There's something off about LED bulbs • Hacker News Board

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#771

Post by sydd » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:14 PM UTC

roryisok wrote: post #751

This post reads awfully whiny to me. Who cares if the new bulb that's 90% more energy efficient than your old incandescent is not exactly the same color as the totally unnatural electric light you grew up with? Sure, there are some niche areas like the gallery mentioned, where the color and evenness of the light is quite important to display a work of art properly, but the bulb in your downstairs toilet not being yel…

Because there are many more issues:

- The issue is not that they are "not the same color", but that they have a low CRI which means that they make look everything bland and greyscale.

- That they use some shitty low frequency PWM to drive the light causing eye fatigue and headaches

- That they use low quality electronics causing your bulb to fail as fast as an iridescent one that costs 5 times less.

What you are saying sounds a bit like someone complaining why people want to move on from CRT monitors.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#772

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:16 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#773

Post by fzzzy » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:20 PM UTC

beebeepka wrote: post #342

b112 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It is.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#774

Post by mixmastamyk » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:30 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #371

zippergz wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please link me to a 95+ CRI bulb available at Home Depot or Lowe's.

Greater than 95 or including 95? Most of the Philips brand dimmable LEDs have a CRI of 95. The eco smart is crap at 80 and that’s to be excepted from the cheap house brand. The in ceiling lights I bought to replace a bottom dollar Amazon light was are 94 and I’m pretty sure I bought the cheapest I could that would change temp to match my existing ones. Your friend has shared a link to a Home Depot product they think…

Wifi bulb with an App? Now I have to worry about light bulb security and it selling me out?

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#775

Post by sizzle » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:30 PM UTC

Bought several boxes of 10 LED bulbs from Costco, the brand “Feit” and literally every bulb flickered and died in a few months. So disappointing.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#776

Post by sizzle » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:31 PM UTC

DougN7 wrote: post #135

amluto wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same light quality is vastly more expensive to achieve with LEDs, even if you account for high electricity prices. In a screw base, maybe. But compare: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/luminus-devices-i... $25 for an excellent 700mA driver, 86% efficient. https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/bridgelux/BXRH-30... $3.45 for a very nice, ~2000lm 97 CRI LED, about 99 lm/W. (Efficiency goes up quite…

This is just an anecdote, but I’ve had multiple “10 year” LED bulbs fail after just a year or two. I suspect much of the claims for these bulbs are theoretical as they just don’t hold up, probably for reasons the grandparent poster is pointing out.

Same for me the brand is “Feit Electric” from Costco. Avoid this brand!

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#777

Post by Bloating » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:34 PM UTC

aardvarkr wrote: post #47

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…

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

LTF: https://ltftechnology.com/sunlight2-dim-to-warm-3000k-to-180...

Ketra was good, smart bulbs like Hue with an open API, but far better than Hue. Lutron bought them, killed the API and and proceeded to require inferior and costly priority controls

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#778

Post by ClumsyPilot » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #759

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment section is great , but if I need to find out quality of a random consumer product, what is the chance I will find it in this comment section? like 1%?

You go where the people who might know better talk about these things! AV forums for picking a TV or projector, cooking forums for picking a knife set, and HN, you know, for picking the contrast level of your text.

For most of my purchases, I cannot find any trustworthy content at all. This experience is shared by 90% of people I talk to

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#779

Post by Bloating » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:40 PM UTC

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…

Its CRI

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#780

Post by wheels » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:40 PM UTC

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…

It's really not that hard to find 15w LEDs with CRI95+. 15w will be approximately equivalent to a 100 watt bulb. A quick Amazon search pulls up multiple options.

Recently I even got out the big guns and bought this thing, mainly to replace my halogen floor lamp. It's 40w, and more like the equivalent to a 250w incandescent, though it is awkwardly ginormous.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000240793250.html