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There's something off about LED bulbs

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Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#441

Post by cramjabsyn »

btbuilder wrote: post #123
cramjabsyn wrote: post #89

Cheap LED bulbs generate the worst light I’ve ever experienced. But after some research I found that there are options that make a nice warm light with no perceptible flickering. Personally I prefer the phillips warm glow dimmable bulbs

Have you had any lifetime issues with these? I bought a dozen and a significant number started emitting warm color while at full brightness instead of just dimmed.

No lifetime issues so far. I’ve been using their GU10 halogen substitutes for I want to say about 5 years

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#442

Post by snickerbockers »

jahewson wrote: post #427
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 issue is that 95% of consumers will only choose the cheap bulbs, period. The hardware stores near me, both big and small, stock only a single brand of bulb, as if they have some kind of exclusive deal.

This is why i do most of my shopping online. its not about price or laziness, but about selection. retail stores usually only stock the worst brands of anything.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#443

Post by nonethewiser »

fsh wrote: post #87
eig wrote: post #6

The irony of this article is that the author is suffering from “too much choice”. LEDs have so much more capability than fluorescent and halogen bulbs that the burden has fallen on the consumer to sort out what dimmability, temperature, and lumens they need. It used to be that you only had one option so you didn’t have to think about it. Anyone who works in stage lighting or art knows that light is complicated. We sh…

It is quite interesting that 2700K is often considered to be a "normal" color temperature, even though it is much yellower than sunlight (around 5000K, depending on atmospheric scattering). This stems purely from a technological limitation of incandescent bulbs. The bulb filaments simply cannot withstand a temperature significantly above 2700K. Even though LED bulbs have no such limitations, a color temperature of on…

5000k is really uncomfortable in a living area. Fine for work but not relaxing. Just living with 5000k lights for a while won’t change that.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#444

Post by everybodyknows »

gaudat wrote: post #51

Is it just me or is there something off about this article? It reads quite incoherent. I happen to work with a lot of LED light sources nowadays and I can see most problems discussed are related to the light fixture, driver or psychology. More often than not it is the capacitors in these mains powered LEDs that fail first, because the circuit is designed to run at the highest temperature possible to lower the cost of…

> run at the highest temperature possible

So consumers in hot climates who abstain from A/C cooling will suffer such failures disproportionately.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#445

Post by tablespoon »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #253
DennisP wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sunlight is great during the day but in the evening, you want to be closer to the color of sunsets and campfires.

For this reason I think it's great to connect different temperature bulbs to each light switch in your house and switch between them during the day. I keep all of my bulbs on during the daytime and then switch to just the warm ones at night.

> For this reason I think it's great to connect different temperature bulbs to each light switch in your house and switch between them during the day. I keep all of my bulbs on during the daytime and then switch to just the warm ones at night.

If you care that much about that, it would probably make more sense to get something like Philips Hue bulbs that can vary their color temperature.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#446

Post by BizarroLand »

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?

I spent probably $150-$200 for 7 packages of "high CRI" "long lasting" phillips brand LED bulbs last year, for a total of 28 bulbs.

6 of them have failed in less than 9 months, either flickering so badly it could cause an epileptic seizure or just straight up dying on me.

It's maddening.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#447

Post by yencabulator »

JohnFen wrote: post #268
cogman10 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Low voltage DC lighting is a thing that has existed for a very, very long time. That most houses don't have it is more cultural than anything else, in my opinion. That means it's totally fixable. You can install such a system in existing buildings right now, and it's not crazy expensive unless you want to run the wires inside the walls. If we could shift cultural expectations around this, adding a LV system in new co…

For example: the stairwell shin-height lights in this 90s house are 12 VDC. There's a transformer plugged into a wall outlet in the nearby storage closet.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#448

Post by nonethewiser »

PaulHoule wrote: post #108
fsh wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite interesting that 2700K is often considered to be a "normal" color temperature, even though it is much yellower than sunlight (around 5000K, depending on atmospheric scattering). This stems purely from a technological limitation of incandescent bulbs. The bulb filaments simply cannot withstand a temperature significantly above 2700K. Even though LED bulbs have no such limitations, a color temperature of on…

Most people have an expectation that residential lighting is on the "warm" (low color temperature!) side. I have a lot of Hue and Sengled bulbs in the house which are tunable and my son complains that they look "harsh" when they are set to a high color temperature. Myself I do art projects that require making fine sensory distinctions and it clear to me that I can do that better with more blue light. I've seen high-q…

> Myself I do art projects that require making fine sensory distinctions and it clear to me that I can do that better with more blue light.

That’s what it’s good for. But do you want that lighting in your living room while you watch tv?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#449

Post by int0x2e »

samtho wrote: post #394
coryrc wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LEDs must be powered by a constant-current supply, and distribution does not work well at constant-current, and is always constant voltage. So no matter what you will need some sort of switching power supply. LEDs are like 15% efficient and power supplies are >95%. They just need to be separated slightly so the LEDs aren't heating the power supply. Most recessed LED lighting now has a separate junction box with the p…

> LEDs must be powered by a constant-current supply, and distribution does not work well at constant-current, and is always constant voltage. So no matter what you will need some sort of switching power supply. I think the biggest problem is that many cheap power supplies cycle at lower frequencies that cause flickering which is perceptible subconsciously. A modern switchmode power supply might operate in the 50-500k…

The really cheap stuff actually doesn't even have a power supply! There's a breed of LEDs that takes straight AC and rectifies it using the LEDs themselves. By using a large number of tiny LEDs in series (typically in COB form), you can easily reach close to 110v or even 220v, and then you add a small current limiting controller in series that's dirt cheap compared to magnetics... These are super cheap, and appear bright, but they flicker at 120hz, which can be annoying when there's motion or if you're sensitive to it.

I'd say it's a very bad choice for a bedroom or living room light, but I have nothing against it for the outdoor lights, signage and a bunch of other applications where cost is king.

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