6 ms·

LED, CFL and Incandescent bulbs side by side

38 points by AndrewDucker 15y ago

monochromatic 15y ago
This is a useless comparison. What matters is whether the spectrum is filled out or not. It's easy to make an LED light with the same subjective color temperature as an incandescent, but which is really only emitting three wavelengths of light. This bulb will be missing most of the spectrum and it'll make colored objects look wrong.
latch 15y ago
Am I the only one who prefers the cool white/blue of CFLs?
- Shenglong 15y ago
  I prefer white light over soft yellow light :) I read something a while ago about different cultures, and their preferences for different kinds of light. I believe North Americans tend to like the soft yellow, while many Asian cultures are more comfortable with crisp white. Although, I grew up here, so I'm not sure where my preference comes from.
  - danking00 15y ago
    American (USA) here, much prefer the white lights. White seems to be easier to read under than the yellow.
  - hartror 15y ago
    I prefer soft yellow in most of the house and crisp white in the bathrooms and office. In bathrooms it allows you to see everything clearly (a good thing?) and in the office I find it keeps me alert.
    - briggsbio 15y ago
      My thoughts exactly. It depends on the room; yellow in living/dining, and white in bathroom/office. I have a white CFL desklamp in my home office, and by a chair in the corner I have a yellow corner lamp (admittedly incandescent not LED). I prefer to do casual reading/relaxing under yellow light ("mood lighting"), and work/bathroom under white light. This may seem like a binary issue, but really it comes down to setting and personal preference for the light used therein. "Find out what you want, and then learn to ask the right questions." - Tony Shalhoub, psychiatrist in 'How Do You Know' (random but memorable quote from the Paul Rudd romcom I relented to watch with my wife recently)
- brokentone 15y ago
  As a photographer, I find incandescent easier to white-balance than CFL, although there are other photogs who swear by florescent.
- pragmatic 15y ago
  I prefer a light suited to the task. Fluorescent are great in work/task areas (garage, kitchen and bath). However, my wife hates CFLs. They are so dim. At least the first generation were. They were no were near as bright as their wattage claimed (as measured by our eyes anyway). That's why we have regular fluorescent in garage, kitchen, etc.
  - billybob 15y ago
    Dim? The first CFLs I bought were blindingly bright. The one in my bedroom now is too dim. I don't know if this is a consistency issue or if I just haven't paid attention to the ratings, but to say "they're too dim" overall is, I think, oversimplifying.
- ScottBurson 15y ago
  As I recall, the fluorescents I like best usually have color temperatures in the 4000K - 5500K range. Anything below 4000 is too yellow. The 6500K bulbs I don't like as much, though this may have more to do with their low CRI than the color temperature.
nazgulnarsil 15y ago
human skin looks better the more tinted toward orange/red you get. warm tones also make rooms feel cozy.
davidcann 15y ago
Isn't the issue really more about the quality of the light, which can't be captured in photos? CFLs give me headaches after a while, just like big florescent office-style lights.
- bendotc 15y ago
  In my personal experience, the difference between a crappy CFL and a good CFL is huge. Low-end CFLs are dim, flickery, have a large warm-up period and often worse color. High-end CFLs, on the other hand, can have really nice quality light, good color balance (though I used whiter "full-spectrum" incandescent bulbs, so YMMV), and very little in the way of noticeable warm-up time. You may still dislike CFLs and that's fine, but you may also have just been exposed to crappy ones.
  - DavidAdams 15y ago
    And it's important to mention that "high end" CFLs now cost about $1 each. You can get bulbs at Home Depot for $4 for a pack of four that turn on immediately, don't flicker, and are available in three color profiles including a warm one that looks very much like an incandescent.
    - Duff 15y ago
      Also important to mention that it is non-trivial to tell the difference between a good, bad or indifferent CFL. Frankly, I'm not interested in doing a product comparison or multiple return trips on a lightbulb.
    - Duff 15y ago
      Also important to mention that it is non-trivial to tell the difference between a good, bad or indifferent CFL. Frankly, I'm not interested in doing a product comparison or multiple return trips on a lightbulb.
    - lucisferre 15y ago
      Where LED is valuable for me is in the dimmable category. I have "dimmable" CFLs and they are terrible, they barely dim and if you lower the dimmer too far they either blink or go off entirely. CFLs are just not dimmable.
illamint 15y ago
$40, though, really?
- Shenglong 15y ago
  Worth it, stretched over like 7 years?
  - bcl 15y ago
    The LED's should last alot longer than that. The problem is going to be the switch-mode power supply. I'd hold off on these things until their price drops a bit, and until we have an idea how long the PS will last. Has anyone done a teardown on these yet? The CFL's I've bought from Costco are lasting less than a year for me, so I'm reluctant to start using them until they have the bugs worked out.
    - pacemkr 15y ago
      Here you go: http://www.edn.com/blog/PowerSource/40512-Remote_Phosphors_Philips_LED_bulb_Tear_down_Part_II.php http://www.edn.com/blog/PowerSource/40512-Remote_Phosphors_P... Doesn't look like a high quality circuit to me.
      - bcl 15y ago
        Maybe it is the photo quality, but that main board looks almost hand-soldered instead of reflowed. The blobs on the SMT parts aren't consistent, although that may be because they have a mixture of through-hole parts so close.
        Daniel_Newby 15y ago
        That board is wave soldered, not reflowed. The through-hole parts are inserted from the top, the SMT parts are glued down to the bottom, then the bottom of the board is dipped in a fountain ("wave") of molten solder. The solder blobs are normal for wave soldering followed by hand soldering of the wires. Production costs can be very low, you just have to select SMT parts that can take the heat and thermal shock.
grannyg00se 15y ago
Glad to see these are finally coming into mass retail. I think they may have missed an opportunity to make the colour output somewhat customizable. They could have included multiple plastic covers instead of only the yellow one.
- wlesieutre 15y ago
  That would probably add more expense than it's worth. The yellow part isn't just a plastic color filter, the lights use what's called a "remote phosphor", where it's internally using high powered blue LEDs, which is then absorbed and reemitted in a wider spectrum at the yellow layer. There are a number of reasons for doing this, but the biggest ones are that it gives it a large and more diffuse emitting area, preventing the multiple shadows from exposed LEDs, and (IIRC) that the phosphors tend to be more stable when not integrated into the LED.
lucisferre 15y ago
I could be wrong about this, but isn't it pointless to do side-by-side comparisons using a device that requires specific white balancing. A camera is not going to capture the same result your eyes will.
- ugh 15y ago
  You can capture the relative difference and if you keep the same white balance setting (or, more likely, apply the same setting to the raw photograph in post) it’s even possible to compare different photos. What those photos likely can’t tell you is what you would see if you were in the room. The brain does a lot of processing of its own.
  - lucisferre 15y ago
    I suppose it shows that the LED has similar color characteristics to incandescent.
    - ugh 15y ago
      Sure, the photo tells you that both would look very similar to your eye. It’s certainly not an worthless exercise to compare with photos, I think everyone knows what incandescent light bulbs look like.
ScottBurson 15y ago
I see these have a yellow filter on the outside. That means they're throwing away light to get the right color. I think that's nuts, considering how hard it is to get that much light out of LEDs to begin with. I hope they make a version without the filter.
- bradfa 15y ago
  My understanding is that it's not so much a filter as a retransmitter layer. The LEDs give off a rather small spectrum of light that's quite harsh and the yellow "filter" takes that energy in and fluoresces out of a wide variety of wavelengths of light that are much more pleasant. There's most certainly a loss of energy because of the conversion, but it's not filtering out wavelengths like normal light filters do.
  - nollidge 15y ago
    This is similar to what fluorescent lights do. If you've ever broken a fluorescent bulb, you'll notice a powdery coating on the inside of the glass, which is the phosphor coating that actually absorbs the violet/ultra-violet light of the excited mercury vapor and then re-emits it as visible light.
boneheadmed 15y ago
Looking forward to the Switch company's LED bulbs. http://switchlightbulbs.com/ http://switchlightbulbs.com/ This was mentioned on HN a few weeks ago.

38 points by AndrewDucker 15y ago

This is a useless comparison. What matters is whether the spectrum is filled out or not. It's easy to make an LED light with the same subjective color temperature as an incandescent, but which is really only emitting three wavelengths of light. This bulb will be missing most of the spectrum and it'll make colored objects look wrong.

latch 15y ago

Am I the only one who prefers the cool white/blue of CFLs?

Shenglong 15y ago
I prefer white light over soft yellow light :) I read something a while ago about different cultures, and their preferences for different kinds of light. I believe North Americans tend to like the soft yellow, while many Asian cultures are more comfortable with crisp white. Although, I grew up here, so I'm not sure where my preference comes from.
- danking00 15y ago
  American (USA) here, much prefer the white lights. White seems to be easier to read under than the yellow.
- hartror 15y ago
  I prefer soft yellow in most of the house and crisp white in the bathrooms and office. In bathrooms it allows you to see everything clearly (a good thing?) and in the office I find it keeps me alert.
  - briggsbio 15y ago
    My thoughts exactly. It depends on the room; yellow in living/dining, and white in bathroom/office. I have a white CFL desklamp in my home office, and by a chair in the corner I have a yellow corner lamp (admittedly incandescent not LED). I prefer to do casual reading/relaxing under yellow light ("mood lighting"), and work/bathroom under white light. This may seem like a binary issue, but really it comes down to setting and personal preference for the light used therein. "Find out what you want, and then learn to ask the right questions." - Tony Shalhoub, psychiatrist in 'How Do You Know' (random but memorable quote from the Paul Rudd romcom I relented to watch with my wife recently)
brokentone 15y ago
As a photographer, I find incandescent easier to white-balance than CFL, although there are other photogs who swear by florescent.
pragmatic 15y ago
I prefer a light suited to the task. Fluorescent are great in work/task areas (garage, kitchen and bath). However, my wife hates CFLs. They are so dim. At least the first generation were. They were no were near as bright as their wattage claimed (as measured by our eyes anyway). That's why we have regular fluorescent in garage, kitchen, etc.
- billybob 15y ago
  Dim? The first CFLs I bought were blindingly bright. The one in my bedroom now is too dim. I don't know if this is a consistency issue or if I just haven't paid attention to the ratings, but to say "they're too dim" overall is, I think, oversimplifying.
ScottBurson 15y ago
As I recall, the fluorescents I like best usually have color temperatures in the 4000K - 5500K range. Anything below 4000 is too yellow. The 6500K bulbs I don't like as much, though this may have more to do with their low CRI than the color temperature.

nazgulnarsil 15y ago

human skin looks better the more tinted toward orange/red you get. warm tones also make rooms feel cozy.

davidcann 15y ago

Isn't the issue really more about the quality of the light, which can't be captured in photos? CFLs give me headaches after a while, just like big florescent office-style lights.

bendotc 15y ago
In my personal experience, the difference between a crappy CFL and a good CFL is huge. Low-end CFLs are dim, flickery, have a large warm-up period and often worse color. High-end CFLs, on the other hand, can have really nice quality light, good color balance (though I used whiter "full-spectrum" incandescent bulbs, so YMMV), and very little in the way of noticeable warm-up time. You may still dislike CFLs and that's fine, but you may also have just been exposed to crappy ones.
- DavidAdams 15y ago
  And it's important to mention that "high end" CFLs now cost about $1 each. You can get bulbs at Home Depot for $4 for a pack of four that turn on immediately, don't flicker, and are available in three color profiles including a warm one that looks very much like an incandescent.
  - Duff 15y ago
    Also important to mention that it is non-trivial to tell the difference between a good, bad or indifferent CFL. Frankly, I'm not interested in doing a product comparison or multiple return trips on a lightbulb.
  - Duff 15y ago
    Also important to mention that it is non-trivial to tell the difference between a good, bad or indifferent CFL. Frankly, I'm not interested in doing a product comparison or multiple return trips on a lightbulb.
  - lucisferre 15y ago
    Where LED is valuable for me is in the dimmable category. I have "dimmable" CFLs and they are terrible, they barely dim and if you lower the dimmer too far they either blink or go off entirely. CFLs are just not dimmable.

illamint 15y ago

$40, though, really?

Shenglong 15y ago
Worth it, stretched over like 7 years?
- bcl 15y ago
  The LED's should last alot longer than that. The problem is going to be the switch-mode power supply. I'd hold off on these things until their price drops a bit, and until we have an idea how long the PS will last. Has anyone done a teardown on these yet? The CFL's I've bought from Costco are lasting less than a year for me, so I'm reluctant to start using them until they have the bugs worked out.
  - pacemkr 15y ago
    Here you go: http://www.edn.com/blog/PowerSource/40512-Remote_Phosphors_Philips_LED_bulb_Tear_down_Part_II.php http://www.edn.com/blog/PowerSource/40512-Remote_Phosphors_P... Doesn't look like a high quality circuit to me.
    - bcl 15y ago
      Maybe it is the photo quality, but that main board looks almost hand-soldered instead of reflowed. The blobs on the SMT parts aren't consistent, although that may be because they have a mixture of through-hole parts so close.
      - Daniel_Newby 15y ago
        That board is wave soldered, not reflowed. The through-hole parts are inserted from the top, the SMT parts are glued down to the bottom, then the bottom of the board is dipped in a fountain ("wave") of molten solder. The solder blobs are normal for wave soldering followed by hand soldering of the wires. Production costs can be very low, you just have to select SMT parts that can take the heat and thermal shock.

grannyg00se 15y ago

Glad to see these are finally coming into mass retail. I think they may have missed an opportunity to make the colour output somewhat customizable. They could have included multiple plastic covers instead of only the yellow one.

wlesieutre 15y ago
That would probably add more expense than it's worth. The yellow part isn't just a plastic color filter, the lights use what's called a "remote phosphor", where it's internally using high powered blue LEDs, which is then absorbed and reemitted in a wider spectrum at the yellow layer. There are a number of reasons for doing this, but the biggest ones are that it gives it a large and more diffuse emitting area, preventing the multiple shadows from exposed LEDs, and (IIRC) that the phosphors tend to be more stable when not integrated into the LED.

lucisferre 15y ago

I could be wrong about this, but isn't it pointless to do side-by-side comparisons using a device that requires specific white balancing. A camera is not going to capture the same result your eyes will.

ugh 15y ago
You can capture the relative difference and if you keep the same white balance setting (or, more likely, apply the same setting to the raw photograph in post) it’s even possible to compare different photos. What those photos likely can’t tell you is what you would see if you were in the room. The brain does a lot of processing of its own.
- lucisferre 15y ago
  I suppose it shows that the LED has similar color characteristics to incandescent.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Sure, the photo tells you that both would look very similar to your eye. It’s certainly not an worthless exercise to compare with photos, I think everyone knows what incandescent light bulbs look like.

ScottBurson 15y ago

I see these have a yellow filter on the outside. That means they're throwing away light to get the right color. I think that's nuts, considering how hard it is to get that much light out of LEDs to begin with. I hope they make a version without the filter.

bradfa 15y ago
My understanding is that it's not so much a filter as a retransmitter layer. The LEDs give off a rather small spectrum of light that's quite harsh and the yellow "filter" takes that energy in and fluoresces out of a wide variety of wavelengths of light that are much more pleasant. There's most certainly a loss of energy because of the conversion, but it's not filtering out wavelengths like normal light filters do.
- nollidge 15y ago
  This is similar to what fluorescent lights do. If you've ever broken a fluorescent bulb, you'll notice a powdery coating on the inside of the glass, which is the phosphor coating that actually absorbs the violet/ultra-violet light of the excited mercury vapor and then re-emits it as visible light.

boneheadmed 15y ago

Looking forward to the Switch company's LED bulbs. http://switchlightbulbs.com/ http://switchlightbulbs.com/ This was mentioned on HN a few weeks ago.