusk wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not MBAs place to set public policy though is it? If it’s the MBA’s fault at all it’s because they’re doing their job which is optimising the product to the market. If the markets not optimising the right things then that’s a failure in the market. Maybe the market is being manipulated somehow has it was for the old incandescent bulbs - but that’s not necessarily the fault of the management tier … some economise…

The problem is that people have a limited amount of caring and markets are really good at taking advantage of consumer ignorance. If you care about color rendering but don't know what color rendering is, you can't shop for it (and if you do know what it is you can't shop for it if it's not on the spec sheet).

Sounds like issues that could be solved by some market regulation - rules about labelling - etc etc but to many that would be tantamount communism

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#302

Post by pm215 »

gambiting wrote: post #189
DougN7 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If we're sharing anecdotes - I've had my homes 100%(or close) LED equipped for over a decade now and never had a single LED bulb fail.

My experience has fallen into two categories:

* bulbs with the UK-standard bayonet fitting in light sockets that are suspended from cables from the ceiling with lampshades -- these I don't think I've ever had fail on me yet

* 4.6W bulbs with a GU10 fitting in recessed spotlights -- these fail on me more frequently (perhaps every few years to every five years)

My assumption is that this is all down to the spotlight-fitting bulbs being in a confined space and getting a lot hotter. I use Philips bulbs in both cases.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#303

Post by Phlarp »

greggsy wrote: post #273
throwaway173738 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, as always, the MBAs.

I have an MBA. It’s not mine or any of my peer’s jobs to provide crap products to ends users - thats up to shareholders to decide.

Pass that buck on down the line.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#304

Post by browningstreet »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #228
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…

You can go buy high CRI, high quality bulbs right now. Nothing is stopping you. Here is one common vendor: https://store.waveformlighting.com/collections/a19-bulbs/ The issue isn’t that MBAs have cost reduced bulbs for no reason. The issue is that 95% of consumers will only choose the cheap bulbs, period. As a result, that’s what gets produced at scale. > We know how to mass-produce quality LEDs to the point entire T…

As consumers are we really supposed to do a ton of research on light bulbs and accept that we can't run down to Home Depot and get some new bulbs when they go out in our house?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#305

Post by jchw »

jghn wrote: post #278
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go buy high CRI, high quality bulbs right now. Nothing is stopping you. Here is one common vendor: https://store.waveformlighting.com/collections/a19-bulbs/ The issue isn’t that MBAs have cost reduced bulbs for no reason. The issue is that 95% of consumers will only choose the cheap bulbs, period. As a result, that’s what gets produced at scale. > We know how to mass-produce quality LEDs to the point entire T…

The big problem for me is, as a consumer, how do I know that brand X is producing quality bulbs that'll last a long time? I'm very happy to pay more for that. How does one sift through marketing to get to actual quality? And then how do I know that they stick with the high quality approach? What happens when a brand decides to rest on the laurels of their brand name and start slipping in lower quality parts?

Some bulbs will give you information on their CRI which ideally should be required to be labeled on the bulbs packaging the way calorie information is required on food packaging (but I don't think it is.) That will tell you roughly how good the quality of the light is by proxy of the spectrum of light it covers. On the other hand, there is no equivalent afaik for knowing how well the power supply is designed or how hard the LEDs are driven. I guess for that, the consumer can turn to the trusted source for this kind of information, bigclivedotcom. (Sarcasm; but seriously, this is a problem.)

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#306

Post by b112 »

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.)

Makes me think of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X-ZVOYwNLU

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#307

Post by SargeDebian »

greggsy wrote: post #273
throwaway173738 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, as always, the MBAs.

I have an MBA. It’s not mine or any of my peer’s jobs to provide crap products to ends users - thats up to shareholders to decide.

How does that work? The head of engineering gets a unit cost reduction target and then they call some shareholders to come review some proposals for which option works best? Do they show up with a printed certificate showing they own at least one share?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#308

Post by bowsamic »

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.

> If you want nice-looking light, just go outside - it's free.

Did you read the article? It discusses this quite extensively

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#309

Post by rootusrootus »

Agentlien wrote: post #246
phoyd wrote: post #168

>If you’re lucky, the LED will have a CRI of 90 or higher EU has banned incandescent lights years ago and the situation for LED buyers is much different here. My local drug store chain (Rossmann in Germany) sells 1000lm E27 bulbs under their own Rubin brand with CRI>97 for 4.99€. No flickering and available as 2700K or 4000K. My Opple Light Master 3 even reads CRI 100. So for me right now, it's just going to the drug…

I read a lot of the other comments here before yours and they all seemed to describe a reality very different from my own experience. Then I saw yours and it suddenly makes sense. I am also in the Europe, most other commenters seem to be from the US. Here I find it is very easy to find good LED bulbs with the strength and color profile of my choice and I have used LED in all rooms of my house for the last 10+ years w…

> I am also in the Europe, most other commenters seem to be from the US.

You're falling for the "Europe is better than the US, of course" mindset. What you are actually seeing are partisans spinning a narrative to fit their ideology, not an accurate description of reality.

We have really high CRI bulbs here, too, and they're inexpensive. I can go down to the home store and buy them by the dozen. I'll bet you money that bulbs in the US and bulbs in Europe are mostly manufactured in the same place...

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#310

Post by fl0id »

tomjen3 wrote: post #158
s_dev wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>With LEDs, what's the "I don't want to deal with this, I just want something that will work as intended and not introduce weird artifacts"? That sounds like an ideal situation the free market should be fixing -- so why isn't it?

Because EU banned the free market. The ideal would have been a slow transition where LEDs would have had to compete with bulbs. Like the others I want to buy an LED where the visible light cannot be meassured differently from a normal one, and with the guarantee that I can return it for a full refund if it fails before the 20k hours are up.

The free market will never fix that, because there is no profit in making it easy for you, nor in offering an unlimited return.
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