> There ought to be a term for what happens when the light gets weaker and everyone acts as if it’s as strong as always.
Cute.
There's something off about LED bulbs
781–790 of 966 posts
Re: There's something off about LED bulbs
#782Earlier quoted context omitted.
The regular consumer, like us, don't give a rats ass about the technology behind the light, we just want them to work well. The light is much, much worse than incandescents for the typical consumer. That's what the article is about. Your comment if anything is the weird one.
What? What is weird about that comment? An LED light from a random brand purchased from a random grocery store is very likely to work just fine, and that is many people's experience, so if your experience is different, you should provide concrete evidence instead of hand waving or using words like "worse" with no substance whatsoever.
Nothing hand-wavy about it. The article that this thread is based on provides the evidence, and you are refuting it. I am refuting your refutation. My experience aligns exactly with the article, that nothing really got better, and especially not the light in my rooms.
Re: There's something off about LED bulbs
#783I had an epiphany this year that I don't need to conform to the lightbulb socket interface any longer, now that things like straight-wired LED modules [1] are available. They waste a lot less space on unnecessary hardware, and can therefore fill more space with useful light producing material. I've been slowly converting my big round ceiling fixtures and the light and dimming performance is nothing short of miraculou…
So now changing the "lightbulb" becomes an infinitely harder task, and in some areas requires you to pull a permit and or hire an electrician (e.g. do you think a retiree is going to change this themselves?). This seems nice predicated that LEDs last 10-years or longer, which per the article and elsewhere isn't the case. This movement away from standard bulb-sockets to direct wiring is short-term-ism at its finest. L…
The direct wiring is of course not as easy as changing a lightbulb. However I find the trade worth the improved light quality and we can agree to disagree about the short-termism of it.
Re: There's something off about LED bulbs
#784Earlier 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…
You can , but as GP comment said, "Good indoor lighting is now something only people with plenty of disposable income can afford." When you're poor, are you going to cough up $18 for a single bulb, or get a 16-pack for $24 at Home Depot? $288 vs $24.
So "is now something" implies that incandescent was affordable.
16 incandescent bulbs, averaging 3 hours per day, would cost about 50 cents per day. $150-$250 per year in most of the country.
So getting the really premium LEDs is still cheaper than lighting used to be. Even better if you use the good bulbs for room lighting and the cheap bulbs for closets and outdoors and such.
Re: There's something off about LED bulbs
#785LTF Sunlight 2 are the best light quality LEDs I've personally seen. The warm dim is incredibly clear amber
https://ltftechnology.com
Ketra used to make a good smart bulb, like Hue but much better quality light. Bought out by Lutron, who disabled the open Restful API
RAB now makes a decent warm-dim, comparable to the Phillips warm-dim.
Re: There's something off about LED bulbs
#786Anyone watching Star Trek Picard knows that we all will sit in the dark in the future.
Re: There's something off about LED bulbs
#787Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you speak German there's always Stiftung Warentest: https://www.test.de/Lampen-im-Test-4436814-0/ I pay them and they do the research. A very logical business model.
Which? magazine is an equivalent in Britain. https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/light-bulbs/article/how-to-b... (Both will be irrelevant for Americans, I have never noticed a multi-voltage bulb.)
Which are great but they don't actually have any light bulb reviews, just advice.
Re: There's something off about LED bulbs
#788One thing that bothers me is that our current wiring is not well-suited for LEDs. Each lamp has to have a rectifier, and there's only so much you can do to squeeze in enough circuitry into the LED base.
So I shopped around for alternatives. It turns out that we're now standardizing on 24V DC wiring for lighting for commercial buildings, which makes sense. 24V can be directly used by LEDs wired in series, and the wiring cross-section is similar to 120V lamps.
I even found some dim-to-warm 24V LEDs. But so far they are all kinda niche. I don't want to risk buying hardware from a supplier that can go out of business in a couple of years, leaving me with a slowly degrading system.
If you want to try, then search Google for "tunable-white lighting".
Re: There's something off about LED bulbs
#789Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are finned LED bulbs which can fit standard Edison Screw sockets, e.g.: https://www.designboom.com/technology/self-cooling-100-watt-... > https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b5/c2/c5/b5c2c5d69fb240a571ba... > It's also helpful to recognise that existing lighting fixtures and lamps were designed around the constraints of incandescent bulbs. The first generation of LED bulbs and lamps largely conform to these. As LEDs…
I sure hope 12V doesn’t happen. 12V is absurdly low for lighting and needs extremely thick wires to get decent efficiency. 24V is okay. 48V would be nicer for indoor use.
Wiring up a house with 48V for lights and 120V for plugs would be such a pain. Pulling 2 different wires to every room. Weird circuit breakers. Yuck.
Re: There's something off about LED bulbs
#790Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't imagine paying $150 for a six pack, when Home Depot's private label LEDs are $12 for a six pack. I could replace it 10 times before I hit that mark - not sure it's worth that.
If you told me you could make one room of my house consistently color-balanced with LED lighting that I would have no reason to hate, I would ball up a couple hundred dollar bills and throw them at you. (Edit: I’m also coming from buying Philips Hue bulbs for precisely this reason, so in fairness, it’s not as big a price jump.)
> ball up a couple hundred dollar bills and throw them at you
this is why more and more businesses only accept cards. :-P