$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."
There is a bigger question here. (Score:5, Funny)
How many people does it take to change it?
Re:There is a bigger question here. (Score:5, Insightful)
21
1 person to change the bulb
20 taxpayers to subsidize him.
Re:There is a bigger question here. (Score:4, Insightful)
To be banned in 2020 (Score:5, Funny)
No point in buying a bulb which lasts 20 years. By 2020, there would be more efficient bulbs and this would be banned. And by 2020, both Google and Facebook would have capability to report to the Govt what bulb you turn on, the ban will also work on products which have already been purchased before the ban.
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: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).
Re:To be banned in 2020 (Score:5, Informative)
http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/water/a_wateruse.html [nationalatlas.gov]
According to this website public water supply domestic water use (85% of domestic water use) is about 11% of american water consumption
http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/pubs/indoor.html [epa.gov]
According to this website, the toilet uses about 25% of water in the home.
Thus, by mandating a change to high pressure low flow toilets, if we assume that most people are still using the old toilets (3.5-7 gallon flush) and extrapolating from those figures, toilet water use is roughly 2.5% of american water use. By changing to efficient toilets (80% less water), this could maybe be brought down to 0.5%-1% of american water use.
In contrast, according to above mentioned first website, thermo-electric power generation comprised 52% of water use. So theoretically if America cut power consumption by 4%, it would equal the water savings of more efficient toilets. Since residential counts for about 35% of electrical use, if you saved 12% power in your home, you could save enough (and consequently the water required to generate it) to run a large volume flush toilet. There are also more ways to reduce the water consumption of electrical generation, like wind power, solar power, and hydro power.
Re:To be banned in 2020 (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is in power generation. New electric plants are a huge investment. No matter what technology you use, an electric plant will affect the environment: hydro plants require damming rivers, nuclear plants generate waste that nobody wants, and coal plants spew out mercury and other nasty toxins. Even wind turbines make noise and kill birds. So electric companies don't want to build them, because they're a giant PITA, which makes them really, really expensive. And as a customer, if your power company has to add a generator, guess who will pay for it? Existing customers are not exempt from rate hikes, so they are generally opposed to this construction, too.
Electric companies have another pressure: increased demand in the form of new customers. People add kids, buy big TV sets, and electric cars. Factories add machines. Contractors build new neighborhoods. They all need the electric company to provide additional power. But if the electric plants are already at capacity, how do we add more users?
Turn to the economics of supply and demand. If we can't add any more to the supply, we can raise prices in order to cut demand.
If an incandescent bulb costs you $1.00 to buy, but $10.00 per month to operate, and lasts only one year, and an LED bulb that costs $60 to buy, $1.67 per month to operate, and lasts 20 years, which would you buy? Most people are actually really stupid, and continue to buy the $1 bulbs because they're "cheaper", not realizing the real difference is $121 per year vs. $23 per year. I'm suspecting that you'd be smart enough to eventually decide "the light from this $1 bulb isn't worth the extra $98 per year."
Instead of raising all the rates, we can use a curious property of electricity generation: generators have a "peak" capacity, but rarely have the demand to consume it all. If you could shift some of the peak load to off-peak times, you could add more clients without having more generators. This is where the Smart Grid comes into play. If I'm operating a smart grid, I'll sell you off-peak electricity for $0.10/kWh. But if you want to burn electrons on the hottest day of the summer, it'll cost you $5.00/kWh, because I have to fire up the really expensive peak-time natural gas generators. So my smart grid can tell your appliances that electric rates are going up to $5.00 for a few hours. You can set those smart appliances to "don't run the dishwasher or electric dryer unless the cost is less than $0.25/kWh."
Another way to cut demand is to increase efficiency. We know incandescent bulbs are highly inefficient. And incandescent bulbs make up a large percentage of electric use in this country. If we can replace all the incandescent bulbs, the nation as a whole would save as much as 25% of today's electricity demand (yes, lighting is a huge part of today's demand.) That defers a lot of new plant construction, perhaps giving more efficient or less polluting technologies (such as solar, geothermal, or tidal) time to evolve. And it doesn't raise electric rates for everyone today.
Overall you're participating a shared national system, which is exactly why the nation has the right to try to optimize it. And I don't want my electric rates to go up in price because you imagine you have some "right" to cheap bulbs. (I still don't remember the line in the Bill of Rights where Madison wrote "The right of the public to use inefficient devices on the national electrical grid shall not be infringed.")
If it bothers you that much, take the real libertarian way out of this problem. Run off the grid. Buy your own generator and make your own juice. Nobody's going to tell you how efficient you have to be, you can figure that out on your own. You get all the benefits: make as much or little power as you want. And you get all the drawbacks. You get the generator noise. You get to exhaust the pollutants into your own back yard. You get to pay the fuel truck to deliver a tankful of gas every month. You get to pay for the generator and its maintenance. But it's all your solution.
Re:To be banned in 2020 (Score:4, Informative)
BTW, a typical incandescent bulb is 50 percent efficient.
No it isn't. High efficiency ones max out at 5.1% [wikipedia.org]
Re:ANOTHER FREE MARKET TRIUMPH! (Score:5, Insightful)
Cthulhu doesn't exist, however we can all agree that an Eldritch Abdomination is bad.
Re:ANOTHER FREE MARKET TRIUMPH! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ANOTHER FREE MARKET TRIUMPH! (Score:5, Funny)
This thread seems to have rapidly degenerated into allusions to Japanese tentacle porn. Congratulations!
Re:ANOTHER FREE MARKET TRIUMPH! (Score:5, Funny)
This thread seems to have rapidly degenerated into allusions to Japanese tentacle porn. Congratulations!
"Degenerated"???
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: (Score:3)
What?
At $60/pop....I kinda doubt any renters are going to be leaving any of their bulbs behind when they move!!!
Like many places where when you rent, you have to provide your own appliances (used to be very prevalent in New Orleans)...you will likely have to start providing your own $60 lightbulbs too!!
Re:There is a bigger question here. (Score:5, Informative)
What?
At $60/pop....I kinda doubt any renters are going to be leaving any of their bulbs behind when they move!!!
Like many places where when you rent, you have to provide your own appliances (used to be very prevalent in New Orleans)...you will likely have to start providing your own $60 lightbulbs too!!
I bought three for my living room today. Here was my reasoning:
They are amazing for LEDs. I have other LED bulbs but the problem has always been that because of the directional nature of LEDs they all act like miniature spot lights. They don't diffuse light like the global shaped incandescent source. These Phillips LEDs do. And they are 17 watts (1100) lumens 75 watt equivalent) but they are so bright it hurts to look directly at them. I replaced three 65 watt bulbs in my living room with them and it is much brighter, less load on my air conditioner (I'm in Phoenix and that's important to me) and only 51 watts total. For me it's a plus, plus and plus. Oh, and with my military discount at Home Depot they cost me $36.00 each.
That's 3 incandescent bulbs x 65 watts per bulb = (195 watts for 8 hours per day/ 1000) * .1114 per kwh = $.17 per day for the incandescents. .1114 per kwh = $.045 per day for the LEDs.
That's 3 LED bulbs x 17 watts per bulb = (51 watts for 8 hours per day/ 1000) *
Incandescents cost me $.17 x 30 days = $5.10 a month x 12 months = $61.20 a year.
LEDs cost me $.045 x 30 days = $1.30 a month x 12 months = $15.60.
The savings on my electric bill is $45.60 a year, not counting the savings by not generating heat that fights the A/C.
Total cost for the three bulbs was $108.00. $108. / $45.60 = 2.3 years to pay for themselves. Their life at 8 hours / day is expected to be 8.5 years. The lifetime savings should be $282.00. And I am not a tree hugger and I don't work for Phillips.
Re:There is a bigger question here. (Score:4, Informative)
Here's one that's been going 110 years and counting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light [wikipedia.org]
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.
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
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:money back if not delighted? (Score:5, Interesting)
>>>Have your wiring checked
Yeah that really saves me money. Spend hundreds of dollars on electrician to save a few pennies per year with CFLs. Besides it's NOT the wiring. I have CFLs that date back to the 90s and still work, but newer Philips and GE CFLs that only last 6 months. The problem is in the bulb not the wires..... I'd sooner go back to incandescent than deal with the hassle (similar to how I downgraded to the older XP rather than deal with the hassle of vista).
Re:money back if not delighted? (Score:4, Informative)
I think CFLs seem happiest when they have a lot of ventilation.
Like you, I've found wildly varying longevity. Store-brand yellow "bug" CFLs have run for years in our outdoor fixtures, and light reliably even in below-zero F temperatures. I'm pretty sure I still have one of the very old late 90s CFLs in the cupboard that I haven't thrown out because it still works (but the shape doesn't really fit any fixture).
The problems have always come with fixtures that enclose or partially enclose the CFL -- with fixtures like that, I've seen as little as a week out of a light run a few hours per week. PAR-60 recessed CFLs are a waste of money -- I've had none last longer than six months, one fixture ate 3 in six months and the incandescent replacement has being going strong for at least 2 years.
Re:money back if not delighted? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not the wiring per se but power quality. Voltage fluctuations where the mains voltage goes out of spec (brownouts and overvoltage) are a major cause of problems. Electronic power supplies are often heavily stressed by under-voltage conditions, because they increase their current consumption to compensate, resulting in increased heat production in the power supply. Overvoltage can result in internal components being overstressed.
The other problem is high-voltage "spikes" - ultra-short duration (a few microseconds) increases in supply voltage (to 1-2 kV), due to large electric motors (e.g. HVAC compressors) being switched on or off, nearby lightning strikes, etc. These voltage surges won't affect incandescent light bulbs, but will destroy electronic power supplies instantly. Things like PC PSUs are fitted with surge protectors internally, to protect them from this type of spike. Good quality CFLs and electronic lighting ballasts also contain decent surge protection. However, garbage grade CFLs, often leave out these components to save $.10.
The other problem with CFLs is that they are intolerant to heat. This means that care is needed over the type of fitting. CFLs are not suitable for use in enclosed fittings - they must be open to the air, otherwise you don't get any air circulation and the lamps overheat. While incandescent lamps are frequently-used "base-up", CFLs risk overheating the electronics in the base, when used in this orientation. CFLs are best used "base-down".
If you genuinely think there is an electrical problem at your home - then you want a power quality check. This would normally involve installing a data-logger in your house for a week, to see if there are any significant problems with voltages, spikes, waveforms, etc.
Re:money back if not delighted? (Score:5, Funny)
>> disappointing lifespan
Yeah it works both ways: money back if not delighted or money back if de-lighted.
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:money back if not delighted? (Score:5, Informative)
This is very true. Cheap low end multi-LED lights are garbage. The worst ones use extremely poor 5mm LEDs with no heat sinking which typically degrade to half brightness within SINGLE DIGIT to double digit hours of use, and suffer significant complete burnout of individual LEDs within the same period. The LEDs used in the Philips bulb are cutting edge high power LEDs with very sophisticated heat sinking and remote phosphor. They are also designed to have an extremely high CRI (color rendering index) almost as good as incandescent, and far superior to common CFLs and less-elite LED "bulbs". I have seen a tear-down of the Philips, and the evident quality in every respect is astonishing.
Re: (Score:3)
So true. I'm also an R&D engineer for a specialty lighting company. The cheap stuff is poor quality in terms of build, components, and quality of light. The better stuff is light years better. The Philips bulb is of the later type.
The industry is really frustrating. I am basically resorting to making my own under-cabinet and path lighting for my home because of this. The inexpensive stuff looks awful, but the good stuff is priced way too high still.
Re: (Score:3)
The better stuff is light years better.
I don't know if that was intentional, but... *chuckle*
I have an L Prize bulb (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had it for a month.
I love it. Very bright, great light.
To be honest, the only place it falls down is in the electronics.
Compared to $30 EcoSmart 60W bulb I got from Home Depot, the L Prize starts up slower (about 0.25sec versus instant), can turn red when it dims (sometimes the blue LED driver circuit cuts out and the red stays on) and sometimes when you turn the L Prize off it flashes once about 0.25sec after you turn it off.
Finally, putting both bulbs on an oscilloscope, the L Prize also has a messier current waveform, far more harmonic distortion than the other bulb.
What gives? This is a great bulb, but the electrics seem like they could use some improvement.
Any comments?
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:money back if not delighted? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't buy your CFLs at Walmart, the grocery store, etc - the Sunbeam/Great Value/etc bulbs that you find at those kinds of stores are shit.
Buy professional CFL bulbs. Hit up the GE or Osram/Sylvania online product catalogs, write down some part numbers with the size/color temp/lifetime that you want, and call up a local industrial/lighting supplier - Harris & Roome is my go-to place here in Canada.
My house is full of GE "FLE10HT2/827" bulbs, 40W equivalents that pull 10W, have a warm color temperature (2700K) and have a 12000 hour lifetime. Which I can believe - I bought a case of these bulbs about 4-5 years ago when I swapped out every incandescent I could find, I still have plenty of them left, and I honestly can't remember the last time I changed a lightbulb in my house - it's been years.
If 20 years is gaurunteed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I'd consider 60 bucks.
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: (Score:3)
That kind of bulb dies mostly because of heat. Its (degrees above room temp) * (years of operation) thats constant, not (years of operation), in my experience.
In my chilly basement workshop, zero LED fails. outside unvented fixture, they fail, and only fail during summer.
Thats the problem with your 18 year suggestion for all bulbs, the bulbs over your kitchen stove etc are not going to last 1/10th as long as the LED bulb in your fridge.
Re:If 20 years is gaurunteed? (Score:4, Funny)
What, like they take a nose dive if the value of the euro drops?
Re: (Score:3)
*Limted Warranty: Guaranteed to last 8 years based on rated life at 4 hours consumer use per day at 120V. If this bulb (sic) does not last 8 years, return UPC and register receipt [to GE]
I can think of at least 2 problems in pursuing that claim. I might be more diligent keeping the receipt and packaging with a $20 lamp, but probably not.
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:If 20 years is gaurunteed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not if you keep the receipt in your freezer. There is a small area of my freezer that I have specifically designated for thermal paper receipts. They do not ever fade as long as they are kept cool. I keep my thermal receipts in a sealed baggy in my freezer so that condensation does not get on them.
Re: (Score:3)
There are quite a few "dimmable" CFL and LED bulb choices... I have yet to find any that dim the way an incandescent bulb does. they dim from 100% down to about 20%, if you're looking to use the under 20% range, tough luck. (I have 12 dimmable fixtures in my house, and I would love to get them off incandescent... but not until a good replacement appears)
Re: (Score:3)
They are dimmable. To be fair, some dimmers work better than others, and there is a limit to how dim they will go. Try one of the Philips previous generation first; the 12.5w 800 lumen 819913. They started at $40 but are cheap now. I have found them for under $20 locally.
They will not burn out from bumping. Ever. Maybe if you threw it against concrete you would wreck it.
The one caveat is not to use them in closed enclosures. Open fixtures only. They don't make much heat compared to incandescents, but if the
20 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Look up 'outlier'.
Re: (Score:3)
That page shows four bulbs, which the author describe as 'rare finds'. How is that 'not entirely uncommon'? Also, nowhere on that page does it say those bulbs were in continuous use, or even that they had ever been used at all. In fact, one of them was still in it's original package.
Re:20 years? (Score:5, Funny)
20 years is nothing. The livermore light bulb [centennialbulb.org] is 110 years old and still working. How come we can't beat the technology from our great grand fathers?
Because in watts per lumen you'd probably be better off using an infrared heater element as a light source.
Re: (Score:3)
The lack of a need for four-watt bulbs with low light output per watt which can only be powercycled a few times per century might have something to do with it.
Re: (Score:3)
I have two of them in my garage. (Score:5, Informative)
Philips AmberLEDs i bought for $20 each from home depot. In some areas they are now $15. Awesome light color and brightness. When they first went on sale they were $50-$60 each. now they are $20. Wait for a year and the pricing of these will also drop to $15-$20 making them affordable.
Re:I have two of them in my garage. (Score:5, Interesting)
Is the light color really okay? That's my main concern. I've often been underwhelmed with the spectrum offered.
Re: (Score:3)
What sort of guarantee backs up the 20 year life? (Score:3, Informative)
In my experience CFLs last no longer than incandescents. Why should I believe that these claims about LEDs are not also lies?
Re: (Score:3)
> Does your experience concern Philips CFLs?
Many different brands.
> I have one that has lasted since 1998.
And I have one incandescent that has lasted since 1995. Outliers happen.
Re: (Score:3)
Does your experience concern Philips CFLs? I have one that has lasted since 1998.
So this means... that all Phillips CFLs will last 14+ years? No, it means that one did. It says absolutely nothing about the quality and longevity of all other Phillips CFLs manufactured in 1988.
Anecdotal evidence is... anecdotal.
Good for some... (Score:5, Interesting)
I wont be buying any though....well maybe a few as a stop-gap but, not many.
I have been getting RGB LED strips, and looking to totally replace the house lighting. Part of the problem here is the "bulb". Yes, if you stick to a bulb form factor, and be backwards compartible, it can be hard to get enough light from LEDs, and expensive to build out etc.
However, bulbs were just the first invention....what makes that form factor so superior except for backwards compatibility?
I am looking at long strips, more like flourecent tube fixtures than bulbs. Can use many cheaper LEDs instead of a few expensive big ones... can use RBG LEDs and thus be able to change colors, or even white temp.
Of course, the stips are cheap pre-made, cheaper than I can find the LEDs on them in fact (cheapest price for 1000 in bulk was more expensive per LED than buying strips of 150 at a time) and the strips have limiting resistors, which are a major source of power loss (would be better to drop the resistor and use a constant current circuit.... but having to desolder or jumper smd resistors on each and every segment of the strip defeats the purpose of buying strips to make it easy)
Still though.... at $60/bulb.... ouch. and...its still just a bulb... with a single light color?
Made in USA (Score:5, Informative)
This article doesn't mention it, but part of the increased cost is the fact that the parts are made in CA & they are assembled in WI. So you're going to pay more for them compared to the same thing from China. And these seem pretty advanced, so you may not be able to buy an equivalent yet. Certainly, if I see them subsidized, I'll pick up a few.
Re:Made in USA (Score:5, Funny)
> So you're going to pay more for them compared to the same thing from China.
On the other hand, they may actually work.
Satisfied with CFLs (Score:3)
For what my anecdotal account is worth, I'm completely satisfied with my CFLs. I've had nothing but CFLs in my house since about '04 and have only had to replace a half-dozen or so.
The energy savings justified the cost of the switch from incandescent bulbs to CFLs. Going from CFLs to LEDs, it isn't even close.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not making any claims about their overall reliability. Just sharing my own positive experience with them.
subsidised or not it's to much (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean really, you can't drive adoption with a $60 bulb. Most people at the store going I've got 3 bulbs out are going to go "hrm $15 dollars or $180" Which do you think they are going to pick?
I'd love to know the Margins on this.
Way too expensive (Score:3)
Since you can get el-cheapo incandescents at around 50 cents each, I've changed maybe 3-4 in the last 10 years, no thanks...
Can they be dimmed using a *standard* inexpensive dimmer? Besides, aren't some LEDs very narrow in their color range (and too cold too)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#White_light [wikipedia.org]
Wrong company to win the prize? (Score:4, Informative)
How is the Phillips $60 light bulb different than this $15 bulb [feitbulbs.com]?
Oh, and there are already complaints on the home depot site that it causes radio interference.
Re: (Score:3)
Well for starters the Philips is 60W vs the one you posted is 40W equivalent. Also the one you posted is rated at 25k hours vs Philips 30k hours. A much better deal would seem to be this one, the only issue being the color temp perhaps:
7-Watt Collection LED 5000K Light Bulb (CL-L60A1-D , 40 Watt Equivalent) $6.50 + Free Shipping
http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/72690/newegg-7watt-collection-led-5000k-light-bulb-cll60a1d-40-watt-equivalent?token=AAQBBQAAAAAEPECnIA [slickdeals.net]
If this is anything like CFLs... (Score:4, Informative)
Then they can keep it.
I don't understand why everyone is/was so excited about CFLs. When they broke into the mainstream a few years ago, they were more expensive but were long lasting and energy efficient -- at least, that's what we were told. I have owned many, and ALL of them have died prematurely. Sometimes an entire package will be dead within a few weeks of purchase. Who in their right mind pays for such garbage? The carbon footprint of making and then throwing them away must be far larger than the savings in electricity. Also they are slower to light up than the good old fashioned bulbs. Why does nobody admit that?
So, do these new light bulbs come with a 20 year replacement warranty? If not, there's NO FRICKIN' WAY I would buy it. Also, I'm not convinced that these new bulbs actually make the same light. I'll wait until I've seen it in person.
-d
how bright after 20 years? (Score:3)
They claim a 20 year lifetime at 4 hours/day, but how bright will it be after 20 years? LED's reduce their light output over time, and the end of life is based on some loss of brightness (30% loss?), so that 60 watt bulb may be more like a 40 watt bulb by the end of its lifetime. And based on previous LED lights I've seen, I'm skeptical that it's really equivalent in brightness to a 60 watt incandescent bulb in the first place.
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...
Simple Rules for Buying Lightbulbs (Score:5, Informative)
With the various types of lightbulbs on the market these days, I put together some simple rules for buying them:
1. Lights that are left on for long periods of time -- CFLs. CFLs last a long time if they are not constantly switched on and off, and they offer the best brightness and cost effectiveness. Nightlights, and my living room and kitchen lights, are all CFLs. They have lasted for years. The nightlight in my kitchen is on 24 hours a day, and I just changed it after 5 years of constant use. The trick to making CFLs last is to never turn them off.
2. Lights that need to be turned on and off frequently -- LEDs. The lifetime of CFLs is limited by how often you switch them on and off. If you need to switch a light often but don't care if it's a little dim, put an LED there. (LEDs are dimmer than other types of lights.) My bedroom and basement/laundry lights are LEDs.
3. Lights that need to be bright and/or that need to light up right away -- Incandescents. Yes, I still have incandescents in my bathroom and on my porch. Both locations need light that is brighter than LEDs can put out, and the light needs to come on immediately which CFLs are poor at doing. If I used either LEDs or CFLs in those spots there would be times when I would be stumbling around in dim light in a dangerous area.
Re: (Score:3)
3. Lights that need to be bright and/or that need to light up right away -- Incandescents. Yes, I still have incandescents in my bathroom and on my porch. Both locations need light that is brighter than LEDs can put out, and the light needs to come on immediately which CFLs are poor at doing. If I used either LEDs or CFLs in those spots there would be times when I would be stumbling around in dim light in a dangerous area.
I haven't yet had an opportunity to use LED household light bulbs, but this sounds s
Words of an early adopter (Score:3)
I switched to using leds quite early (not Philips), and while the energy saving is definitely worth it I've had one die on me and another if flickering occationally.
The issue seems to be the electronics rather than the leds themselves. And while I do plan to buy leds in the future as well I think it's premature to assume the 20 year figure will hold. Time will tell.
How about a $25 Phillips LED bulb instead? (Score:3)
If I am spending my own money, I'd be tempted to just get this one:
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-led-lightbulb-philips-ambientled/ [thewirecutter.com]
I wonder what the differences are? Maybe the $25 one is assembled in China?
steveha
Awesome LEDs (Score:3)
From what I can tell big difference they are using phosphor codings to correct the normally crappy led spectrum.
Spectrum looks very clean but still a small spike around blue/purple.
http://www.usa.lighting.philips.com/pwc_li/us_en/connect/tools_literature/downloads/EnduraLED_A19-110726_2.pdf [philips.com]
Still think I'm going to skip leds and save up for quantum dots and carbon nano tube lighting.
Re:*SHOCK* (Score:5, Informative)
Re:*SHOCK* (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay. But the light bulb is heavily subsidized. I get rebates from my power company for a variety of things. I've gotten rebates on CF bulbs in the past. If rebates were part of the rules of the competition, then I don't really understand your objection.
Re:*SHOCK* (Score:5, Interesting)
An investment by the power companies (Score:5, Interesting)
Ultimately it comes right out of our power bills
Perhaps the power companies see it as an investment. Subsidizing the development (and eventual economies of scale) of technologies that use less power will allow a power company to put off expensive upgrades to generators and the grid for a few years.
Re: (Score:3)
It might be different where there is competition between electric companies.
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:*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: (Score:3)
You must do that type of in depth analysis to find the true costs of these things. Assuming no externalities, then price is the final arbiter of energy efficiency, because all money is eventually spent on energy of one type or another. This is why the poorest man today is richer than the greatest king of 1500 years ago--access to cheap energy.
Re: (Score:3)
My power company doesn't give a subsidy for buying these LED bulbs so, no, I really CAN'T get it for $22 and Philips scammed the taxpayer by making false claims to win the prize.
And other companies sell their bulbs for about half the $60 pricetag. Considering Philips got handed millions of free cash, they should be able to do the same.
Re:*SHOCK* (Score:4, Interesting)
If you tell me who your power company is, I will attempt to show you that you are wrong about the rebates available to you. Before you answer too quickly, consider that many rebates are available from places other than your one power company. My CFL rebates, for instance, were from some company in Seattle, but I live in Wisconsin. Why? I don't know. Nevertheless, I still bet your power company has some kinds of programs, because I've never heard of one that doesn't. But you can show me my first, by telling me what company supplies your electricity, and I will do the leg work of googling "[company name] + rebate".
Re:*SHOCK* (Score:5, Informative)
And therefore most likely an anti-Philips submission, intended to shame them into dropping the price. The actual article says Philips is already doing this.
Netherlands-based Philips, is discounting it right away to $50 for consumers, and working on deals with electric utilities to discount it even further, by as much as $20 to $30.
This means the bulb will cost anywhere from $20 to $60, depending on where it's found.
And of course more clarification
Congress launched the L Prize contest in 2007, with the goal of creating a bulb to replace the standard, energy-wasting "incandescent" 60-watt bulb. The requirements were rigorous, and Philips was the only entrant. Its bulb was declared the winner last year, after a year and a half of testing. The contest stipulated that the winning bulb be sold for $22 in its first year on the market... In that context, the $60 price tag has raised some eyebrows.
The title of the PhysOrg article? "Rebates to cut price of $60 LED bulb". That's a positive, and theodp should be ashamed for trolling.
Re: (Score:3)
EXCEPT other companies already sell their LED bulbs for about half the $60 pricetag. Considering Philips got handed millions of free taxpayer dollars, they should be able to do the same by diverting that cash to reducing the pricetag. (This is reminiscient of the telephone companies getting millions in 1996 telecommunication subsidies to run fiber to the home, and then they never did.)
Re: (Score:3)
I can sell you that bulb for $30 right now. It is still pricey but in 18months have been cut in half price wise. As production gears up expect them to fall until the 15-20 range. As it is they are awesome lamps. You can put them into existing fixtures and dimmers and not think twice
Re:Philips (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Philips (Score:5, Interesting)
I've taken apart a number of Philips' premium lighting products (both top-end CFLs and also electronic ballasts for fluorescent and high-intensity discharge lamps).
I was pretty surprised to see absolutely nothing but the best components. All the capacitors were either high quality metalized film, ceramic or premium ultra-long-life high-temperature Japanese Al electrolytic from a tier 1 manufacturer.
Similarly, the active components were heavily over-specified 100% avalanche rated rugged MOSFETs, with high quality protection (diode clamps and current limiting resistors) on the gate drives.
While cheap Chinese CFLs often use garbage grade components - I was pretty surprised at the quality of the commercial lighting products - but then I suppose that's why these units command such high prices.
Re:Philips (Score:5, Interesting)
For some reason, the 'lightbulb' form factor seems to bring out the worst in designers of driver boards: Your basic, boring, overhead fluorescent tubes can be found running until their electrodes eventually degrade on some 80's inverter that has probably seen at least a dozen tubes come and go. LEDs, similarly, seem to last forever in their miscellaneous applications; but the moment they get shoved into lightbulbs half off them are either not receiving power, or in a series chain with a blown one, long before you get to start worrying about serious dimming or phosphor breakdown.
Neither tubes nor LEDs are, themselves, immortal of course; but it's just frustrating to see how often it's the driver board that keels over and dies long before the (generally not user-swappable) light emitters themselves are ready to go...
Re:Philips (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't worry, the LEDs will still have tens of thousands of hours left in them when a $.02 capacitor blows its guts out and terminates the driver board because a $.05 capacitor would have bloated the BOM too much...
Friending you for that comment, cause that's probably what will happen.
Hmm... digging around some more, I find this breathless press release [philips.com] that says the competition dictates a minimum three year warranty. Funny how they advertise 20 years but promise only 3. Keep that in mind when deciding to purchase.
Living in southern climes (N hemisphere), I personally look forward to cheaper LED bulbs, though I think the whoop-de-doo is overestimated for people who live in northern climes or for rarely used lights. This is one place where the Republicans were right... I want a 75-cent bulb for my coat closet, not a $3 one and certainly not a $25 subsidized one.
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: (Score:3)
Precisely.
I've got products (computers) which were warrantied for 1 year which have lasted over 10. For electronics with no moving parts it is not unreasonable to expect 10 years of service, even in non-ideal conditions, assuming you do not have severely bad power.
Consider for a moment that cheap and partially blown power supplies can remain putting out power for years, and that the only way to kill a LED is to, basically, burn it out through overvoltage. How likely is that to happen? Hopefully not very, or
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.
Re:Philips (Score:4, Interesting)
I use $5 battery powered motion-activated stick-up LED lamps for closets (with $3 worth of eneloops in them.) Mainly because there's no wiring run to them in this old house. They never blow out, and I rent, so if I move, they get tossed in a crate, no need to carefully pack them. Those closets where there was a socket used to blow their bulbs once per year. I'm now 7 years in on the stick-up lamps, so it's some time yet before I'll make my money back on those compared to replacing bulbs, and I annually top up the batteries so there is little convenience benefit versus changing bulbs, but considering a motion sensor for 120VAC costs as much as the lamp+batteries, in some respects I already have made my money back. They aren't powerful lights, but why I would need 40+W of light to find my vacuum cleaner is beyond me, and being magnetically attached means I can grab them to use them as a flashlight if needed. FWIW LED lights unlike CFLs are probably more tolerant to very occasional use and applications where they are turned on/off a lot (e.g. via motion sensors) than even incandescents.
Re:Philips (Score:5, Funny)
Might want to stop with the assumption that large groups of people all think and operate in the exact same way.
Re: (Score:3)
I was actually annoyed that the expensive flourescent "bulbs" I got burned out in less than a year. Save on energy used but wasteful on energy used to manufacture and creating plenty of toxics. Easier to just turn the lights off when you're not in the room.
Re:The light bulb conspiracy. (Score:5, Informative)
An incandescent light bulb will have a lifespan proportional to the thickness of the filament and a power efficiency inversely proportional to the thickness of the filament. You can have a long-life incandescent bulb, but it will drain even more power from an already inefficient design. The 1000-hour bulb was a reasonably optimal point on the power vs. replacement cost curve.
Re: (Score:3)
Funny, I replaced all the wall lights in my family room (which tend to be left on by anyone and everyone) with LEDs.
Old bulbs: 6x 40 Watt, burn out on average one bulb per month.
New bulbs: Phillips 2.5w ambient bulbs ($15/each) 8 months in, none have burned out, and I've gone from:
240W/hr to 15W/hr.
Given that these bulbs are on no less than 10 hours a day:
2.4KW/h draw replaced with 150W/h or at $0.12/KW/h $8.64/month to $0.54/month ($48.60 in 6 months) in electricity just for that room. In 1 year all those
Re:Eh... (Score:5, Informative)
The cheap ones are complete garbage. The Philips are different. I've had several of the previous generation Philips 819933 12.5w 800 lumen "bulbs" running for almost a year, one 24x7 and others piling up a lot of hours. Not the slightest problem from any of them. The quality of the light is just as good as incandescent.
You may not have looked at the price dispassionately and analytically. One of these uses $37.50 in electricity over its 25,000 hr rated life, at 12.5 cents/kWh. You would have to buy twenty-five 60 watt incandescents (total cost $12.50-$25.00?) and run them one at a time to burnout to make the same amount of light for the same period, and these would use $180.00 in electricity.
So total cost is $40 (retail) + $37.50 = $87.50 for the LED, versus $12.50 + $180.00 = $192.50 for the incandescents. That's a saving of $105.00. Actually my electricity rates are closer to 18 cents per kWh, so I save a lot more than that. Not to mention saving yourself 24 bulb changes. Oh, and this previous generation Philips is available for under $20 locally where I live.
Re:This is a trojan attack on your wallets (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
They sell tools for changing light bulbs... they're like cherry-pickers.