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There's something off about LED bulbs

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Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#91

Post by orev »

galleywest200 wrote: post #78
timw4mail wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention space constraints for power supplies, and cooling the LEDs enough. For all the benefits of LED lights, incandescent bulbs are infinitely simpler.

> cooling the LEDs enough Maybe I am missing something from this conversation, but all of my LED bulbs produce far _less_ heat than incandescent bulbs. The lamp in my bedroom no longer keeps me warm!

By cooling the issue is that LEDs and the driving electronics will become damaged with heat, while an incandescent has simple parts which can easily survive inside an oven. This matters when used in fixtures like recessed ceiling cans where there’s no ventilation. The LEDs just cook themselves while incandescents don’t care.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#92

Post by ghaff »

userbinator wrote: post #41
thrdbndndn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LED emitters driven hard for cost reasons > Power supplies driven hard for cost reasons Can you elaborate? What does "hard" mean here, I don't understand.

At the limits of their ratings. They could make LED bulbs last many orders of magnitude longer and be more efficient, but they don't (unless forced to[1]) because they prefer planned obsolescence. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27093793

Or because, as with many products and services, many people go into Home Depot or wherever and buy whatever is cheapest--especially in a world where higher price does not necessarily equate to higher quality or longer life.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#93

Post by Waterluvian »

We wire our homes with a whole bunch of AC circuits. These are basically busses, right? Why not add more kinds of busses? Why not a DC bus? Every light in my home is an LED, and most appliances (by count) are DC.

I understand that moving DC long distances can be problematic. But is 100-300 feet too long? Am I completely off on this?

This feels like a legacy inefficiency issue.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#94

Post by its-summertime »

Feels like a different world to my experiences: while the cheaper lights we have are a bit more dim compared to what I'd like, we also have stupidly bright LED lights installed (really need to do a clean sweep and get all the sockets onto 1 kind), We also have dimmable downlights (some of the first LEDs in the house, due to water damage messing up the prior lights) which are dimmer than I'd like, but they were bought very early so I find that reasonable.

But I really can't think of more than 1 or 2 failures over more than enough years.

We still have florescent and incandescent, but I get the most useful lighting in a room with 5 LED lights and nothing else (and most of the time its actually kinda painful with how bright they are!)

If I cared much about the flicker, I'd get a https://www.crowdsupply.com/test-equipment?sort=latest OpticSpy or Labrador, or something cheaper, and just go into a store with a light display and check each one.

- - -

> Apple’s software will convert the image according to what it has machine-learned that white ought to be

My old lexam camera apparently has machine learning built in too?

Unlike my frustrating old camera, iPhones should be able to lock the white balance, exposure, et al, right? through which, comparisons can still be made.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#95

Post by eimrine »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #2

Non-dimmable bulbs are the author's problem. First, bans on incandescent bulbs are foolish because they encourage defeatist foolishness like this article (as far as I can tell, for the sake of virtue signaling and modest acceleration of a change that was already happening.) The CFLs which preceded LEDs were really awful, especially for closets (where they'll linger for decades, given the low utilization of those bulb…

Non-dimmableness is only one of the problems. For me the biggest problem is that all LEDs are blue, despite of any light-filters. I can not use it in bedroom when I use to read books before sleep and in bathroom when my aestetical needs of seing bare body have been not met. I have even changed my place of living since Sodium lamps have been replaced with LEDs on my old street. And if I need a really bright light or really high CRI then I'm going to use MHL. My point is that LED is not really a good source of light except of if I need energy-efficient source and/or with high tolerance to often on/off.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#96

Post by balfirevic »

wombatpm wrote: post #12
jgalt212 wrote: post #3

LED bulbs make me made because I can't yell at my kids to turn off the lights like my dad used to do to me.

Sure you can. My wife yells at me all the time. I says they are LED stop complaining. She says they are still wasting energy, doesn’t matter the amount.

Sure you can, but only if you're willing to be unreasonable.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#97

Post by PoignardAzur »

willidiots wrote: post #40
Majromax wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have heard that newer LED Bulbs now have some kind of built in obsolescence. This is from someone I know who is an engineer working for the US military. BigClive covers this issue a fair amount on his Youtube teardown videos. It's not exactly built-in obsolescence, so much as being built to cost. The cheapest way to build an LED bulb is to minimize the number of components. Instead of spreading the light emission…

Glad to see someone referencing BigClive's teardowns and explanations. As for the business rationale, I think it's less about consumer demand and more about the recurring revenue for the light manufacturers. Products like this exist where mandated - see his video on the Dubai LEDs - but aren't made broadly available.

I think GP's explanation is compatible with "Products like this exist where mandated".

Even if the producer expects absolutely zero return customers (and therefore no recurring revenue), having the more durable product be more expensive, and durability being hard to advertise, means there's a race to the bottom where the more durable product is competed out of existence.

If everybody is forced to make the durable product, the race to the bottom disappears.

(Alternatively, having better packaging regulations that make it easier to identify long-lasting products would also help)

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#98

Post by 1980phipsi »

galleywest200 wrote: post #78
timw4mail wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention space constraints for power supplies, and cooling the LEDs enough. For all the benefits of LED lights, incandescent bulbs are infinitely simpler.

> cooling the LEDs enough Maybe I am missing something from this conversation, but all of my LED bulbs produce far _less_ heat than incandescent bulbs. The lamp in my bedroom no longer keeps me warm!

You will find that you will need to search a bit harder to find an LED light that is rated to work with enclosed fixtures. Enclosed fixtures don't allow the same amount of cooling as a normal lamp.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#99

Post by Cthulhu_ »

> The two in my youngest son’s bedroom went near dark not long after I installed them.

That's a warranty case; if people send them back to the producer often enough, they have to up their quality. If enough people also make sure to complain, consumer protection organizations may start a class action lawsuit and/or get the federal whatsits to demand better quality.

Re: There's something off about LED bulbs

#100

Post by PoignardAzur »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #49
jmclnx wrote: post #5

I have heard that newer LED Bulbs now have some kind of built in obsolescence. This is from someone I know who is an engineer working for the US military. I told him I had bought some LEDs (started moving over 2 years ago) and that is when he mentioned that. I guess I will find out, so far so good. I did stock up on 100 watt incandescent years ago and have a many left just in case. I found LEDs cause me eye strain, b…

They are almost certainly referring to the use of 85°C capacitors. These are much cheaper and die quicker compared to their pricier counterparts. It's not so much "planned obsolescence" as it is "consumers shop on price primarily". And its even harder because there really isn't much benefit to putting specs on your bulbs because 99.9% of consumers won't understand them anyway. What should happen is a mandated "nutrit…

I think the european commission was considering something like this with right-to-repair laws? Having a "durability score" on the package, or something like that.
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