Finally an alternative to incandescents?

[Nate Nagel]

I've been interested in finding a more acceptable solution to indoor lighting than the usual spiral CFLs for a while now, yesterday I was researching LED light bulbs as I was actually repairing an outdoor post light (and am trying a 4W LED in it, although I don't think it's bright enough for the application) and found this:

which is available at select (read: almost none) Home Depots but the secret is that if you can find them, they're apparently subsidized by local utilities or something to about $15 apiece, not the $50 listed on the web site. A store about 50 miles away from me had a stock of them however and I have a friend who works in that area so I imposed on him to get me a couple.

I have a feeling I need more of these. They have a CRI of 92 (normal CFLs and most LEDs are in the 70-80 range) Surprisingly, HD does not even mention CRI at all in their description of this product although to me it's a bigger deal than the efficiency. However if you research the L-prize you'll find that a CRI of >90 was one of the conditions. They also turn on instantly, and are actually bright. Well, almost instantly

- there's a very brief but noticable delay between flipping the switch and getting light. It's really the one way you can tell that you're not turning on an incandescent bulb but something more complicated and electronic. I remember when we didn't try to skimp on light bulb size and actually lit up a room, but since switching to CFLs it's hard to get enough light in some spaces. Two of these 10W bulbs are definitely brighter than the single 40W CFL with which I was trying to light up a difficult room (dark paneling, main lighting from a torchiere with a dark colored shade that reflects most of the light up, would have been acceptable with a 200+ watt 3-way incandescent which is what it was obviously designed for, but nothing else produced acceptable light) and there's none of that annoying brightness ramp-up that you get from CFLs.

One thing that I have not tested with these bulbs is dimming ability. Supposedly it works, but some dimmers will buzz and hum. But if you don't have dimmers, don't have fully enclosed light fixtures, and don't mind (or can't see in your application) the odd shape/color of the bulb when unlit, there's really nothing at all I can find fault with.

Best part - this bulb is actually assembled in the USA, and apparently the LEDs used are made in the USA as well!

This may be old news for some as apparently they've been available @ HD at the discounted price for about a month now, but I figured this was worth posting because a) I don't go into HD that often and b) even if I did, none of the stores local to me carry this bulb so if I hadn't gone looking for it online I would not have known that it was actually available (and if someone hadn't mentioned to check the price, the $50 price listed on HD's web site would have put me off...)

Hope this helps someone...

nate

[Nate Nagel]

Forgot to add... the really amusing thing about this bulb is the packaging. Philips hits a home run with this product which will likely primarily appeal to eco-weenies and people who actually geek out over things like light bulbs... and yet the packaging is that awful heat sealed clamshell plastic, and about 3x as large as it needs to be. I can't imagine any packaging more annoying, or, here's the ironic bit, less eco-friendly...

nate

[Bob_Villa]

Thanks Nate...all LED's tend to be like buying "a pig in a poke"!

[Mitt Romley]

You can thank the democrats for today's clam-shell packaging. You see, lazy Democrats are used to free government handouts like free cell phones, free housing and of course the WIC program. But the government has failed them a bit. There is no free light bulb program so the lazy democraps have to go to Lowes Depot and steal them.

Maybe we need a USF type fund for light bulbs?

[trader4]

What $50 price? The link you provided to the HD website had them for $15.

Yes, good to know. At some point I guess I'll try buying one. My experience with CFL's though makes me hesitant. Even now the results from one brand to another or even within the same brand a year later are not consistent. These are even more expensive, so you really have to believe that

A: They put out nice light

B: They will last long enough to recover your money.

Has anyone seen any independent testing that supports b?

[Nate Nagel]

I just went back and clicked on my own link; the "online price" (except you can't even buy it online, it's a "store exclusive" product) is $49.97 each for me. Maybe HD is adjusting the pricing based on location? Perhaps in your location they are actually readily available in stores at the lower price? I have no idea...

The Wikipedia article on high-CRI LEDs is actually where I discovered that HD was selling them, see the footnote at the bottom of the A19 section.

In my opinion they do... of course today is only day two of use, but I am consistently noticing the difference when I go into the room where they're installed; it was annoying as there is no ceiling fixture in that room and it's naturally dark so the lighting in that room comes from a floor lamp on a wall switch as I mentioned above. In that particular room, the only really good solution previously would have been a 200W plus incandescent and my inner granola munching hippie was offended by that solution. I used a socket extension and a one-to-two socket Y-adapter to stuff two of my Philips LED bulbs in that light, and for a total of 20W worth of LEDs the total light is perhaps slightly less than I would prefer if energy consumption was not a consideration at all but it is definitely superior in every way to the 40W CFL that I was previously using, most notably the ramp up time (it seems like the brighter the CFL, or if it is enclosed in a globe for outdoor use or decorative bath fixtures, the more likely the CFL is to have a noticeable and annoying ramp up.) Combined with my third Philips LED bulb on a table lamp, the room is acceptably lit and it feels like a luxury to have a similar quality of light as I remember having as a kid before we worried about stuff like this.

I thought about using the Y-adapter idea with two of the more common 13W CFLs because my guess was even that would have been a better solution than the 40W CFL but never actually got around to doing it.

Remember once upon a time when it was recommended to use 150W bulbs or higher in a table lamp next to the chair you'd sit in to spend some quality time with a book to reduce eye strain? I do...

It seems like they will...

So apparently all samples were proven to last at least 7K hours without failure; it's apparently too soon to say whether they'll actually last

25K hours plus or not but it's not looking bad.

I know it sounds like I'm really pushing these bulbs but I'm not affiliated with Philips or DoE in any way, I'm just a consumer who's discovered a product that I really like and am kind of excited about. I wouldn't pay $50 for one of these bulbs, mostly because I don't have the money to be shelling out $50 for the equivalent of something that I can buy for $2 give or take (in the form of a traditional incandescent) but at $15 you can make the argument that it will save money on air conditioning and electrical power, plus then you don't have to feel the guilt of running big incandescents - not that I have in years; at my last house the only incandescents were in seldom used hallways and in the living room and kitchen where there were dimmer switches and I could not find any acceptable more efficient solution (and yes, I have to admit, I did feel somewhat guilty about those...)

I'm also a little surprised that this is a Philips product. My money would have been on Cree a few years ago, but it appears that the commonly available Cree incandescent light bulb replacements don't have either the efficiency or CRI of the Philips bulb. I haven't seen any of them in operation so I can't comment how they stack up subjectively, but they're about $13 retail, dimmer, and have lower CRI (similar to the common Philips LED "bulbs" that are actually easy to obtain) and a quick google did not yield data on where they're made, so I'm just ASSuming China. So unless someone who's spent more time geeking out on this subject than I has data to the contrary, my (non-professional) opinion is that it's worth a little extra effort to search out the Philips L-prize bulb in particular. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the Cree and older Philips LEDs were still subjectively more pleasing than a typical CFL. I have a Utilitech 9W LED bulb that I bought last year when Lowe's had them on sale for $9 or so just out of curiosity, and I do find it preferable to CFLs and will continue to use it - but I'm sure that the CRI is probably around 80 and its color temp is a little higher than many people would probably like.

While I'm rambling on on the subject, I'm tempted to try to hack together an adapter that will allow two bulbs to act like a 3-way incandescent, because the very lamp that prompted that geekery is a

3-way socket and they seem to still be very common, especially for table lamps which may be used for both ambient light and also reading. It wouldn't actually work exactly like a 3-way as I'd be using two bulbs of equivalent light output rather than one appx. twice as bright as the other, but I hope that that changes in the future (or, if CRI is less important to you, you could use some of the Cree bulbs or older design Philips bulbs which are available in multiple lumen ratings.) Or maybe in a few years we'll be able to get high quality, high output 3-way LED bulbs? I can only hope so.

nate

[trader4]

That's interesting. It shows up as $14.95 here. Technically you can also buy it online but you have to pick it up at the store. Try a NJ zipocode, 07753, and see what price you get.

[IMAGE]

Yes, I hear you. If there is something that puts out the nice quality light that you can get from an incandescent, but uses a tiny amount of electricity, less heat, and lasts long enough for payback I'd be buying them......

There is another factor, which I learned from my experience with CFL. Let's say these last 10 or 15 years. A year or two from now, for whatever reason, one fails. With CFL by then they were different, that particular one was no longer available. So, you go to the store and you couldn't figure out, which if any of them would match the light, warm up time, etc of the ones you already had. Not a problem for a table lamp, but if you have 8 of them in recessed lights, at $15, it's a problem. It's gotten better as time goes on, but it's still like a science experiment when you need to get one that matches.

[Nate Nagel]

That must be it, subsidies by location.

I'm in VA and the $49.97 price comes up. I set "my store" to the one nearest my parents in PA and it is also $49.97. Then I tried Florham Park, NJ (first NJ city that popped into my head) and picked the closest store, suddenly price is $14.97. So I'm guessing that if I were actually able to find a store in VA that had some in stock, they would be priced at $49.97? Don't know, there's not any stores w/in 50 miles of me that is also located in VA that has any in stock, so I can't try to order for in-store pickup so I can see what the pricing is.

Lesson: if you live in VA or PA, get someone from MD or NJ to buy you some of these and send them to you? (unless like me you live near a state border)

nate

[Nate Nagel]

Not a concern for me, as I don't have any can lights. But you do raise a valid point.

To me, that's another good argument for geeking out and trying to find the best product that you can for the money (something that I've been accused of doing before, and certainly am guilty of in many cases.)

nate

[nestork]

I think the biggest selling point of these LED bulbs is that they're dimmable, and they're instant-on like incandescents. You don't have to wait a minute for the light output to rise.

But, the economics are an uphill battle for them.

Converting to CFL's was a no-brainer when they first came out because even at their $7 per bulb price tag, they'd save you 80% on your electricity, and that made them pay for themselves in a relatively short period of time.

Now, unless there's a government subsidy involved, paying even $15 extra to save an additional 3 watts is economically difficult. In a house with 20 light bulbs, $300 is a lot of money to invest in them, whereas

60 watts isn't a lot of savings to justify the investment. It's not even economically attractive to replace incandescents with LED's when the option of replacing them with CFL's is open to you.

I expect some people will buy these LED bulbs for dining rooms where they want the dimmability, but other than that the transition from CFL's to LED's is gonna be a slow one... until the price of LED bulbs drops to within a buck or two of CFLs. Unfortunately, the price won't drop until they start being mass produced, and that's not going to happen until they're economically competitive with CFL's and, except for a C-change in technology, that's not going to happen until the price drops.

Your classic Catch-22.

[willshak]

Well, the plastic and cardboard are recyclable for those who care about that sort of thing.

[Pete C.]

The electric utility price subsidies vary from state to state and sometimes even in different areas within a state. Some places will have no subsidies and some will have substantial ones. Find where the best ones are and make a day trip to buy your lamps on some other utility's dime :)

[DA]

Same thing happens here: I select my PA local HD - $49.97, my NJ work location (35 miles away) HD - $14.97

Sounds like a profitable business can be started to haul LED bulbs across the Delaware river :)

[Pete C.]

Remember that these LED lamps have 30,000+ hour life, so even compared to your old $1 incandescents with 750 hour life the cost isn't worse, it's just front loaded (30,000/750=40 i.e. 40 incandescents for the same span as 1 LED). So if you are paying even $40/lamp you are at break even just on lamp cost. The LG LEDs I'm using and quite happy with cost me $9ea so I'm way ahead on base lamp cost, and much further ahead on power savings as well as not having to replace them for a decade or two.

[Nate Nagel]

Yabbut what would be so wrong with a simple folded cardboard box like regular old light bulbs have been sold in for ages? We've been recycling paper for a lot longer than we've been doing plastic, and not all areas have plastic recycling.

nate

[Frank]

I guess if you're paying $50 for a light bulb you want first class packaging.

Anybody that does the math will know that CFL's are most cost efficient.

[Pete C.]

You flubbed your math then.

Assumptions:

40W equivalent lamps (what I have data handy for) Power $0.10/kWh Incandescent lamp $1 CFL lamp $3 LED lamp $10 (the $50 Phillips may be the latest, greatest, but most LEDs are a lot less expensive)

Incandescent: $1 lamp, 750hr life, 40W power consumption = $0.0053 per hour ($1/750)+((40/1000)*$0.10)

CFL: $3 lamp, 8,000hr life, 14W power consumption = $0.0018 per hour ($3/8000)+((14/1000)*$0.10)

LED: $10 lamp, 30,000hr life, 7.5W power consumption = $0.0011 per hour ($10/30000)+((7.5/1000)*$0.10)

So LED lamps are about 20% cheaper than CFL

[Nate Nagel]

BUT if I needed to purchase some sort of light, any light, with the only consideration being that it was going to go in an Edison base fixture, I wouldn't even consider CFLs anymore. My choice today would be between an incandescent and these new LEDs. The price difference between a CFL and the LEDs (at $15, anyway) is little enough that I'm willing to pay the extra for the luxury of not being annoyed at the CFL every time I turn it on.

nate

[notbob]

Check this guy out (EE):

He used some Cree solid state single LED bulbs to make a light strip. Looks like it works pretty good.

nb

[krw]

Tell me that after your LED lamps have 30,000 hours on them. IOW, bullshit!