$60 Light Bulb Debuts On Earth Day 743
theodp writes "How much would you pay for an amazing light bulb? On Sunday — Earth Day — Philips' $60 LED light bulb goes on sale at Home Depot and other outlets. The bulb, which lasts 20 years, won a $10 million DOE contest that stipulated the winning bulb should cost consumers $22 in its first year on the market. Ed Crawford, the head of Philips' U.S. lighting division, said it was always part of the plan to have utility rebates bring the price down to the $22 range."
money back if not delighted? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reading lights on the bus I ride have been replaced with multi-LED cluster bulbs - in less than 18 months most have several dead LEDs in the cluster.
If 20 years is gaurunteed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I'd consider 60 bucks.
20 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There is a bigger question here. (Score:5, Insightful)
21
1 person to change the bulb
20 taxpayers to subsidize him.
Re:If 20 years is gaurunteed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. If you are selling me a twenty-year light bulb, then you can give me an 18-year warranty on that.
Years ago I bought a bunch of CF bulbs which definitely definitely lasted a shorter time than traditional bulbs, despite claims of multiple times longer lifespan. I know that CF bulbs have now progressed, and get about the lifespan claimed, but it makes me a bit skeptical of new bulbs. Twenty years from now, if these things are still burning bright in households across America, then I will check my skepticism.
Re:money back if not delighted? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am the R&D engineer for the LED chip that goes to the said light bulb. Just like CFL, there are a huge range of qualities when comes to LED chips, from top level power chips that undergoes die-level visual inspection to the crap that is spewing out of Asian countries.
Power LEDs have come a long way with tremendous amount of engineering behind them. The longevity is not exaggerated, but it is also why the lamps are expensive.
Having good rel is expensive. We can easily push out cheaper stuff, but longevity suffers as a result.
The fact that the bus uses multi LED cluster means that they are crap by default. The cheaper manufactures can't make dies as bright, or phosphorus as efficient, so in order to get the same intensity output, they have to rely on a cluster. OTOH, a quality LED component will have a large die, and smaller number of components.
Re:Philips (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:money back if not delighted? (Score:5, Insightful)
The dead lights could also be cheep wiring. As for CFLs, when I used them I had them go out with approximately the frequency they said.
This is most likely the case. I've heard many accounts of CFLs lasting only weeks vs. my many brands of CFLs which have always lasted years. There's no way I'm using them that much "better".
Incadescent longevity is also tied to the power quality, so I see this as more of the same. Have your wiring checked if possible if you're having problems.
The Philips softone CFLs I've had have had the most light bulb-like light out of all I've used, so I have confidence in the colour quality of this LED one. Can't speak for the longevity of course.
Those worrying about the price should realize that you (at least here) very recently had to pay the same amount for a LED with one tenth the output. These things are developing really fast, and will most likely be an excellent deal soon.
Re:ANOTHER FREE MARKET TRIUMPH! (Score:5, Insightful)
Cthulhu doesn't exist, however we can all agree that an Eldritch Abdomination is bad.
Why would they last 20 years? (Score:4, Insightful)
How are they gonna make money when eventually everyone has one of these and it takes 20 years for it to die...
Re:ANOTHER FREE MARKET TRIUMPH! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Philips (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how they advertise 20 years but promise only 3.
At a $60 price tag, that doesn't boost my confidence in their product. If they are going to claim 20 years, they should have a warranty of at least between 10 and 15 years.
Re:*SHOCK* (Score:5, Insightful)
This:
"I'm still paying the full price of the bulb"
means almost the exact opposite of this:
"that $60 cost has to come from *somewhere*"
Yes. The money comes from somewhere: it comes from somewhere other than from you. No, you don't pay the full price of the bulb, you pay $22/60, plus maybe another ten cents, and the rest of society pays for the rest. Congratulations, you just benefited from a transfer program which society set up because society thinks the world is better with it, than without it. Society wants people like you to have a bit of their money, which is why we voted for leaders to give us such programs. If you don't want the money, that's okay too, you don't have to bother with the rebates.
I object when I hear people say that all market distortions are bad. No, they aren't Many market distortions are good. Some are bad. Obviously these are judgement calls, but to equate oil subsidies with LED subsidies is absurd and does a dis-service to everyone. It is culpably simplistic reasoning. (Let me be perfectly explicitly clear: it's still okay if you think this particular market distortion is bad, but it is not okay to thus conclude that all market distortions are bad.)
I'm glad you would buy the bulbs un-subsidized. Me too, probably. But that's not the question, the question is would other people buy them, large numbers of people. If the answer is yes, then perhaps no market distortion is necessary; but apparently the people who set it up thought the answer was no, and I tend to agree with them.
Re:money back if not delighted? (Score:2, Insightful)
For the record, if you're having *consistent* problems with certain fixtures, it's *far* more likely that the fixtures (or the circuit they're on) are the source of your problems.
That said, if you think the problem is the bulbs, and not the circuit, you can test it pretty easily. Move one of those known-good bulbs to one of the fixtures you're having issues with, and put one of the suspect, newer bulbs in the now-empty fixture. If you're right, the old bulb will continue working for years, and the new bulb will burn out shortly. If not, then you probably ought to have the problematic circuits/fixtures checked out by a licensed electrician because they'll be putting similar 'wear and tear' on anything else attached to them as well.
Re:Philips (Score:5, Insightful)
20 years at only 4 hours per day is what they advertise. 3 years at 24 hours a day is the equivalent of 18 years at 4 hours a day. Their warranty must be counting on a worst-case usage model. I wouldn't call that entirely unfair.
They have it all wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
A 100 watt incandescent light bulb should cost $60 and and this LED light should cost $1, that the only way you are going to get stupid poor people (i.e. the 99%) to save the planet.
Want to fight obesity? A Big Mac should cost $30 and an organic produce salad should be $1.
Gas should be $10 a gallon, the bus should be $1/day for unlimited use.
Catch my drift?
The problem with the whole "Green" movement is that it was created and marketed towards rich Yuppies who feel so guilty about driving their dumb ass gas guzzlers and living in their huge, inefficient houses and so feel compelled to drop crap loads of money on stuff to take their guilt away. Such as $60 light bulbs, expensive organic produce, the "other" car(s) that is a Hybrid, the stupidity of paying carbon taxes, etc.
Green is purely about marketing, period. Its not about saving the planet. If you wanted to save the planet make the crap that is destroying it expensive and the stuff that will fix it dirt cheap. Then the other 99% will pick up the Green cause and make change will actually happen.
The problem with crap like this light bulb is for all the energy your are saving, the help you hire to clean your house and drive you around town is using 100 watt light bulbs which serve as better space heaters then sources of light, thus negating what impact you are trying to achieve.
I would rather see a world where the 99% uses LED bulbs, and only the 1% can afford their polar bear killing designer incandescents.
Re:ANOTHER FREE MARKET TRIUMPH! (Score:5, Insightful)
What free market? America has never been a country with zero market regulations -- never. In fact, for the first couple hundred years our entire tax base was levied on imports.
It seems to me that tmosley doesn't know what a free market is. That isn't surprising, today's proponents of free markets rely on people having no understanding of what a free market is, and simply having a knee-jerk attraction to anything with "free" in it.
Look it up. You might blow your own mind. "ZERO market regulations!? Who would want that?!" An incredibly tiny minority of industrialists would want that, tmosley. It's the job of the rest of us to stop them.
Re:If 20 years is gaurunteed? (Score:4, Insightful)
A number of years ago... I don't recall when. Maybe around 2005 or so, I tried claiming a replacement on a CFL once that came with an alleged 2 year guarantee when it lasted only something like 2 months.
The replacement policy required the original receipt... no photocopies or duplicates... and I had to send the bulb I had purchased, along with the receipt I had for it to the manufacturer myself, all at my own expense.
This was problematic for three reasons. The first was that I would not be able to claim any warranty at all on the replacement bulb.... if it was faulty and burned out within 20 minutes of my plugging it in, I'd be SOL. Even the store where I had bought it from would have allowed me an immediate over-the-counter replacement in such a circumstance.
The second factor was that actually sending them the bulb in a box, with postage, worked out to almost as much as buying a brand new light bulb.
Finally, in my case, the receipt had many other items on it... including other bulbs. If I sent them the entire receipt just to replace this one bulb, if another one went, I'd have no receipt to send them anymore... in addition to being unable to prove my date of purchase for any other items on the bill.
I came to conclusion then and there that that their guarantees are just a scam to get you buy their bulbs.
Re:*SHOCK* (Score:4, Insightful)
Ultimately it comes right out of our power bills or tax dollars.
Yes, but you need to compare apples and apples. When my neighbor keeps on using a low-efficiency incandescent bulb, they're putting more CO2 in the atmosphere, because where I live, the source of energy is virtually all fossil fuels. That means that my kids and grandkids are subsidizing my neighbor, who doesn't have to pay the real cost of global warming. We also wouldn't have fought the last three wars if there wasn't oil in the middle east, so when I pay my income taxes this week, I'm subsidizing the use of fossil fuels by paying the ruinous costs of those wars.
It also only propagates our short-sighted obsession with up front costs.
You've got this precisely backwards. Using an incandescent bulb is a short-sighted decision based on ignoring the long-term consequences of global warming.
Re:money back if not delighted? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Livermore Fire Dept is proof that a well-made bulb can last for over a century."
Did you see that one?
It radiates 25 times more heat than light, it will last forever, but calling it a 'light' nowadays is a bit of a stretch.
Re:There is a bigger question here. (Score:4, Insightful)
If it was a $60 bulb that lasted 20 years... when I was renting? It would have been replaced with a $.60 bulb on move out and taken with me.
Re:To be banned in 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)
Who the fuck gave anyone else the right to dictacte how efficient my lightbulbs are? Keep your useless feel-good regulaitons to yourself.
Who the fuck gave anyone else the right to dictacte how efficient my toilet and shower are? Keep your useless feel-good regulaitons to yourself.
These laws take away freedom, and do nothing practical to make the world a better place. The only reason to support these laws is a love of government power. A rational approach would be to limit regulaiton like this to:
* Where there's an actual crisis
* Affecting the most significant practical use of the resource
* In some way that would be the least possibly intrusive.
The bathroom fixtures are particularly absurd: most places have no water shortage, most water is used in power geeration, and most of the rest is used in agriculture, and most of the rest is used in home irrigation, so the % of water that enters the bathroom in the first place is trivial. It's regulating quite intimate activities, in a way that produces no savings, to solve a "problem" that doesn't exist in most places. You don't have to be a libertarian to object to this.
Power used by light bubls in the home is similar: it's a small percentage of all power used (and if you're heating your house anyway, I'm not sure how inefficient the old bulbs are), it's a choice that consumers are perfectly capable of making on their own, and for many people this has a direct and negative effect on their quality of life. You don't have to be a libertarian to object to this.
This is government power for the sake of government power. We should be outraged by this overreach, but apparantly we're so conditioned to obey authority that it just slides by.
Re:To be banned in 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
/. - Where more inefficient toilets means losing personal freedoms.
Idiot.
" so the % of water that enters the bathroom in the first place is trivial."
uh, no it isn't. Also, it's water used in the home times everyone tapped into the supply; which is a lot.
"It's regulating quite intimate activities,"
no. No one is telling you how much too poop. Only a standard of the amount of water it takes to push that turd into the system. No one is telling you how to hold your dick.
Changing water amount in a toilet is a minimal impact.
And don't act like industry and agriculture isn't also regulated.
Of course, you clearly have no grasp of time. Growth, weather patterns, cleaning, and many other things to do with water; which by the way isn't 'Yours'. The bit you get into the home is yours, but not the systems and storage.
It's everyone's.
You just can't grasp anything bigger the what you personally use, can you? A small percentage of power, over million and million of home sis a lot of power.
And people don't change without a driving force. Society is more then just you.
Re:To be banned in 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
" so the % of water that enters the bathroom in the first place is trivial."
uh, no it isn't. Also, it's water used in the home times everyone tapped into the supply; which is a lot.
Uh, yes it is! Livermore Labs did an extensive study of national water flows about 10 years back - sadly I can't find a link to the materials online any more (anyone?).
About 50% of all water used is used for power generation.
More than half of what's left is used in agriculture.
About half of what's used outside of industry if user for irrigation (watering your lawn).
So it was only something like 10% of total water usage that ever enters the home. It's the smallest and most intrusive target for regulation.
And why at the national level? A particular city with recurring drought (or drainage) issues - sure, I can see that. But there's no nation-wide problem to be solved here.
And you know what? That water isn't free - price is a great motivator for people to use less. Regulation like this seem to spring up where there's no genuine reason to conserve - if the resource were actually scarce, it would be expensive, and people would naturally use less. Funny old world.
Re:To be banned in 2020 (Score:2, Insightful)
With that kind of argument you can excuse complete totalitarian control of every human aciton by government authority. But maybe that's your utopia? Freedom must be regarded more highly than safety if we're to have any freedom at all, and the negative effects on you when I use a few kwh more power are quite small indeed (especially in my case, as I get relatively lttle power from coal).
Anyway, there's nothing stopping me from simply turning on more lights. Which I do, just as a matter of principle. Noth that it matters, of course, home lighting is simply trivial in the larger scheme of things.
Re:To be banned in 2020 (Score:2, Insightful)
If power were scarce, it would be expensive, and there would be no need for any law to enourage people to buy more efficient bulbs. If power were scarce, it would be expensive, and there would be no need for any law to enourage producers to build more capacity.
Seriously, "demand for power" is almost the same as "standard of living", and to Hell with anyone who wants to cut that. If there's any point to government beyond the libertarian minimum, it can only be to make it easier to get the things we want, not to make hipsters feel smug about imaginary solutions to imaginary problems!
Even if I ran off the grid (how do you know I'm not - I live right next to the Soylendra factories after all - oh, wait!) it would still be illegal to buy the damn bulbs I want to use. This is all about government power, not electrical power.
Re:There is a bigger question here. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:To be banned in 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)
And you know what? That water isn't free - price is a great motivator for people to use less. Regulation like this seem to spring up where there's no genuine reason to conserve - if the resource were actually scarce, it would be expensive, and people would naturally use less. Funny old world.
This is, quite simply, bullshit. The "free market" which you seem to think will handle this pays no attention to a number of negative externalities, particularly with regard to the environment and long-term effects.
For power generation for example, that would include air pollution. A power company might be able to supply you dirt-cheap electricity from their coal plant just outside of town, but there's no way the free market will consider your (and everyone else's!) increased risk of lung cancer in that price, because to the power company that isn't a cost at all. They are using everyone's air as a free dumping ground for their dangerous waste. Society has a right to protect that air - in the same way your right to swing your fist ends at my right to have an unbroken nose, the power company (and by extension its customers) loses its right to complete freedom when it impacts everyone's ability to breathe safely.
With regard to water usage, the water you use is pumped freely and relatively cheaply from aquifers, rivers, or lakes - natural resources that belong to society as a whole. But while the immediate costs are low (which allows the free market to give it to you cheaply), there are again negative externalities that society must consider: in this case, the supply of fresh water is not infinite, and we (in the US) are in fact using It at a rate that is much faster than nature can replenish. The price of your water does not take this into account at all! Society has a very sensible and rational interest in ensuring water will continue to be available in the future, because if we let it get to the point where "the resource were actually scarce," people will starve. A rational entity plans for the future rather than gobbling up everything NOW (or do you advocate we all live paycheck to paycheck?), and what that means is society needs to find ways to reduce our current and future water consumption. Every little bit helps (and an overall 1% savings for a simple and harmless change really is pretty good).