Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

There's something off about LED bulbs

nymag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

731–740 of 966 posts

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#731

Post by ineedasername »

While my led bulbs last much longer Incandescent, and end probably save money and energy, they consistently fail very long before their stated lifetime.

I believe this is due to the poor quality of the electronics that comprise the base of the bulb and control the LEDs. The same issue with compact fluorescent bulbs I had opened up some of those cf. bulbs when they burned out prematurely and found burnt ou components.

I haven’t bothered to do this with LED bulbs because I have every reason to assume they’re the same manufactures that need the CF bulbs and are making the LED bulbs are pulling the same trick.

It was a race to the bottom to make the cheapest bulb stand compete on price may have resulted in bulbs that are far more faulty than they need to be.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#732

Post by wnevets »

ineedasername wrote: post #731

While my led bulbs last much longer Incandescent, and end probably save money and energy, they consistently fail very long before their stated lifetime. I believe this is due to the poor quality of the electronics that comprise the base of the bulb and control the LEDs. The same issue with compact fluorescent bulbs I had opened up some of those cf. bulbs when they burned out prematurely and found burnt ou components.…

> they consistently fail very long before their stated lifetime

Do you mean the stated lifetime of a specific LED or the lifetime promises generally assigned to LEDs. In my experience you get what you pay for.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#733

Post by 8note »

olyjohn wrote: post #576
jimbobjim wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Phillips bulbs I bought have a ridiculously high failure rate. About half have failed within 6 months. Much worse than the supermarket own brands, or cheaper ones from Amazon.

The Philips Hue bulbs somehow never burn out. I have about 30 of them in my house, and the oldest ones (5+ years old now) are working as well as the new ones that I have bought recently. They are the only "smart" thing that I have in my house, because they're the only thing I've ever hooked up that worked with 100% reliability. They don't require an internet connection, etc. I never have connection problems, never ha…

I've got a couple burnouts on Phillips hue bulbs

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#734

Post by pmarreck »

I was an LED early adopter and many more of them have failed early than I expected, even if I followed the rules of not putting them inside an enclosure not open to the air, etc.

Regarding the color criticism(s), it's wonderfully subjective and it's definitely a case of "once you see it, you can't unsee it". Early bulbs were too blue in color temperature; later ones finally got the color temperature right (at least technically) but something else still seems "off" sometimes.

There needs to be a way to read reviews of these, AND people need to be willing to spend more money on quality.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#735

Post by alexsereno »

t0bia_s wrote: post #722
fexl wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You have 2 year warranty. Return it. My dad did it so often that they refuse to sell him a new one in that shop. What an irony.

Why? That strikes me as odd, since the manufacturer is the one who eats that warranty cost.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#736

Post by salawat »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #213
derbOac wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar reaction to the article. I actually am opposed to bans on traditional incandescent bulbs but vastly prefer LEDs and have no desire to go back to them. Using LEDs was a shock to me initially mostly because, as you point out, with traditional household incandescents there wasn't a whole lot of options. So suddenly when I had to pay attention to color profiles and so forth more carefully, I wasn't expect…

> I actually am opposed to bans on traditional incandescent bulbs AFAIK, there are no simple bans on them [ EDIT: in the USA ]. What exists are energy performance standards, which these bulbs do not meet. If you want, you can say that this is nit-picking, and that of course that's a ban. But when we have energy performance standards for, say, cars, nobody says it is a ban on cars, just a effective end to the producti…

...Some people like me do call those bans.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#737

Post by walterbell »

leobg wrote: post #640
Self-Perfection wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One guy bought over 4 thousands LED lamps over years, meticulously measured their actual specs and made a huge online catalog https://lamptest.ru/ I follow his project a bit and it looks like consumers are really at loss. Generally there is no reliable way to choose a good led lamp without consulting such catalog. Lamps packaging often lies about actual specs, lamps with the same packaging but manufactured in differe…

Great site. I wish he had an English translation. But I forgive him. This is what the Internet should be! Individual people who do one thing really well. So happy to see that this still exists online.

Could we improve discovery of these indie sites via HN or elsewhere?

A standard tag for Algolia/web search could work, if any spam comments with the same tag were flagged.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#739

Post by jghn »

vl wrote: post #611
jghn wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but this is exactly what I'm asking. How do I find the ones designed in a buy it for life way? Or at least ones designed to last longer than the crap on the Home Depot shelves.

You can't buy a bulb that is rated to last a lifetime, but you can buy ones rated to last for 10+ years if used 8 hours a day (i.e. 35,000 life hours). I retrofitted entire house - 200+ bulbs and fixture retrofits more that 5 years ago. I had one or failures since. I bought highest CRI bulbs, i.e. most expensive, and they work well. (Also, do not use bulbs for downlights - get entire "led can light fixture retrofit")…

> 35,000 life hours

How trustworthy is that state though? I have always assumed 0% trustworthy. Is that incorrect?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#740

Post by klabb3 »

leobg wrote: post #640
Self-Perfection wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One guy bought over 4 thousands LED lamps over years, meticulously measured their actual specs and made a huge online catalog https://lamptest.ru/ I follow his project a bit and it looks like consumers are really at loss. Generally there is no reliable way to choose a good led lamp without consulting such catalog. Lamps packaging often lies about actual specs, lamps with the same packaging but manufactured in differe…

Great site. I wish he had an English translation. But I forgive him. This is what the Internet should be! Individual people who do one thing really well. So happy to see that this still exists online.

I wish it had a Swedish translation. I do NOT forgive him.
Post reply on HN