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There's something off about LED bulbs

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Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#711

Post by guerrilla »

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…

    - LED emitters driven hard for cost reasons, age and fail quickly
    - Power supplies driven hard for cost reasons, age and fail quickly
    - Poorly designed power supplies that age and fail quickly
These are all features from the producers POV. Planned obsolescence.

    - Poor CRI and SSRI
This is true for all cheap lights, you gotta pay for that.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#712

Post by Majromax »

marcosdumay wrote: post #626
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…

What numbers do you expect to see for flicker?

Ideally? Something like RMS and peak-to-peak amplitudes below 120Hz and below 1kHz, when fed with good AC power. The former would be potentially noticeable in peripheral vision or with eye movement, and the latter could affect filming, particularly with a rolling shutter.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#713

Post by kube-system »

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…

> 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.

Awful junk existed before the internet. It’s just that people didn’t have much of a way to know any better, nor did they have many options to choose from. People relied on word of mouth, marketing material, or the shop keeper’s advice to decide what to buy… that is, if the store even had multiple options.

There’s not more crap today, there’s more perspective.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#714

Post by Majromax »

scottyah wrote: post #491
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…

If you have two products where one lists a metric proudly and the other doesn't, I think most consumers would choose the one with the metric.

Only if consumers understand the metric. Otherwise, one product's metric is another product's meaningless buzzword.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#716

Post by markdestouches »

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…

> This same reasoning is why I'm not bullish on AI; what the potential is and what we peasants get to use are vastly different

It's not peasants who's gonna use AI, it's the elite. Peasants are gonna get nothing.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#717

Post by sokoloff »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #686
louky wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best case there is to never buy again, name and shame the specific model places like this discussion, and use the warranty! PITA I know.

If the warranty expires, buy the same ones from $BIG_BOX_STORE and return the broken ones. The companies send them back to the mfgs for credit. They'll get the hint eventually.

If the bulb lasts past the warranty and then dies, you recommend that we defraud the manufacturer of the bulb?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#718

Post by greggsy »

transcriptase wrote: post #390
greggsy wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s your job to decide whether to make the world slightly worse and make an extra dollar, or maintain/improve quality while finding efficiencies elsewhere. The second option may be more difficult but let’s not pretend there aren’t companies that choose it and succeed.

That’s a very ignorant perspective.

For me, it’s rarely about efficiency, and almost always about improving outcomes for workers and users.

Micromanaging efficacy to maximise profit is an economists job.

If the general public wants a cheap, bad product, they can do so, but they rarely have the inside knowledge to discern quality. Marketing is responsible for telling miseducating them.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#719

Post by samstave »

fsckboy wrote: post #652
aimor wrote: post #633

Some people seem to have different memories than I do of what it was like buying lightbulbs before LEDs came out. I remember incandescents also having a variety of color quality, lifespan, and decorative options. I remember having the choice between bargain bin bulbs and luxurious options, making sure to outfit a room with a single brand so everything looked the same, realizing it's more difficult to read with this o…

I do have different memories than you about buying lightbulbs. I remember thinking 60-watt bulbs are frustratingly dim, 75 watt bulbs are a minimum, but what I really wanted every time was a 100 watt bulb, it just improves visual acuity tremendously. And my frustration with LED and flourescents, etc is that I can't find the equivalent of my good old 100 watt bulb; whatever the new rating systems are, it's all an excu…

>>"I like dim lighting, I prefer it, I don't turn lights on when I get up in the morning, I make coffee, I take showers in the dark, people come into spaces that I'm in and always snap the lights on and it drives me crazy."

Man, My brother is a constant light-stepper (he always has on harsh, too bright, lights even when he is not in THAT room, or if he falls asleep.

It drives me nuts!

STOP TURNING ON FLOURESCENT TUBE LIGHTS AND FALLING ASLEEP!!

I recognize the visual acuity, but I cannot stand tube-FLs at all - and while I have every single bulb in my house an addressable RGB LED Alexa bulb (Feit Electric) -- there are certain lights I cant replace (a few ceiling fans with integrated LED lights, tube lights in certain spots, etc) -- I have learned that the position of the lights is also important.

For example, if the kitchen tube light is on, it lasers-into the corner of my eye if I am sitting on the couch at night and the kitchen tube light is on. I cant alexify that just yet (the alexa light switches require a 3-phase (meaning the requirement of a ground wire) to mount -- my house was built in 1959 and the wall switches do not have the req ground wire....

but yeah - its interesting how sensitive you become to the lighting environment once you pay attention to it.

When I was doing architecture, I was always wondering why we paid "lighting designers" so much... but after working with them, and working with lighting in my own home, I am amazed at what they accomplish with lights.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#720

Post by acomjean »

plemer wrote: post #506
acomjean wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I guess because I haven't bought anything in a while so for me it was a "used to", not any perceived change. So poor wording on my part.

I can't edit my post. Trusted reviews are hard to find, I would still trust Consumer Reports over random Amazon reviews.

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