This is the tragedy of modern times in the West. Hard to get anything quality without tons of research. Not even about the money, there's just too much noise
Yeah, just paying £2000 fot an item does not mean you got anything quality - 90% chance you got scammed
> This is the tragedy of modern times in the West.
What does "in the West" mean here? Is the situation better outside "the West"? Is this really a modern "tragedy"? Caveat Emptor is not a new saying.
IKEA is acting as Apple in this space IMO. They hide all the details about their LED bulbs, but they are kind of the best you can find on the market if you search for more details about their tech, or at least AFAIK.
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…
Here is one common vendor:
$18 USD for a single 10 Watt bulb? I don't care how expensive electricity is, the $2 incandescent bulb is a better value.
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…
As an amateur EE, I have analysed some of LEDs when I wanted to light up my kitchen counters. I wanted flicker-free LEDs with high CRI and temperature matching the rest of my apartment. I ordered samples of a lot of LEDs and found that almost all of them are using their parts, especially capacitors, well above the specs. Driving caps at well above their specs, at high temperature, basically ensures speedy failure. No…
>almost all of them are using their parts, especially capacitors, well above the specs
Well, the LEDs themselves will last up to 20 years, so they have to make something in the bulb fail before that. Can't have people only buying replacement bulbs every other decade.
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…
I believe I tried to buy from them when I lived in SF, but their bulbs were at that time (and possibly still today) illegal in the state of California! I don't remember which regulation it was, possibly one around efficiency or maybe they needed to undergo some test. I think they even had a lab somewhere on the peninsula, too... I was so angry at the state of California for forcing me to have shit quality lights that I gave thought to becoming an illegal bulb runner.
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…
I've noticed that LED bulb packages say they'll last several years, but so many of them die after just a year or so. I should start tracking this precisely, but I've just gotten the sense that they often die prematurely.
incandescent light bulbs efficiency increases with their temperature/current. At low enough current they will last long enough but waste a lot energy as well. You can dim them, and provide a slow start to prevent the inrush current (which is like 10times more than nominal with tungsten resistance increasing due so high 2500K temps).
Thankfully, LED lighting will probably be gone within 20 years, while incandescent will be coming back more efficient than LED could dream. Already bumping up against theoretical maximum efficiency, LED lighting can't get any more efficient, and the better LED is at color rendition, the less efficient it is. But there are vast amounts of improvement available for incandescent lighting, and a group at MIT has already…
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.
Sounds depressing. That's how I feel when days are like that
I'm in Oregon, just about on the 45th parallel. Not nearly as far north as some people, but winters can be pretty hard light-wise, and SAD is a bitch. I really should move to Arizona or Mexico in the winter.
I guess you can't tell the difference? For me it's huge. I recently changed my bathroom downlights from dimmable LEDs to dimmable halogens, and it's so much nicer. The colour temperature was the same, so I guess it's not that. It's something else about the way they work. I don't profess to know why, but I can absolutely tell the difference, and I have a very clear preference now. And this is after a decade of me bein…
I think it's the flicker. Pulse width modulation is evil. I'm not aware of a single instance where it's preferable over an analogue adjustment. It's a horrible and thoroughly "non-human" solution to a problem. The most annoying thing for me is that car headlights are now PWM LEDs. I can see the flicker, especially in my peripheral vision. It's highly distracting and annoying.