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There's something off about LED bulbs

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Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#501

Post by panarky »

llbeansandrice wrote: post #424
jchw wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Can't wait to become a mini-expert in fucking LED lightbulbs just to have decent lighting in my house. I hate that the vast information of the internet has basically required us mere mortals to try and become experts in literally anything and everything just to be able to buy something that isn't awful. Computer? Better keep up to date on all of the CPU, GPU, etc. info. That doesn't even include the insanity of monit…

Want to have a decent quality of life at the end of your career? Better spend a large portion of your youth becoming an expert in finance and monetary policy, and hope you don't make a fatal mistake like buying long-term government debt right before inflation starts to run.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#502

Post by jasonlaramburu »

chongli wrote: post #465
jghn wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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? The issue is that LED bulbs aren’t simple devices like incandescent bulbs. LED bulbs have an electronic power supply inside which drives the LEDs at a constant current. Power supply design is a major subfield of electronics engineering and there are all kinds of tradeoffs you can make to optimize…

>It is possible (and not very difficult) to design LED bulbs that will practically outlive their owners

It is also possible (and not very difficult) to design incandescent bulbs that will outlive their owners. In fact, the first mass produced light bulbs generally lasted 2,500+ hours. In the 1920s, the major bulb manufacturers formed the 'Pheobus Cartel' in Geneva and secretly colluded to limit the lifespan of bulbs to 1,000 hours to boost sales [1]. Another example of planned obsolescence harming consumers and the environment.

[1]https://interestingengineering.com/science/everlasting-light...

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#503

Post by eschneider »

DavidPeiffer wrote: post #397
Majromax wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems like an excellent business opportunity. Consumer education is rarely an excellent business opportunity. Consumers are very good at comparing prices, and "incandescent watt equivalent" labels provide an understandable comparator for light output. Beyond that, the statistics become much less meaningful. Consumers typically don't read colour temperature ratings (in black-body Kelvin), but instead follow "wa…

> Even still, it's common to see homes with temperature-mismatched lighting. Maybe I'm hypersensitive to it, but I don't understand how it's viewed as okay. I walked through a house on a home show and despite being listed for 800k+ (in Iowa), they had a couple mismatches.

It's like a lot of things. Most people don't care, but some people who care, care A LOT.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#504

Post by sp332 »

smolder wrote: post #496
BizarroLand wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Look at the fixtures you're putting them in and consider if they're getting adequate cooling. If your average "long lasting" (they all claim this, but not at what temperature...) LED bulb is uncomfortably hot to touch, it's on the fast track to failure.

Mine are hanging in thin air over my bathroom mirror. The GE Reveal bulbs say they're good for bathrooms, but I suspect they don't like the humidity. I have four at a time in the fixture and six of them have died in the last two years. Once this box is empty I'll get something else.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#505

Post by majormajor »

alistairSH wrote: post #53
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 used to be that you only had one option so you didn’t have to think about it. But, that single option was at least "good enough". I never bought a normal incandescent bulb only to have the color rendering/brightness/etc be downright awful. LEDs come packaged as "daylight" or "bright white" or whatever else. I want one that's labelled "just like your normal 60W incandescent".

They mostly all were pretty awful.

Twenty years ago I remember a lot of PR about "full spectrum" incandescents and flourescents - no LEDs then! - there was a lot of talk at the time about Seasonal Affective Disorder.

I bought a few different options to check out, and looked at some photo prints under them. They blew the "basic" incandescents away, the photos popped and looked much more lively instead of yellow-tinted and dim.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#506

Post by plemer »

acomjean wrote: post #485
jghn wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That’s the current problem is knowing when a “Brand” which was a marker for quality cashes in. Consumer Reports tests a lot of consumer goods and used to be my go to for testing. They don’t take ad revenue so that helps. Though you have to be a member to see their reviews. https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/about-us/what-we-do/inde... They used to be the go to for car reliability info (when your car was rated high y…

Why “used to”? Did something go wrong? Is there something better now?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#507

Post by ghostpepper »

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 was about to order some of these when I realized their only shipping option to Canada is $70 CAD. Almost much doubles the price of a six-pack.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#508

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway173738 wrote: post #180
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.

[deleted]

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#509

Post by zajio1am »

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?

> 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?

There is simple heuristic - all LED bulbs are bad. They generally have insufficient heatsink and unreplaceable PSU immediately next to LEDs.

Better are LED tubes (with T12 interface, as a replacement for fluorescent tubes), they have much more area for cooling and for PSU, and sometimes have replaceable PSU. Similarly lighting units with integrated LEDs.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#510

Post by djmips »

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…

> You can go buy high CRI, high quality bulbs right now. Nothing is stopping you.

$200 Canadian (including shipping) for 6 bulbs is stopping me. $33 / bulb with no guarantee how long they will last.

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