41 ms·

There's something off about LED bulbs

• IAmGraydon 4y ago
  I can go to Home Depot and still buy a box of 16 standard incandescent bulbs. I just got another box a few weeks ago. Is this unusual or something? I’ve seen no signs of a ban.
• QuarterReptile 4y ago
  Non-dimmable bulbs are the author's problem. First, bans on incandescent bulbs are foolish because they encourage defeatist foolishness like this article (as far as I can tell, for the sake of virtue signaling and modest acceleration of a change that was already happening.) The CFLs which preceded LEDs were really awful, especially for closets (where they'll linger for decades, given the low utilization of those bulbs,) but LEDs are fine, amd really nice if your 70 year old house gets retrofitted for AC and you need the reclaimed electrical capacity. This author just needs to pony up for dimmable LEDs, which aren't expensive except by comparison. Non-dimmable LEDs are right up there with running toilets and rodents in the pantheon of things to make homeowners lose their minds.
  • mhb 4y ago
    > Non-dimmable LEDs are right up there with running toilets and rodents in the pantheon of things to make homeowners lose their minds. Really? I've never understood the affection for dimming lights. Essentially always I want lights on or off.
    • orev 4y ago
      Many people complain about sleep problems. Light exposure is essential to regulating sleep cycles, and going from full brightness to full darkness at night can easily contribute to those problems. Dimmers allow finer control of exposure.
      • mhb 4y ago
        I am skeptical that any significant portion of the population outside HN is tailoring their room lighting, via dimming, to their activity schedule. It also is a tad hyperbolic to include non-dimmable bulbs in the pantheon of things to make homeowners lose their minds.
        • rootusrootus 4y ago
          I agree that it's probably still niche, but judging by the expanding section of smart lighting at my local Home Depot, my guess is it has gone beyond techies at this point. Home Depot definitely doesn't cater to tech folks.
        • orev 4y ago
          A very large portion of lamps purchased at home goods stores have dimmer switches (a knob that you turn instead of flipping a switch), and dimmers have been widely available at home improvement stores for decades. This idea is not some niche thing limited only to smart home tech people. It doesn’t have to be automated—one can just get up and set the brightness to their liking. I think the big surprise for most people would be that many LED bulbs are not dimmable, as that hasn’t been something they had to worry about with older bulbs (it was also an issue with CFLs, but people avoided them because of the harsh color)
    • giraffe_lady 4y ago
      For me it's like if the sound on your computer was either on or off. I adjust the light to the specific task, time of day, my mood & energy level, and what the natural light is doing to the room which also varies by season, time and weather. I'm really miserable in a too-bright room. I have some sensory processing issues which contributes a lot to this admittedly, but when I talk about it with people who don't they often understand it immediately or admit to experiencing the same thing, though to a smaller extent.
    • thfuran 4y ago
      And you never want even more lighting than you currently have? Not even so much as a lamp to adjust lighting in a room?
      • mhb 4y ago
        Occasionally. And I would use a non-dimmable lamp for that.
    • toast0 4y ago
      I have a lot of dimmers in my house because they were there. It's nice to turn the hall lights down at night when I'm the last one awake (but not if they get too flickery; older dimmers built for incandescent don't always work with dimmable leds), and very nice when watching or starting a movie, etc. But, dimmable bulbs are also an indicator of quality. Someone cared enough to make sure it worked in that situation, so there's evidence that someone was caring during the design.
      • mhb 4y ago
        > But, dimmable bulbs are also an indicator of quality. Someone cared enough to make sure it worked in that situation, so there's evidence that someone was caring during the design. Maybe. It could also be to avoid the situation in which the average consumer just picks up the cheapest bulb and, when he gets it home and it is flaky when used with the dimmer, returns it to the store. Or maybe it's a low quality way of ticking a feature that a customer has been told to look for regardless of whether it is relevant to his situation.
    • rootusrootus 4y ago
      > I've never understood the affection for dimming lights. Essentially always I want lights on or off. It's about choice. I have several dozen LED can lights in my house producing 1600 lumens each. Sometimes I want every bit of that power, but I also like being able to turn them down a bit in the evening when I don't need it.
    • vel0city 4y ago
      One example is my living room. Sometimes I'm hosting people over, and I just want the whole room to be really bright as we're all gathering around, talking, maybe playing games, etc. I want that room practically as bright as I can get it during those times. But other times I'm just wanting to cozy up to the fireplace with a book and some light music and a dram of whiskey late in the evening. I don't need the room to be super bright, so I might just have the lights over the fireplace on set very dimly. Same goes with the kitchen. When I'm actively cooking a meal, I want it very bright. But I don't always need it that bright, sometimes I just want it a bit more ambient in its lighting. Or the dining room. Sometimes I use that space for projects as it has the large table, and I'll want it as bright as possible. But other times, I could probably stand to have it at about 75% of its brightness as we're just sitting around together having a meal, and with my home layout its a bit of a central space so its nice having it at like 20% brightness to act as a bit of a night light as people go through the house.
    • hedora 4y ago
      Since the electricity they use is basically free, and there is (almost) no practical constraint on heat emissions, LEDs are generally too bright. You could hire a lighting consultant, then buy expensive bespoke bulbs so that having them at 100% is the right choice, or you could spend an extra ~ $50 per room for a dimmer.
    • QuarterReptile 4y ago
      Sorry, I wasn't clear at all. The non-dimmable ones seem prone to flickering with changing voltage, and all grids have varying voltage. And then, at least if you're like me, you start thinking of all the broken things that might manifest in flickering lights.
  • eimrine 4y ago
    Non-dimmableness is only one of the problems. For me the biggest problem is that all LEDs are blue, despite of any light-filters. I can not use it in bedroom when I use to read books before sleep and in bathroom when my aestetical needs of seing bare body have been not met. I have even changed my place of living since Sodium lamps have been replaced with LEDs on my old street. And if I need a really bright light or really high CRI then I'm going to use MHL. My point is that LED is not really a good source of light except of if I need energy-efficient source and/or with high tolerance to often on/off.
    • Waterluvian 4y ago
      My home is full of bright, warm yellow/orange LEDs. I also have a lot of "sunlight" LEDs which I'll describe as "white" and I LOVE them for big rooms and making daytime feel like daytime. Great for my office. I recall blue being a big problem when LEDs for homes were new, but when I bought a house 3 years ago and revisited it, I was delighted to find so many very solid options. Dimmable, non-flicker, warm LED bulbs. The Canadian government also chipped in with my tax dollars so they were about 50 cents each. My one complaint is that even the fancier, pricier ones seem to burn out too. In 3 years I've had to replace 4 ceiling bulbs of about 50 (the builder went nutty with recessed ceiling lights). I think they're just driven really harshly by the A/C.
      • eimrine 4y ago
        “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources” This is what drives your "warm" lamps. No deep red at all, man.
        • Waterluvian 4y ago
          I guess my lying eyes deceive me. By filtering out other wavelengths I’m left with all this warm light rather than nothing.
    • rini17 4y ago
      For reading in the bedroom I use RGB strip behind furniture, preset to yellow. Diffuse light, no blue at all. Of course poor color rendering but I don't mind for this use case.
  • kodt 4y ago
    That and you need LED compatible dimmer switches. Old dimmers do not play well with dimmable LEDs.
  • antiterra 4y ago
    It’s not ass simple as dimmable or not dimmable. Not all dimmable leds work with all dimmers, some do and make a horrible hum but are still highly recommended in reviews by people who don’t have those issues. The situation is a nightmare for someone just wanting to go to a local store and buy a bunch of bulbs for the room where they eat. Further, if you dare to mix bulbs you’ll often get different color/brightness behavior at different levels of dimming.
  • jt2190 4y ago
    Yes. This immediately stood out: > We were renovating our apartment, and one day our contractor summoned me to the bathroom in dismay. He adjusted the dimmer switch he’d just installed, and a new LED fixture began strobing like we were in a seven-by-eight-foot basement dance club. I’m not sure what skill-level of contractor he was using, but it’s pretty obvious that nobody checked that the light fixture was dimmable with that particular switch.
• jgalt212 4y ago
  LED bulbs make me made because I can't yell at my kids to turn off the lights like my dad used to do to me.
  • wombatpm 4y ago
    Sure you can. My wife yells at me all the time. I says they are LED stop complaining. She says they are still wasting energy, doesn’t matter the amount.
    • ghaff 4y ago
      I still reflexively tend to turn off lights. Even though I intellectually know that, besides some halogen track lights I still have, my LED bulbs don't really move the power needle for my house.
    • balfirevic 4y ago
      Sure you can, but only if you're willing to be unreasonable.
  • shusaku 4y ago
    LED Christmas lights are great because I can leave them on guilt free
  • timetraveller26 4y ago
    I on the other hand hate when people yell at you to turn off the light!
• roflyear 4y ago
  Incandescent bulbs are used for other things than light. Like heating sometimes. Specific applications but I wonder if you'll still be able to get them?
  • goalieca 4y ago
    I live somewhere that snow on traffic lights can be a problem. Same with headlights and tail lights.
  • blakesterz 4y ago
    Someone is, or at least was, doing just this. Selling them as "heaters": https://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/09/27/1351242/selling-incandescent-light-bulbs-as-heating-devices https://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/09/27/1351242/selling-inc...
  • gtk40 4y ago
    We have a pet tortoise that we use incandescent flood bulbs to heat and provide light. The only consistent place we can find them is at a small mom and pop hardware store (similar to the reference in the article). I just checked our supply and they have a weird import sticker and have text in multiple languages.
    • roflyear 4y ago
      Haha, well makes sense I guess!
  • dghughes 4y ago
    Easybake toy ovens used incandescent bulbs to bake brownies.
  • dboreham 4y ago
    You can still buy the "IR" red light bulbs. Search under chicken heating. Also there are "non-bulb" things now that fit into a light bulb socket but are just resistive heaters. Also search under chicken coop supplies.
  • alden5 4y ago
• eig 4y ago
  The irony of this article is that the author is suffering from “too much choice”. LEDs have so much more capability than fluorescent and halogen bulbs that the burden has fallen on the consumer to sort out what dimmability, temperature, and lumens they need. It used to be that you only had one option so you didn’t have to think about it. Anyone who works in stage lighting or art knows that light is complicated. We should not fault the technology for now giving us too many options, but instead improve the branding and advertising.
  • iamerroragent 4y ago
    Yup. It's unfortunate many of us are not used to terms like lumens that are objectively better than using terms like wattage. However I do feel over the past few years they have become much better at displaying the important terms on the front of the package.
  • alistairSH 4y ago
    It used to be that you only had one option so you didn’t have to think about it. But, that single option was at least "good enough". I never bought a normal incandescent bulb only to have the color rendering/brightness/etc be downright awful. LEDs come packaged as "daylight" or "bright white" or whatever else. I want one that's labelled "just like your normal 60W incandescent".
    • 542458 4y ago
      I've found the color/brightness of the GE Relax HD (Yeah, they go one step further and label the color temperature as "Relax HD") to be pretty good. Lifespan has been hit and miss in semi-enclosed fixtures though.
      • gorkish 4y ago
        Power supplies in all GE bulbs are total horseshit. Their new bulbs with the selectable color temperature gutted the product of its remaining redeeming features. The cost of the extra LEDs in the bulb is coming out of the quality of the remaining components.
• jmclnx 4y ago
  I have heard that newer LED Bulbs now have some kind of built in obsolescence. This is from someone I know who is an engineer working for the US military. I told him I had bought some LEDs (started moving over 2 years ago) and that is when he mentioned that. I guess I will find out, so far so good. I did stock up on 100 watt incandescent years ago and have a many left just in case. I found LEDs cause me eye strain, but I experimented and found if I use a Lamp Shade with a slight yellow tinge, I can deal with them.
  • blakesterz 4y ago
    I'm finding this true with the bulbs I've bought in the past 5 or so years. The first one I bought about 15 years ago is still going, but most, if not all more recent LEDs have died. Even the ones in the basement that are mounted with no case to increase the heat around them. I read the "guarantee" when I buy new bulbs but who keeps receipts or track of light bulbs?
    • dpkirchner 4y ago
      I'm starting to suspect that it's not the LEDs themselves that are failing but the transformer packed inside the base. I haven't really dug in though. Are there any good brands of LED bulbs these days -- bulbs that are likely to work as long as is claimed on the box? I've already scratched GE and FEIT off the list.
      • projektfu 4y ago
        I've read that it is the controller circuit which is cheaply made. The LED would continue to work fine if the current source hadn't failed. I had a lot of trouble with GU10 LED lamps, finding ones that last as long as a halogen.
      • JKCalhoun 4y ago
        Not exactly "the transformer", but yeah. See the afore-mentioned videos by Big Clive on YouTube to find out how to hack your bulbs to make them last indefinitely (albeit at a reduced light output).
• detourdog 4y ago
  Has anyone noticed that warmer light LEDs causing blurrier text. I did a test and found that my cool light LEDs made small text stable and readable while the same text under warm light was blurry.
  • packetlost 4y ago
    It's probably just lowers the effective perceptual contrast between a page and the printed text. It's pretty understood that cooler light is better for visibility.
  • davidmurdoch 4y ago
    Could be lots of things. The CRI (a measure of how well it reproduce colors across the visible spectrum) of the bulb is a likely candidate.
• apienx 4y ago
  It went like this in the EU: "Bulk purchasing of incandescent bulbs was reported ahead of the EU lightbulb ban. Many retailers in Britain, Poland, Austria, Germany and Hungary have reported bulk purchasing,[126][127][132][133][134] and in Germany, sales rose by up to 150% in 2009 in comparison to 2008.[125] Two-thirds of Austrians surveyed stated they believe the phase-out to be "nonsensical", with 53.6% believing their health to be at risk of mercury poisoning.[135] 72% of Americans believe the government has no right to dictate which light bulb they may use.[136] Czech Republic President Václav Klaus urged people to stockpile enough incandescent bulbs to last their lifetime.[137]" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_li... From my understanding, the ban will start somewhere around Q4 this year. Still, you'll always be able to buy them for "decoration purposes".
  • account42 4y ago
    > From my understanding, the ban will start somewhere around Q4 this year. Still, you'll always be able to buy them for "decoration purposes". They are very efficient heat bulbs after all.
  • dividedbyzero 4y ago
    Back then LEDs were still quite a bit worse, so I got some spare incandescents too. I still have about 20 bulbs somewhere that I got for cheap as retailers were emptying their inventories. I have switched almost all lights to Ikea Tradfri bulbs that are controlled via Zigbee2MQTT and Home Assistant and I wouldn't go back. I still have an incandescent bulb in one lamp, but the Ikea ones set to the right temperature are so close I don't think I could tell them apart.
  • ryanjshaw 4y ago
    Seems like a great time to start designing space heaters that accept 10-20 E27 incandescent 'heating elements'. (Well, until this is banned too.)
• ipython 4y ago
  I am sensitive to low refresh rates - back in the crt days I would visibly notice low refresh monitors and it would give me headaches. Some (low cost?) led bulbs give me the same effect- I can see the rapid flicker. Some hotel rooms are notorious for this. I have led bulbs everywhere (new build, recessed lights). Thankfully they don’t have the flicker effect I’ve seen on other bulbs. And I’ve found that I actually prefer the more “daylight” bulbs in certain areas such as kitchens. The cans do have adjustable color temperature (a physical switch) so it’s not too bad if I decide I’d like a warmer light down the road.
  • sdflhasjd 4y ago
    I have had the flicker effect with some of the particularly cheap LED work lamps
  • alamortsubite 4y ago
    Those early Cadillac taillights put me on the verge of puking. Lights on newer cars are better, but still a distraction.
    • yabones 4y ago
      A lot of cheap LED retrofits on older halogen headlights do this. The only thing worse than being tailgated by a F-150 with ultra-blaster highbeams is an old junker with cheap flickering LEDs. I've even noticed a lot of DRLs flickering lately as well. We need stricter laws on headlight brightness and intensity in North America, and we need them yesterday.
• pcmaffey 4y ago
  Some of my LEDs continue to glow faintly when off. I assume the efficiency of the bulbs is converting a small trickle of power into light. Has anyone experienced this? Anything to be done?
  • tilsammans 4y ago
    Yes! This is fairly common. It usually happens when the power leads pick up a small amount of electricity via induction. You can place a compensator near the fixture to take care of it. (Basically a high voltage capacitor)
    • pimlottc 4y ago
      Can you go into more detail about this compensator? Is this a consumer product you can buy to fix a misbehaving light or a component that the manufacturer needs to include in the bulb?
  • ilikejam 4y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uEmX5XClPY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uEmX5XClPY
  • projektfu 4y ago
    For how long? LEDs produce broad-spectrum light using phosphorescence activated by discrete-spectrum light. Those phosphors will glow for a few seconds after you turn them off, or if you're really sensitive you may see a glow-in-the-dark phenomenon. When you unplug a lamp or turn off a true switch, there should be no residual current. If you are using the bulb itself to adjust the power level, like with some smart bulbs that you are supposed to leave switched on, it's possible that they never turn off the power completely for some reason. LEDs are dimmed using PWM so they may have an off setting that is like 1% of duty cycle or something, who knows.
  • Crosseye_Jack 4y ago
    Long story short: Its the wiring. Could be a number of reasons but the most common is either its wired to a dimmer or similar which is leaking some current when its "switched off" or its switched on the netural side and the wiring is acting as a capacitor and letting some current flow. EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bgUy6zA0ts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bgUy6zA0ts
• dannyz 4y ago
  I have found that there can be huge quality differences between cheap and more expensive LED bulbs as well. Specifically the ones that use a cheap rectifier. Sometimes I think that I can see them flickering out of the corner of my eye.
  • ipython 4y ago
    You can - I see the same thing
  • noneeeed 4y ago
    This is a big part of it. I tend to pay a reasonable amount for my LEDs and I've yet to be disappointed. I very rarely replace bulbs despite having dozens of fixtures, and the quality of the light is good because I made a point of buying the right colour temp and getting dimmable ones where it makes sense. Unfortunately the market is swamped with cheap low quality ones that produce pretty crap quality light and burn out quickly. I learnt pretty quickly that it was a false economy to skimp on them.
• hprotagonist 4y ago
  A smoke-test i had not really thought of: shoot a quick video in slow motion on your phone and watch the result to see if there’s a light flicker .
  • throwthrowuknow 4y ago
    That works really well! Tried it on a cheap LED that I notice the flicker on some times and it really showed up. Also tried an expensive one that I don’t notice any flicker from and there was a very fast flicker on slow mo. Tried daylight as a control and there’s no flicker.
• formerly_proven 4y ago
  There's a lot wrong with LEDs in general and retrofit (E27 bulbs) in particular. In no particular order - LED emitters driven hard for cost reasons, age and fail quickly - Power supplies driven hard for cost reasons, age and fail quickly - Poor CRI and SSRI - Flickering - Dim-to-warm is uncommon - Poorly designed power supplies that age and fail quickly - The same light quality is vastly more expensive to achieve with LEDs, even if you account for high electricity prices. Good indoor lighting is now something only people with plenty of disposable income can afford. - It is quite difficult to even buy high quality LEDs as a mere mortal - Retrofits generally work poorly on principle - LEDs mix exceptionally poorly, making things even more expensive
  • timw4mail 4y ago
    Not to mention space constraints for power supplies, and cooling the LEDs enough. For all the benefits of LED lights, incandescent bulbs are infinitely simpler.
    • galleywest200 4y ago
      > cooling the LEDs enough Maybe I am missing something from this conversation, but all of my LED bulbs produce far _less_ heat than incandescent bulbs. The lamp in my bedroom no longer keeps me warm!
      • rini17 4y ago
        But LEDs are very sensitive to heat, so even the small amount of heat will cause gradual dimming.
      • weberer 4y ago
        Yes, but incandescent bulbs don't need to be cooled at all because they're just tungsten and glass. High powered LEDs require a heat sink to not damage the diode.
      • 1980phipsi 4y ago
        You will find that you will need to search a bit harder to find an LED light that is rated to work with enclosed fixtures. Enclosed fixtures don't allow the same amount of cooling as a normal lamp.
• timw4mail 4y ago
  There is a problem with LED lamps: they need their own power supply to convert AC to DC. This is where a lot of the issues happen. Low quality filtering caps, or just circuit designs with a lot of ripple lead to pulsing. When the filtering cap fails, the bulb often does as well.
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    For this reason I think that LED filament bulbs are the best choice now. The cheap ones can have flicker issues, though. But otherwise they're a nice step up from the last generation of LED bulbs.
• drcongo 4y ago
  I don't recognise any of the issues mentioned in this article at all and there must be a hundred odd LED bulbs in my house. I'm wondering if this is a US-specific thing, I'm in the UK.
  • gniv 4y ago
    > I'm wondering if this is a US-specific thing, I'm in the UK. I think so. I am in France now and all I can easily buy are expensive and good quality bulbs. In US the quality was all over the place and price was not always a good proxy.
    • drcongo 4y ago
      Thanks for the added datapoint.
• nuc1e0n 4y ago
  I've never even seen a LED bulb that wasn't 2700K. Also, do some bulb packs not list the incandescent equivalent wattage in addition to the Lumens?
• antisthenes 4y ago
  I have begun to use grow lights everywhere as regular lights. They emit a pleasant looking spectrum, have good heat sinks for longevity, have high-quality ballasts, built-in dimmers and do not flicker. They also blow out any alternative out of the water when it comes to pure brightness for precision work (soldering, painting minis, etc.) They are also fairly cheap (can find some lights as low as 50c/watt on sale) Oh and lastly - I can always just move them and use them to grow any kind of plants (wink wink, nudge)
  • dashundchen 4y ago
    Don't many grow lamps emit UV? I would be slightly concerned about potential eye and skin damage over time.
    • antisthenes 4y ago
      So does the Sun. Also, you never look at the light directly.
      • AlanYx 4y ago
        The sun's spectrum is relatively smooth, whereas there are some grow lights that have a narrow, intense spike of UV designed to match chlorophyll B's absorption. Not all grow lights have this spectrum, but it's worth being careful. It's one of the reasons why some grow lights come with a warning about using eye protection.
        • antisthenes 4y ago
          That's a good point, although I'm pretty sure the Sun still trumps any kind of LED grow light output, especially during summer months. That being said, maybe it's a good idea to use a plexiglass UV filter when using it as a workshop light.
          • dashundchen 4y ago
            My understanding is outside, your pupils will dilate as the light increases, protecting your retina from increased UV. If you had a strong emitter of UV in a relatively dim room, your pupils wouldn't shrink and would allow more damaging UV to hit your retinas.
• gaudat 4y ago
  Is it just me or is there something off about this article? It reads quite incoherent. I happen to work with a lot of LED light sources nowadays and I can see most problems discussed are related to the light fixture, driver or psychology. More often than not it is the capacitors in these mains powered LEDs that fail first, because the circuit is designed to run at the highest temperature possible to lower the cost of the final product. The bulbs, or LED chips, looks quite innocent in this regard.
  • throwthrowuknow 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • last_responder 4y ago
      Green account . A mod? Admin? Either way reported.
      • malfist 4y ago
        Green accounts mean it's new, if you couldn't tell by their trollish post.
  • melff 4y ago
    Well, I'd guess for most people it doesn't matter whether the LED-chips themselves, capacitors, or some other part of the circuitry fails. If cost-cut cheap LED bulbs with components driven to the max are the norm, consumers will obviously associate LED bulbs with the kind of problems that causes and not with what LED tech could be if it'd be given more budget to breathe.
  • everybodyknows 4y ago
    > run at the highest temperature possible So consumers in hot climates who abstain from A/C cooling will suffer such failures disproportionately.
• davidmurdoch 4y ago
  My pool pump and AC will cost me about $700 US this month. Switching from incandescent to LED bulbs might have saved me a few dollars. And for what? For expensive bulbs that flicker, don't reproduce colors well, last less than a year, and undulate and buzz when dimmed (yes, the dimmable ones)? I think we've been bamboozled by the light bulb industry.
  • pdabbadabba 4y ago
    Wow, what kind of awful bulbs are you buying? I have literally a house full of LED bulbs, some of which are on dimmers, and have experienced literally none of these problems. Just for starters, I haven't had a single LED bulb fail in the 8-odd years I've been using them in my home. But maybe there's an argument that you have to pay a significant premium to get a bulb that doesn't have the issues you've run into and, once you factor that premium into account, LED bulbs aren't worth it. But some of the broad claims here, and in the article, about the allegedly poor performance of LED bulbs just don't cohere at all with my experience with them. I made a point of buying high quality bulbs that are dimmable, don't flicker, and have the color temperature and CRI that I want and...well...that's exactly what I got.
    • noneeeed 4y ago
      I'm reading these comments and thinking the same. While I have had a handful fail quicker than I think they should, on the whole ours are great. A bunch of them are dimmable, most are warm-white for a cosier light. We can turn on every light in the house and it will use less than 200w. With incandescents and halogens (for gu10s) I'd be looking at more than that just to light the bathroom. The whole house would use about 1.5kw. Given that the lights are on a lot outside of summer (I'm in the UK) that's a pretty big saving.
    • axus 4y ago
      I've had plenty fail, stuff from the grocery store, Home Depot, Lowes. Actually the fan-size bulbs I ordered from Amazon were the worst ones, which I expected since it was almost the cheapest. Interestingly, the generic ones I got from a state-sponsored efficiency program have been the best. But the ones that didn't fail have been fine, and lasted for years. Like CPUs, the yields aren't good but the ones that pass give good service for a long time.
• throwthrowuknow 4y ago
  As we continue to shift our primary motivation for creating products away from what is best for the consumer towards what is best for an artificially determined goal we will increasingly see the compounding secondary effects of those choices.
  • elil17 4y ago
    The "artificially determined goal" here is not roasting ourselves alive in 50 years, which I for one think is a better goal than "satisfying consumer preferences."
    • fifticon 4y ago
      let's also not forget maximizing shareholder value, if only for a brief beautiful moment.
  • jwestbury 4y ago
    I believe that "not creating an uninhabitable environment" is probably best for the consumer, yes? Surely, if you are posting on hn, you are aware that people do not always make the best decisions for themselves in the long term, and that putting guard rails in place is a good mechanism to prevent us from accruing (technical|environmental) debt?
    • throwthrowuknow 4y ago
      [flagged]
• daneel_w 4y ago
  I've been surprised several times the past decade by how many people just don't notice the poor quality of light with low CRI, that the light is "hollow" and missing a chunk in the red/yellow part of the spectrum. Thankfully LED bulbs are getting better, and a lot of affordable offerings these days hover around 90 CRI. Same goes for the problem with indirect flickering, which the past few years have mostly gone away thanks to producers finally spending two cents more per bulb to fit them with adequate capacitors.
• V__ 4y ago
  Technology Connection had a video about how hard it is to find LEDs which have a more classically warm appearance these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbvVnOxb1AI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbvVnOxb1AI
• dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  Remember back when texting and calling cost decent money? People used to differentiate cell plans based on the amount you got. Now it's a free unlimited or practically unlimited inclusion in just about every mobile phone plan and people care about other things. The same thing happened to lighting. Back in "the day" nobody cared about light color or light temperature. You bought whatever was cost effective for the amount of light you needed. Nobody cared that sodium bulb lighting was orange and that arc lamps were bright white. They were the economically viable options for their use cases. Heck, nobody "liked" the florescent lights, especially the early ones but they did the right job at the right price so they got bought in droves. Now that we have LEDs for everything and the affording the amount of light being scattered is not the primary hurdle anymore so consumers suddenly care about using other performance metrics to differentiate products.
• foobarian 4y ago
  I had an epiphany this year that I don't need to conform to the lightbulb socket interface any longer, now that things like straight-wired LED modules [1] are available. They waste a lot less space on unnecessary hardware, and can therefore fill more space with useful light producing material. I've been slowly converting my big round ceiling fixtures and the light and dimming performance is nothing short of miraculous. [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09H3VFG8B/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09H3VFG8B/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
  • Someone1234 4y ago
    So now changing the "lightbulb" becomes an infinitely harder task, and in some areas requires you to pull a permit and or hire an electrician (e.g. do you think a retiree is going to change this themselves?). This seems nice predicated that LEDs last 10-years or longer, which per the article and elsewhere isn't the case. This movement away from standard bulb-sockets to direct wiring is short-term-ism at its finest. Least of all because very time you rewire this, you're going to degrade or shorten the wires.
    • foobarian 4y ago
      The direct wiring is of course not as easy as changing a lightbulb. However I find the trade worth the improved light quality and we can agree to disagree about the short-termism of it.
    • Zak 4y ago
      I remember watching a documentary long ago about the history of computing. In it, someone expressed skepticism of transistor-based integrated circuits because unlike vacuum tubes, the transistors in an IC couldn't be replaced when they failed. I've replaced a couple ceiling sockets with panel-type LED fixtures and they're going strong years later. Perhaps they'll fail eventually, but their lifespan has far exceeded anything I've screwed into a socket, so the increased replacement effort/cost has already paid for itself.
• scythe 4y ago
  I'm still waiting for the FCC or ITU to define a band for electrodeless plasma lamps. For the uninitiated, these are microwave-driven light sources that are about half as efficient as the best LEDs, but still way more efficient than incandescent. The light output spectrum is continuous and single-peaked, and in the case of sulfur lamps, so close to solar that they are routinely used as a "synthetic sunlight" for testing solar panels. The MW band used in existing appliances is generally the 2.45 GHz Bluetooth and microwave oven band, because it's unregulated, but the high output power and the need for a transparent housing means that they can interfere with other consumer electronics. There is virtually no risk of two bulbs interfering with each other, so even a relatively narrow dedicated band should work fine. As I understand it, the light output is continuous — no flicker — and anyway the beam power of a circularly polarized microwave should be continuous. Usually, microwaves are created using magnetrons — vacuum tubes — which have a high minimum power output (think floodlight). Microwave diodes do exist, although they haven't yet been applied to electrodeless lamps, because consumers won't be interested in using a light bulb that kills Bluetooth. But it is physically possible for us to enjoy an efficient light source that looks nice. There are just a few kinks to work out.
• noneeeed 4y ago
  I've noticed that my LEDs seem to have a bimodal lifespan. In parts of the house where we have many of the same kind, we went through a period early on where a few lasted much less time than I expected and had to be replaced, but now I've not had to replace any for several years. There seems to be an element of luck with the cheaper ones. The ones in a batch that work well just keep going, while a small number fail relatively quickly. Once you've gone through a few replacements you are left with just good ones that just keep going.
  • elil17 4y ago
    In failure engineering this is called the "bathtub curve." Those early failures are called "infant mortality" and are typically due to errors in the factory. In 20-30 years you'll get wear out failures, as the components hit the end of thier designed lifespans. Generally in manufacturing any new product/process has a pretty high infant mortality rate which then gets worked out over years of improvements to design and manufacturing process. You can either do factory testing (probably what high quality LED brands are doing) or just ship the product and let the customer handle it.
• boesboes 4y ago
  I haven't seen a 'normal' bulb in over 10 years. I only have LED lights and they are great. They used to be a bit shit yes, but over the past 5 years they have surpassed my expectations. I can't even find any that don't have a nice color profile and are spec'ed to some temperature etc. imo, modern led lights are much, much, much better then the incandessent bulbs & these power-saving lamps we used to have. Both in durabillity & color etc
• dboreham 4y ago
  Hmm. I'm pretty picky about CRI but for me the last few years' LED lights are really great. Much better than any fluorescent source. Much brighter than any incandescent. Very reliable. Dimmable too.
• roamerz 4y ago
  I really like LED bulbs and use them everywhere I can. Unfortunately they suffer the same as anything that is forced by congress rather than evolving at the natural pace and replacing standard lighting sources when the technology is mature enough. Take for instance cell phones. They replaced landlines and were adopted by users because the technology was ready and they were better than the product they replaced. Imagine if congress had outlawed landlines. Same can be said for EV’s. IC vehicles are better in almost every aspect yet congress is doing everything it can to force their obsolescence before their time. The problem with that is that every time they do something like that they chip away at their credibility and when some real emergency comes along we the people aren’t so easily fooled.
  • duxup 4y ago
    I think things like price pressure/ consumers just buying the cheapest bulb possible happens regardless.
• nazgulsenpai 4y ago
  This is weird. I buy the most basic Dollar Tree LED bulbs for every outlet in my home and I haven't had any of the problems in the article (for about 4 years so far). Occasionally one will blow then I just toss in another dollar bulb (maybe 4-5 so far). The light color and "quality" is perfect too. Granted, I don't have any fancy dimmer switches or anything but hey, maybe try the basic Dollar Tree bulbs :)
  • willchis 4y ago
    I was about to post the exact same thing. They even had a couple of warmth options and the 2700K ones seem to work just fine in lamps that I use every day around the house.
• cramjabsyn 4y ago
  Cheap LED bulbs generate the worst light I’ve ever experienced. But after some research I found that there are options that make a nice warm light with no perceptible flickering. Personally I prefer the phillips warm glow dimmable bulbs
  • btbuilder 4y ago
    Have you had any lifetime issues with these? I bought a dozen and a significant number started emitting warm color while at full brightness instead of just dimmed.
    • anotheryou 4y ago
      Mine lasted 3 years. (100w equivalent, 3 dim stages built in ("sceneswitch")). Now I had some flickers in recent weeks but they went away again, not sure what had caused it.
    • cramjabsyn 4y ago
      No lifetime issues so far. I’ve been using their GU10 halogen substitutes for I want to say about 5 years
  • npteljes 4y ago
    Right up there with the horrible neon light my schools had.
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    Yeah this is one of those things where quality really makes the difference. If you buy cheap LED bulbs, you'll hate LED bulbs. Buy goods ones, and you love them. The dichotomy is really stark in the overall HN discussion.
• PaulHoule 4y ago
  My benchmark for light quality is "can I tell the difference between the two sides of https://www.redrivercatalog.com/browse/60lb-polar-matte.html https://www.redrivercatalog.com/browse/60lb-polar-matte.html ?" and I'd say that LED bulbs do OK when I set them on the high color temperature (blueish) settings and poorly on the warm color temperature side. This company https://www.solux.net/cgi-bin/tlistore/index.html https://www.solux.net/cgi-bin/tlistore/index.html became famous for high color temperature lights for art museums also used to make an advanced incandescent bulb that had something like a halogen bulb inside of it. Those bulbs do really well on my test, I still have a stock of them, and I use them when I need to make fine color distinctions. I've seen bulbs with a similar construction for sale at Dollar General but I haven't tested them. Note there is a tradeoff between an RGB bulb that gives really saturated colors and one that gives good color rendition. If saturation was what mattered you'd want laser-like spectral lines, for color rendition you want each component to have a broad spectrum. There's no reason why LED light can't have excellent quality however anyone defines quality because you're not limited to the raw output of the LED but you can tune the output with a phosphor. Consumers have to demand something better though and the market has to respond.
• its-summertime 4y ago
  Feels like a different world to my experiences: while the cheaper lights we have are a bit more dim compared to what I'd like, we also have stupidly bright LED lights installed (really need to do a clean sweep and get all the sockets onto 1 kind), We also have dimmable downlights (some of the first LEDs in the house, due to water damage messing up the prior lights) which are dimmer than I'd like, but they were bought very early so I find that reasonable. But I really can't think of more than 1 or 2 failures over more than enough years. We still have florescent and incandescent, but I get the most useful lighting in a room with 5 LED lights and nothing else (and most of the time its actually kinda painful with how bright they are!) If I cared much about the flicker, I'd get a https://www.crowdsupply.com/test-equipment?sort=latest https://www.crowdsupply.com/test-equipment?sort=latest OpticSpy or Labrador, or something cheaper, and just go into a store with a light display and check each one. - - - > Apple’s software will convert the image according to what it has machine-learned that white ought to be My old lexam camera apparently has machine learning built in too? Unlike my frustrating old camera, iPhones should be able to lock the white balance, exposure, et al, right? through which, comparisons can still be made.
  • castlecrasher2 4y ago
    >But I really can't think of more than 1 or 2 failures over more than enough years. It's bad luck for us. We've had at least 10 bulbs die within the past two years, at least half of which had been installed just months before. I'd guess they were a poor quality batch in the box we bought at Costco. Meanwhile, the Philips Hue led lights we bought ages ago are still working perfectly.
• alanbernstein 4y ago
  Of course, the incandescent bulb spectrum is different from the sun's daylight spectrum. You can imagine people making similar arguments 100+ years ago as the incandescent bulb grew in use. I wonder how much of this color quality complaint is due to familiarity and comfort with what you grew up with? At the same time, I find fluorescent lighting unbearable over long time periods, so I completely appreciate that these differences can be important.
  • tzs 4y ago
    I'd guess that the arguments 100+ years ago over incandescent bulbs would have compared them to candles, fireplaces, torches, kerosene lamps, and whatever else people use when sunlight was not available since that would be what incandescent bulbs would be competing with.
• Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  > The two in my youngest son’s bedroom went near dark not long after I installed them. That's a warranty case; if people send them back to the producer often enough, they have to up their quality. If enough people also make sure to complain, consumer protection organizations may start a class action lawsuit and/or get the federal whatsits to demand better quality.
• Waterluvian 4y ago
  We wire our homes with a whole bunch of AC circuits. These are basically busses, right? Why not add more kinds of busses? Why not a DC bus? Every light in my home is an LED, and most appliances (by count) are DC. I understand that moving DC long distances can be problematic. But is 100-300 feet too long? Am I completely off on this? This feels like a legacy inefficiency issue.
  • sbradford26 4y ago
    DC actually tends to be more efficient at long distances at the same voltage. DC lighting does exist in the commercial space where lighting costs actually start to add up more than household use. The main barrier to DC systems in homes is simply that it would require houses to be rewired and a whole new standard for plugs and such. The benefit is also hard to describe to the customer.
    • Waterluvian 4y ago
      The limitations you describe make sense. But they seem like we can overcome them. My home has 3 non-plumbing busses: AC to every room. Twisted pair to like 6 rooms that will never see use. Coax to 7 rooms that is only used for a modem in one room. If we can run all that wiring, I think we can introduce a new standard for upcoming homes. In fact, now that I think of it, my home has a trait that the homes I grew up in never had: the overhead lighting and the wall receptacles are never on the same circuits. ... I wonder if I can re-use the 14-2 Romex for DC and retrofit one or two rooms myself and see how it works? (I recognize this is a bad idea for many reasons, such as them being indistinguishable and wrongly colour coded, making it a dangerous trap for future owners).
      • mindslight 4y ago
        It's definitely a path dependency issue. Last mile neighborhood distribution is still done with traditional transformers, so trying to push in this direction you'd ultimately just be adding another conversion step in homes. IMO the only time it makes (individual) sense is if your home has a huge bank of storage batteries for off-grid operation. The main advantage you'd get is no 120Hz flickering (light bulbs would still need power electronics because LEDs are driven by current rather than voltage), no 60Hz hum on motors, etc. But you'd be stepping away from the massive economies of scale of the consumer market. FWIW what voltage(s) would you pick, and why? There's no free lunch here.
• flybrand 4y ago
  The claims don’t match reality; the issue with so many products. The failure mechanism always happens on the most difficult dimension to prove - here it is longevity.
• szoszon 4y ago
  LED lights are unfortunately a big marketing scam. Remember when they promised that the will last up to 20 years? Well, when I renovated my house 5 years ago I installed LED lights over my kitchen island - they were so bright that you couldn't look directly at them and it was too hard to see somebody on the other side of the island.. This is no longer true - they are visibly dimmer. In a few more years they will probably have to be replaced.. The problem is that since they don't use bulbs, I will have to replace the whole fixture.. and the current lamps will end up in the trash. We're not going to save our environment this way.
  • bob1029 4y ago
    I've trashed over 30 flush-mount LED lights in my house and its 2018 construction. It wouldn't be so offensive if we didn't buy into our own marketing bullshit so much. Pretending like 20 years is a realistic timeframe for a semiconductor to survive in that kind of environment is fantasy, but then you go about constructing homes and businesses like it's true. This kind of scam is getting really old for me. LED lighting isn't the only one being pushed on us.
  • davidy123 4y ago
    I think LED lights will lose some of their brightness in the short term, but maintain a useful plateau much longer. At least, that's how LED projectors work, vs lamp projectors, which steadily decline until they're unusable. However, I would always buy standard socket LEDs unless you're really committed to that lighting style.
    • szoszon 4y ago
      Try explaining to your wife that this ugly lamp that uses a regular bulb will be better for us in a long term :)
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    OTOH, my original Cree retrofit can lights from about 2014 are still going strong. They seem to have the electronics separate from the LED itself which keeps the heat under control. I've definitely noticed that some less expensive designs don't bother with that, and it really lowers the longevity of the fixture.
• TheAtomic 4y ago
  First world problems
• elil17 4y ago
  Lots of people here are arguing about whether LEDs actually look worse. Who cares? Even a modest environmental benefit is worth it. If you want nice-looking light, just go outside - it's free.
  • Scene_Cast2 4y ago
    Lots of people live in areas where for half a year, the days are short, cloudy, and cold.
    • elil17 4y ago
      Outdoor light is pleasant (to me at least) even when it's overcast. And, yeah, if you live in an area with polar night or whatever I don't think society should begrudge you an incandescent bulb if that's what gets you through the winter.
  • bowsamic 4y ago
    > If you want nice-looking light, just go outside - it's free. Did you read the article? It discusses this quite extensively
• SoftTalker 4y ago
  LED bulbs suck. CFLs suck. The light is poor and though they cost an order of magnitude more than incandescents did, they are built so cheaply that they don't last any longer. And they qualify as hazardous waste when they need to be disposed of. At times I've seriously considered trying oil lamps. The only LED bulbs I buy now are the "filament" types. Their bulbs are filled with helium so heat transfer is good, and they have a close-to-incandescent warm light color. I have had good luck with their longevity so far, but haven't really used them long enough to judge.
  • e40 4y ago
    Can you give an example sku?
  • stasmo 4y ago
    It feels weird to me to see this kind of comment on HN. I’m sure somewhere out there on the internet there are people complaining that computers suck because they bought a few cheap computers and didn’t have a good experience, so they’re assuming all computers are bad. Without any sort of detail about what brand or what it was used for and why it was a bad experience, it’s really not adding anything to the conversation. It’s just a blanket judgement on a technology that has a great deal of variation and options and uses.
    • righttoolforjob 4y ago
      The regular consumer, like us, don't give a rats ass about the technology behind the light, we just want them to work well. The light is much, much worse than incandescents for the typical consumer. That's what the article is about. Your comment if anything is the weird one.
      • rwalle 4y ago
        What? What is weird about that comment? An LED light from a random brand purchased from a random grocery store is very likely to work just fine, and that is many people's experience, so if your experience is different, you should provide concrete evidence instead of hand waving or using words like "worse" with no substance whatsoever.
• zokier 4y ago
  LED lighting is just another victim of the general malaise of consumer goods that is just unbounded race to the bottom, and making it impossible for consumers to make informed choices and instead having market flooded with lemons all around.
• Dowwie 4y ago
  I haven't had an LED bulb that didn't go out within less than a year of use, not even 300 hours.
• dashundchen 4y ago
  I think just like CFLs and incandescents before, quality is going vary and people will need to stick to a brand that works. I've had a lot of success with Cree light bulbs. They seem to have much better light quality than some of the hardware store brands. They definitely cost a bit more, but I had one fail 5 years out and I was able to call Cree up for a replacement. The rep collected a few questions - model, when it was bought and what type of room and fixture it was installed - and then sent me a new one. Despite being a different model, it matched the temp and tone of the old set of bulbs. I empathize with the author, but at the end of the day, a lot of people seem completely unaware of lighting to begin with. Walk down a US street at night and look inside, you'll see clashing warm and cold color temperatures in the same room, sterile cold bulbs in entryways and living rooms, dreaded boob light everywhere.
  • basch 4y ago
    I have "Is It Snappy?" on my phone, and before I buy any bulbs or fixtures I check to see how badly they flicker. Walking down the Home Depot or Menards lighting isle and taking video of each fixture, there is infinite variation, and not always tied to price. By being conscious and careful, I believe I've managed to have a pretty flicker free house. Cree has always been my go to non smart bulb, but I have not purchased any (I guess other than dimmable cans) since their acquisition. I was not impressed with their smart ecosystem and returned all of it. The software wasn't ready and the firmware was glitchy. Another thing mentioned not mentioned in the article, is how bad light looks to pets. Dogs can see the flickering, and with one previous fixture that is now gone, I noticed the dogs getting more anxious when the light was on. They didn't like me moving at them suddenly. I can only imagine how choppy the light made the world to them. Imagine a world where to everyone else things look fine, but to you everything is strobing. A small link dump of resources I found on hn over the years. https://optimizeyourbiology.com/light-bulb-database https://optimizeyourbiology.com/light-bulb-database https://www.lutron.com/en-US/Pages/LEDCompatibilityTool/Compatibility.aspx https://www.lutron.com/en-US/Pages/LEDCompatibilityTool/Comp... http://www.ledbenchmark.com/ http://www.ledbenchmark.com/ http://sle.se/michael/led/ http://sle.se/michael/led/ https://www.derlichtpeter.de/en/light-flicker/market-tests/ https://www.derlichtpeter.de/en/light-flicker/market-tests/ http://fastvoice.net/led-testberichte/ http://fastvoice.net/led-testberichte/ https://gembared.com/blogs/musings/the-best-daytime-white-light-bulbs-for-health-enthusiasts https://gembared.com/blogs/musings/the-best-daytime-white-li... And Light Brands / Shopping https://www.yujilighting.com/ https://www.yujilighting.com/ https://www.waveformlighting.com/ https://www.waveformlighting.com/ https://bedtimebulb.com/ https://bedtimebulb.com/ https://brightgreen.com/ https://brightgreen.com/ https://www.ledlightexpert.com/ https://www.ledlightexpert.com/
• jwie 4y ago
  We can only imagine what the lightbulb world would look like if the Phoebus cartel didn't hamstring R&D. Some might be tempted to believe that we'd have discovered what technology they suppressed, but they are insufficiently pessimistic. Technology gets worse all the time, and lightbulbs are a great example of that happening on purpose.
• tomatotomato37 4y ago
  I hate how many of these things aren't limits of the technology but rather the result of cost optimization and general apathy towards the customer. We know how to mass-produce quality LEDs to the point entire TVs are made of the things. We know how to mass-produce rectifiers pretty much ever since diodes existed. We know how to cool mass-produced objects in compact spaces. But because we apparently can't have nice things, we don't get the product of all that knowledge; instead we get whatever cost optimized bullshit gets shat out of a factory run by MBAs. This same reasoning is why I'm not bullish on AI; what the potential is and what we peasants get to use are vastly different
  • throwaway173738 4y ago
    The problem is, as always, the MBAs.
    • rusk 4y ago
      It’s not MBAs place to set public policy though is it? If it’s the MBA’s fault at all it’s because they’re doing their job which is optimising the product to the market. If the markets not optimising the right things then that’s a failure in the market. Maybe the market is being manipulated somehow has it was for the old incandescent bulbs - but that’s not necessarily the fault of the management tier … some economise regulate for consumer value … some for profit
      • adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        The problem is that people have a limited amount of caring and markets are really good at taking advantage of consumer ignorance. If you care about color rendering but don't know what color rendering is, you can't shop for it (and if you do know what it is you can't shop for it if it's not on the spec sheet).
        • rusk 4y ago
          Sounds like issues that could be solved by some market regulation - rules about labelling - etc etc but to many that would be tantamount communism
• titzer 4y ago
  Not mentioned in the article are the LED replacements for full-size fluorescent tubes (i.e. 48in tubes). I got a bunch for my basement. The LED tubes really are a million times better than the fluorescents. For one, they aren't enormous fragile glass tubes filled with toxic mercury vapor, and two, they give off good light (for a basement work area) with very little power.
  • strictnein 4y ago
    Interesting. I have some of those fluorescents in a storage room and I hadn't even thought about there being an LED replacement option. Thanks for posting that.
  • TheHypnotist 4y ago
    Can you place those bulbs in the regular fluorescent "socket"? I bought a house and have a few burned out fluorescent looking long bulbs and I don't want to replace them with toxic bulbs.
    • rootusrootus 4y ago
      Yes, but check the bulb. Some are compatible with the fluorescent ballast, but some expect you to use a fixture that has had the ballast removed. The trend is towards the latter, because they are more efficient.
      • stasmo 4y ago
        A CFL ballast can be modified with a bypass by snipping a couple of wires and tying them to other wires. It takes 10 minutes and it’s reversible. I did it myself after watching a YouTube video. The LED t8 replacement was cheaper and brighter and used less electricity.
• phoyd 4y ago
  >If you’re lucky, the LED will have a CRI of 90 or higher EU has banned incandescent lights years ago and the situation for LED buyers is much different here. My local drug store chain (Rossmann in Germany) sells 1000lm E27 bulbs under their own Rubin brand with CRI>97 for 4.99€. No flickering and available as 2700K or 4000K. My Opple Light Master 3 even reads CRI 100. So for me right now, it's just going to the drug store and buying a bulb, like before the ban.
  • Agentlien 4y ago
    I read a lot of the other comments here before yours and they all seemed to describe a reality very different from my own experience. Then I saw yours and it suddenly makes sense. I am also in the Europe, most other commenters seem to be from the US. Here I find it is very easy to find good LED bulbs with the strength and color profile of my choice and I have used LED in all rooms of my house for the last 10+ years without any failing so far.
    • rootusrootus 4y ago
      > I am also in the Europe, most other commenters seem to be from the US. You're falling for the "Europe is better than the US, of course" mindset. What you are actually seeing are partisans spinning a narrative to fit their ideology, not an accurate description of reality. We have really high CRI bulbs here, too, and they're inexpensive. I can go down to the home store and buy them by the dozen. I'll bet you money that bulbs in the US and bulbs in Europe are mostly manufactured in the same place...
      • zippergz 4y ago
        Please link me to a 95+ CRI bulb available at Home Depot or Lowe's.
        • wil421 4y ago
          Greater than 95 or including 95? Most of the Philips brand dimmable LEDs have a CRI of 95. The eco smart is crap at 80 and that’s to be excepted from the cheap house brand. The in ceiling lights I bought to replace a bottom dollar Amazon light was are 94 and I’m pretty sure I bought the cheapest I could that would change temp to match my existing ones. Your friend has shared a link to a Home Depot product they think you would be interested in seeing. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-Soft-White-A19-LED-60W-Equivalent-Dimmable-Smart-Wi-Fi-Wiz-Connected-Wireless-Light-Bulb-555474/310289020 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-Soft-White-A19-LED-60W-E... Looks like GE’s Sunshine brand has a CRI of 97 and is $8.99 on Amazon. GE Sun Filled LED Light Bulb, 60 Watt Eqv, Soft White, A21 Standard Bulb, Medium Base https://a.co/d/fLkL8wr https://a.co/d/fLkL8wr
• CalRobert 4y ago
  This article discusses indoor lighting, but it's worth noting that cheap, efficient outdoor LED lighting is destroying our night sky, bathing everyone nearby (including animals!) in light that screws up their circadian rhythms, and makes the city at night a harsher place. savingourstars.org
• davidy123 4y ago
  Incandescent generate heat, they're great if you need heat and one tone of light and that's it. LEDs are part of a progression to everything being addressable, think of them as pixels. There's a decreasing incentive to not make everything addressable and support not just dimming but also colour. This is ultimately a completely different approach to environments. Transitioning from "the lights are on and I can easily see my broccoli" to very fine relationships between sources and qualities of light and their interpretation. Some of the benefits will be emergent, which sounds like hand-waving, and sometimes it is. (-:
• FpUser 4y ago
  I do not really use LED light bulbs. I use already made LED lamps. Big round ones for ceiling and some long strips in my office on bottom side of shelves. All cheap China made stuff. Works for years not a single problem. Color temp is ok.
• stevenkkim 4y ago
  I came across this article on HN recently: https://www.sevarg.net/2023/02/11/how-your-leds-are-killing-you/ https://www.sevarg.net/2023/02/11/how-your-leds-are-killing-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34902429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34902429 After reading it, I realized that having overhead led lights in our home were possibly contributing to my worsening sleep and general tiredness over the past few years. Granted, we used 4100k lights which are much bluer than 2700k. We swapped all our leds back to incandescents and halogens (which were a bit tricky to find, but not impossible). Anecdotally, I've been sleeping so much better since, finally feeling well rested and far less stressed. I just feel a tremendous amount of relief after not sleeping well for years. Also, while we had leds, I had to replace a surprising number of them for burnout/failure, and also experienced flickering, dimming issues, buzzing and more.
  • gabereiser 4y ago
    The light temperature plays a lot into it. It's why those industrial edison bulbs are so trendy and popular. The warmer the light, the cozier at night. Warm being color and not tempurature. 2700k being the ideal.
    • stevenkkim 4y ago
      Nice little rhyme, never heard that one. Yes, I think 2700k would have been better, we had originally picked 4100k because we prefered the look. But the article says that even 2700k leds have a blue light spike (albeit smaller than the 4100ks) since the led source is blue light.
  • rssoconnor 4y ago
    I've set up Kelvin[1] to lower the colour temperature of my LED bulbs in the evening, and reduce their brightness. In fact, they end up pretty deep red when doing middle of the night bathroom runs. [1]https://github.com/stefanwichmann/kelvin https://github.com/stefanwichmann/kelvin
    • stevenkkim 4y ago
• jonas21 4y ago
  For me, the biggest issue with LED bulbs is flicker. And there's a lot of variation between different bulbs, even ones that claim to be flicker-free. There are metrics for quantifying flicker [1], and hopefully they'll be required to print this on the packaging at some point. For now, I always go to see bulbs in person before buying them, and record them in slow-motion video on my phone. This makes it easy to tell which ones flicker badly and which don't. [1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/ssl/articles/flicker-understanding-new-ieee-recommended-practice https://www.energy.gov/eere/ssl/articles/flicker-understandi...
• smm11 4y ago
  They flicker, they die, and all at a more rapid rate that old school bulbs, despite the boxes saying they'll run 10 years or more. Ridiculous.
• stasmo 4y ago
  I’ve never had a problem with my Phillips Hue bulbs and I’ve owned the same 4 bulbs for 5 years now. I’ve got them scheduled to start brightening at sunset, change to a warmer colour closer to bed time, then start dimming and warming up before bed time. If I want to feel more awake I ask Siri to change the colours of the bulbs to white. If I went to go to bed earlier I ask Siri for the colour tan and to dim the lights by 30%. At this point I can’t imagine not having control over the colour or brightness of my lights. These things are essential for a good sleep.
• hannob 4y ago
  Hi US people, european here. The EU forbid terribly inefficient light around a decade ago. Yes, we had plenty of debates. Yes, people were concerned about all kinds of things. Most of them were entirely made up, some were exaggerated out of proportion. I can say that we still have lights, the debate mostly vanished and no, it's not blue everywhere.
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    Hello European, US guy here. > The EU forbid terribly inefficient light around a decade ago. So did we. Very few incandescent bulbs are on the market here since they were basically banned a decade ago. There are some niche options, you could still find expensive halogens, but that's it.
  • righttoolforjob 4y ago
    Hi, also European here. Everything the article complains about is true. The light from LEDs is significantly worse, even in Europe.
    • tomtheelder 4y ago
      US here. Light quality in my house went up noticeably when I switched to LEDs about a decade ago, probably due to having way more/better options for color temperature. Haven't had to replace a bulb since. I have zero clue what the author is talking about.
      • u7t677uh96 4y ago
        [dead]
• simongray 4y ago
  This article and comment section is bizarre to me. It's like travelling back in time to the 2000s. We've only used LEDs in my country for, what, 15 years now? They are perfectly fine, no issues really, much cheaper than incandescent bulbs of course. We just buy the ones in IKEA and they haven't really failed us so far.
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    > It's like travelling back in time to the 2000s. That's because it is. George W. Bush signed the death warrant for the incandescent bulb in the US in 2007. Incandescent bulbs are a niche product in the US, LEDs have been the mainstream choice for years.
  • cal85 4y ago
    I guess you can't tell the difference? For me it's huge. I recently changed my bathroom downlights from dimmable LEDs to dimmable halogens, and it's so much nicer. The colour temperature was the same, so I guess it's not that. It's something else about the way they work. I don't profess to know why, but I can absolutely tell the difference, and I have a very clear preference now. And this is after a decade of me being very bullish on LEDs for environmental reasons and proudly fitting LEDs everywhere possible (expensive, carefully chosen ones too, with appropriate colour temperature). At the end of the day, LED light is just horrible for some reason.
    • CapsAdmin 4y ago
      I also have the ikea home smart bubls. They're dimmable and can change color. It seems like some people are more sensetive to flickering light. I've asked people every now and then when in a group if they can tell the light is flickering, and I'm usually the only one. The effect is pronounced in my peripheral vision and somehow even more when drunk. I don't think these lights emit the entire spectrum of light either, but a spectrum that "fools" us to think we're seeing the whole spectrum. Maybe that feels uncomfortable for some? The ikea bulbs I have flicker a little when dimmed, but I don't really mind.
    • simongray 4y ago
• pleb_nz 4y ago
  Focusing on reliability, quality and performance I've had nothing but an excellent run with LEDs, both retro and built into the home for 10 years. Never replaced anything on any of them. And not just me proud I've talked with as well. The only issue I have with LED is the light isn't as nice as incandescent and although I'm not certain it may not be as good for your health. Be interesting to know more about the context is the authors experience doesn't seem to be the same for everyone
• Reason077 4y ago
  > "'Hungarian-made GE Básica bulbs ... with a bold stamp on the side reading, NOT FOR SALE FOR USE IN THE UNITED STATES." This seems odd considering they surely can't be used in Hungary either. The EU started phasing out incandescent bulbs more than a decade ago! Don't miss them, personally. LED lighting is excellent if you buy good quality ones. And I certainly don't miss having to periodically go around the house changing blown bulbs!
  • skocznymroczny 4y ago
    The EU regulations were against sales of incandescent bulbs. But in most countries they are still available rebranded as "heat bulbs" or "workshop bulbs" with a large "NOT INTENDED FOR HOUSEHOLD USAGE" 'warning' sign.
• rietta 4y ago
  In my personal experience the LED bulbs at Home Depot are extremely expensive compared to traditional bulbs we used to buy. Don’t list anywhere near the advertised long lives. And are difficult to recycle and worse in landfill than the historical bit of glass and metal bulbs.
• wankle 4y ago
  https://www.stouchlighting.com/blog/light-comparison-led-lighting-vs-incandescent-lighting#:~:text=New%20LEDs%20can%20last%2050%2C000,other%20commercially%20available%20lighting%20technology https://www.stouchlighting.com/blog/light-comparison-led-lig.... "New LEDs can last 50,000 to 100,000 hours or more. The typical lifespan for an incandescent bulb, by comparison, is 1-5% as long at best (roughly 1,200 hours)." I've never seen more than 15000 hours from an LED bulb at best. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb "The chart below lists values of luminous efficacy and efficiency for some general service, 120-volt, 1000-hour lifespan incandescent bulb" I spent most of my life in incandescent bulb lighting and rarely remember changing a light bulb. LED bulbs I can remember changing multiple times in the last few years since we started using them. It's almost like there's a conspiracy to convince consumers incandescent lighting didn't last long which is odd given the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light#:~:text=The%20Centennial%20Light%20is%20the,the%20Livermore%2DPleasanton%20Fire%20Department https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light#:~:text=The%2.... "The Centennial Light is the world's longest-lasting light bulb, burning since 1901, and almost never turned off."
  • gjsman-1000 4y ago
    > I've never seen more than 15000 hours from an LED bulb at best. With the LED bulbs at our home (many of which have failed!), the problem is always the inverter. They just start flickering wildly and inconsistently one day, which is never pleasant, and they need to be replaced. It's frustrating because when the LEDs have stable power, they can produce just as much brightness as before, but their integrated power-conversion circuitry sucks in reliability.
    • dwighttk 4y ago
      I wonder if it’d be worth it to centralize the inverter…
      • wankle 4y ago
        gjsman-1000's point and yours make sense and somewhere on the page it was suggested to start running DC power just for LED lighting in homes. Until then, our new plan is to use LED light strips and stop buying LED bulbs. The idea is that the strips have an external power supply so I'm hoping the LED's will have the lifetime they deserve.
• toddmorey 4y ago
  They just put in some new townhomes near me. The architecture is beautiful but all the exterior lighting is cold LED light and it looks so strange and frightening at night. Just... off. Amazing how the quality and temperature of light matters.
• ltbarcly3 4y ago
  Who sponsored this terrible article? Should we also go back to 25" console tv's that sit on the floor, with decorative brass handles just so this author can avoid ever having anything be different in their life? I've never, not even once, had an LED bulb misbehave as described in this article. They are at least as reliable as CFLs were, and although there are tradeoffs with other bulb types both good and bad, LEDs consume effectively no power compared to incandescent. From the article: ``` I’d put one in the bedroom-ceiling fixture only a few months before. In theory, it should have been the last I would put up there for years, maybe even a decade. Instead, the bulb was a dim, dull orange, its levels of brightness visibly fluttering through the frosted dome. ``` What? And then they go on to talk about how hard it is to illegally find incandescent bulbs. This screams cognitive dissonance. An incandescent bulb's normal way of responding after several months to a year was to just not work anymore at all. That was just 'normal' and you would swap them out. If you went to any room in the country and looked at the light fixtures, you had a very good chance of finding bulbs that were burned out. It was normal to hear or say "we really need to replace the bulb in the pantry" but in the meantime not be able to see in there very well. Finding one led bulb that fails early is not an indictment of the technology, even if it was defective. For all we know his kid might have been throwing water balloons at it. LED bulbs are great, they are now incredibly cheap and there is no reason to keep producing CO2 because of misoneic propaganda. If we want to reduce carbon emissions, we either have to pass the true cost of carbon to consumers, which would mean dramatically increasing energy costs to people who likely can't afford that, or we need to make it less likely to consume all that artificially cheap electricity wastefully. LED bulbs are a great way to do this.
• kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  My peeve is with intermediate base bulbs. They forced ceiling fans to use them but it's nigh impossible to find suitable dimmable LEDs for them. I had a candelabra adapter short out and destroy a dimmer so that isn't an option either.
• thayne 4y ago
  One thing that really, really annoys me, that isn't mentioned is that practically all LED bulbs have a warning (in fine print) that you shouldn't use them in enclosed spaces. If you do use them in enclosed spaces some components overheat, and it dramatically reduces the lifetime of the bulb. In my home, like many, probably most, home in the area, most of the light fixtures are enclosed. And finding bulbs designed to work in enclosed spaces is practically impossible.
• cm2187 4y ago
  I think most people in this audience are aware but in case some are not, the other thing with LED is that it is not possible to dim them. So dimming works by making them flash at a higher frequency than what the human eye can see. Which is ok-ish for humans, but will drive dogs crazy as they see at a much higher frame rate.
  • hedora 4y ago
    That's not fundamental. They could flicker the individual LEDs at different phases. A typical bulb contains many LEDs. This would cost money, of course.
• joshspankit 4y ago
  Can someone please make an “archive.is” clone that just does GPT summaries for us HN folk?
• UberFly 4y ago
  That article was feverish. I think the author is making it a bit too complicated. Also, there's much talk about the Met and their art collection. Even with the challenges of LED bulbs, they wouldn't go back. Damaging UV is no longer a problem with LEDs.
• EMM_386 4y ago
  I was just staying in a hotel where it was obvious that the hallway lighting was all LED. It had that harsh, strange white hue to it and I found it incredibly distracting and unattractive. I'm no expert in the field, and I assume there are bulbs that put out a more natural spectrum, but clearly this hotel didn't buy those bulbs. It felt strange to walk down that hallway, just something "off" about it.
• rcarmo 4y ago
  The piece lost me when it mentioned the LED flaking out with a dimmer. That's a well-known shortcoming of "average" LED bulbs (whose drivers cannot cope with the decreased peaks that come with a standard dimmer). Most of it felt like what things would be like if you had frequent brownouts or just a bad electrical setup. [edit]: tried again and stopped when it mentioned painting LED bulbs in amber varnish. I have RGBW LED strips, getting a "beautiful" tone is a solved problem.
• shanecleveland 4y ago
  I replace the standard size LED bulbs more than any other bulb. Of all new bulbs in a new construction home from 2016, I do not have any original standard size LED bulbs (mix of open, enclosed and outdoor applications). I still have original incandescent bulbs, fluorescents and in-ceiling LED can bulbs in place. I'm not sure what makes the flood-style LED can bulbs so much better. I have not replaced a single one indoors. Same mfr. as the standard size LED bulbs (Fleir, sp?). I have not found a good brand of the standard size LED replacement bulbs.
  • anoojb 4y ago
    Same story. Wondering if there’s a truly resilient Standard 60W LED bulb in the market at all, and if not why?
  • tomtheelder 4y ago
    I put LEDs in about 10 years ago and have never replaced one. I used to have a big drawer full of incandescent ones because they would fail pretty regularly I think there just might be more of a spectrum with LED bulbs, since they are more complicated than incandescent ones. The worst ones are much worse, but the best ones are far better.
• antiterra 4y ago
  There’s a bit of a basilisk with the cheaper LEDs (though sometimes also the ones permanently installed on ceiling fans, sometimes luxury brand car accent lighting) where once your learn you can see flickering trails following movement, you can’t avoid seeing it again. Plenty of people don’t notice, don’t tell them.
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    Yeah, cheaper LEDs explain most of the complaints I'm reading here. Spend a few extra bulbs and you get a far better experience. I have no flickering LEDs, I won't tolerate them in my house.
• avidphantasm 4y ago
  I find that with LED bulbs you need to read the box carefully. Putting an LED bulb not rated for enclosures into an enclosure often results in early failures.
• ironmagma 4y ago
  Watch the level of social disease spike once this becomes mandatory.
• broabprobe 4y ago
  wow great article and even in the article and comments no mention of PAR1789! It's the IEEE standard for limiting flicker in bulbs! The Department of Energy has a great presentation on this, https://www.energy.gov/eere/ssl/articles/flicker-understanding-new-ieee-recommended-practice https://www.energy.gov/eere/ssl/articles/flicker-understandi...
• MarkusWandel 4y ago
  Even the cheapest, crappiest (though you shouldn't compromise on colour rendition) LED bulbs are better for your wallet than incandescents. Simply because of the huge amount of power they save. I'm not sure yet about the light fixtures that have non-replaceable LEDs in them. Generally these are heatsinked well and use higher quality power supplies though.
• karaterobot 4y ago
  Counterpoint: The transition to LEDs has been fine, even cheap LEDs are fine, and this article feels like an unnecessary problematizing.
• kristjank 4y ago
  A funny thing my power electronics TA pointed out at a lab class was that, while incandescents radiate heat and waste a lot of power to just heat the space below them, we still need to heat our classrooms. When the university went from incandescent to fluorescent and, later LED lighting, the only thing that changed was the power usage shifting from lighting to heating. Granted, heating can be more efficient when handled by the systems designed to heat, not to illuminate, but at the scale of a reasonably big, cold-war era building with moderately inappropriate insulation, the gain in efficiency is minuscule. It all made me think that we're solving a lot of problems by shifting the issue away from us, in this case from the bulbs to the radiators. It's comparable to EVs in my opinion: "if we take all the pollution and put it in SE Asia, we can cargo cult ourselves into thinking that driving that 20yo beater is worse than generating new waste"
• aftbit 4y ago
  I'm still looking for an ideal LED bulb for use everywhere. I've mostly settled on Hyperikon. My desired specs: * A19 base * 2700K * 7-11W (at typical efficiencies, not sure about lumens) * dimmable with very high dynamic range (fully dimmed should be just barely lit) * good color rendering (high CRI / R9) * good PSU design for long life * flicker free under all circumstances * cheapish (< $10/bulb) The irony is that there is a deep flashlight enthusiast community that focus on all of these specs (except maybe the high dynamic range), but when you look for A19 bulbs, they're all just using whatever is at Home Depot. :/
• VoodooJuJu 4y ago
  I fucking hate LEDs. Turned my back on them years ago because the tech and its salesmen turned their back on me. Nothing but lies. I've been using 15-25 watt traditional incandescents in a bunch of lamps around the house and they're absolutely amazing. Consistent light, cheap, and comfy as hell - the warm fire-like glow appeals to my caveman sensibilities. So much better than soulless, flickering, sun-bright but ice-cold LEDs. I feel better, see better, sleep better, my house is just so cozy. Thankfully, the low-watt appliance bulbs that I use seem to be exempt under the coming ban. And if they were banned, I'd find a way to make them on my own - I'm never parting with them.
• blyry 4y ago
  Lightbulbs are infuriating now-a-days. I want poe-driven wired IoT bulbs (and downlights, and I suppose zigbee/zwave where poe can't be added in) that dim and color change on the white spectrum (no rgb silliness I will never need to make my lightbulbs green or purple or whatever), with no flicker and high CRI / full spectrum. And a black box controller that matches output to exterior conditions automatically. No app, just a black box with a wired light sensor. You can rip my halogen reading lamps cold dead hands.
• wiradikusuma 4y ago
  I don't finish reading the article because it seems the author is very unlucky with LEDs, but LEDs really that bad? You know that thing where you didn't notice anything wrong until someone mention it and suddenly you notice it too? It doesn't happen to me after reading the article. What should I pay attention to my LED bulbs so I can be on the same page with the author?
• lukas099 4y ago
  If you don't have a home heat pump, isn't incandescent actually more efficient than LED in winter? Assuming you turn lights off when you leave rooms, all generated heat will be concentrated in the room you are actually in.
• uranium 4y ago
  One thing I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere is that the energy savings of LEDs may not actually be what you expect. We heat our home something like 330 days of the year. If we use LED bulbs instead of incandescents, we just have to run the gas furnace more to make up for the "saved" heat energy. Add in the fact that LEDs have a much higher embedded energy of manufacture, and the fact that they seem to last a lot less than the 10 years they're specced for, and switching my house to LEDs appears to have increased our carbon footprint. Plus now we're using more heavy metals and such in circuit boards. Aaaaand the light sucks.
  • timbit42 4y ago
    Depending on how warm your summers are, LED bulbs will reduce the amount of air conditioning you need.
• noncoml 4y ago
  Thy these folks before making up your mind about LED lights: https://www.waveformlighting.com/ https://www.waveformlighting.com/ No flickering, high CRI.
• jryb 4y ago
  I don't understand any of this at all. I got the cheap 2700K LED bulbs from a big box store (~$3 for a pack/bulb, I don't remember) and they are wonderful, they're just as good as they were when I got them, and the spectrum feels the same as an incandescent bulb. I literally put no thought into the purchasing process and it couldn't be more ideal.
  • tomtheelder 4y ago
    Agree completely. I bought a bunch of LED bulbs maybe a decade ago to replace my incandescent ones. Lighting quality was immediately better, and I have never had to replace a single one. They have made multiple moves with me. Previously I was replacing bulbs maybe annually, or every 2 years. I genuinely have no idea what people in this thread are talking about.
• caboteria 4y ago
  We've gone from incandescent bulbs that were shit because a cartel[1] said so, to LED bulbs that are shit because we demand that they be cheaper than they can reasonably be. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
• distortedsignal 4y ago
  > The impetus is on you to decide when things have started to look uncanny. “I wish that would be addressed by the industry — like, maybe if it reached a certain light-loss factor, it would just shut down, you know?” Nelson said. “Or if it shifted in color past a certain point, it went into failure mode.” This is complicated, and I don't think the consumer knows what they're asking for. From my understanding (and watching a lot of Big Clive lightbulb teardowns on YouTube), this would require an active sensor in the bulb. Most of the circuits in these bulbs are embarrassingly simple - 3-4 mostly passive components, and 1-2 silicon based chips or raw transistors. If you add an active sensor to that system, your cost balloons significantly. Then you have to calibrate the sensors. Then we get into the "printer cartridge" problem, where "my light bulb won't turn on because it's insufficiently cyan, but I only want a red light." We didn't know that we wanted things when we had incandescent bulbs. Now that we're being forced to switch away from incandescent bulbs and use a new technology, users are able to ask for things. I think that's partially exciting (users having preferences is good!), but it's also potentially complicated by companies not providing low-cost solutions that are as good as the old thing. So, overall, good and bad.
• bmacho 4y ago
  Of course. It's the market and negative selection. The companies that accidentally made long-lasting LED bulbs all went bankrupt. Governments (or other non-profit organizations) should create light bulbs, for the people, and not for the stockholders.
  • timbit42 4y ago
    They should have advertised they were long-lasting and charged more.
• jacobsenscott 4y ago
  No less that half my led can lights are unusable - either they "burned out" (whatever that means for an led light, but they did), or they flicker too much or buzz too loudly. I gave up on replacing them and am just living with the ones that work. I don't know where to buy good ones - the led market 99% scammers. The crap at the big box hardware stores is not worth it. I've probably spent more money in one year on defective leds lights than I spent on incandescent bulbs in 40 years.
  • elihu 4y ago
    LEDs are sensitive to heat. It might be that recessed lighting is causing your bulbs to overheat and fail early because they don't have enough ventilation.
    • jacobsenscott 4y ago
      Maybe, but they are designed for this. I suppose given the quality of the product that isn't saying much.
• aimor 4y ago
  Some people seem to have different memories than I do of what it was like buying lightbulbs before LEDs came out. I remember incandescents also having a variety of color quality, lifespan, and decorative options. I remember having the choice between bargain bin bulbs and luxurious options, making sure to outfit a room with a single brand so everything looked the same, realizing it's more difficult to read with this one or that, keeping receipts in the box in case they don't live up to the "double life" (2000 hours!) branding, the annoyance of having a regular bulb in a 3-way lamp, or a faulty circuit causing lights to flicker, not to mention the fire hazard of having something too close to an exposed bulb. Things are not so different now. As it was then, we still have crappy products with too little information and too much marketing. Having CRI ratings on the box is a good change (a spectrogram would have been nice though), I think it cuts down the trial and error it takes to find something suitable. What I don't like are all the built-in specialty lighting sources. More and more we're seeing fixtures with custom LED panels instead of sockets, which often means more expensive trial-and-error when it turns out that expensive "dimmable" ceiling light is doing PWM at 60 Hz, or when it dies one year out of warranty and you have to change the entire decorative housing instead of just replacing a bulb. The good news is that it's easier than ever to ask strangers what worked for them, and it's still less expensive to find and buy high quality LED bulbs than it is to use incandescents.
  • wrycoder 4y ago
    And yet I have a growlight that specs its output in moles of photons per second.
    • ccooffee 4y ago
      I had been unaware of measurement according to "moles of photons", though I suppose it's not surprising. I've never really understood what a mole is other than "we decided to pick this number as a constant multiplier when doing small calculations". Per wikipedia[0], there's a vaguely defined unit, the Einstein, which may be defined as the energy in a mole of photons. (The vague definition being because each photon may have different amounts of energy, and thus an Einstein would be some weird function in order to describe total energy.) Wikipedia suggests using measures of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR)[1], like Photosynthetic photon flux (PPF) instead. I suppose this is because PAR is literally defined to measure according to "what plants crave", but it also allows bounding the "total joules of energy" above and below by the PAR wavelength limits. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_(unit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_(unit) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetically_active_radiation#Units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetically_active_radi...
• twoodfin 4y ago
  The hidden, diffuse social & economic cost of forgoing a carbon tax.
• elihu 4y ago
  It's perhaps worth mentioning that metal halide bulbs are an alternative to LEDs that are efficient and produce high quality light. They use an electric arc in an inert gas between tungsten electrodes. The old high pressure sodium lights used in street lights and gymnasiums are basically the same technology, but by using a different gas mixture you get a more normal color temperature. They aren't generally used in residential buildings. You could install them, but it tends to be kind of expensive and complicated because they require a ballast. Also, they tend to be most efficient at high wattages, and most people don't want their house lit like the surface of the sun.
• sarusso 4y ago
  I still can't find decent G4 LED bulbs.. Tried several from Amazon, they where alle terrible at color rendering (even if nominal CRI was ok-ish). Any suggestions?
• snvzz 4y ago
  Engineered obsolesce.
• sarusso 4y ago
  IKEA is acting as Apple in this space IMO. They hide all the details about their LED bulbs, but they are kind of the best you can find on the market if you search for more details about their tech, or at least AFAIK.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• MegaDeKay 4y ago
  I saw a linked article on that site that gives their LED bulb recommendations. Brightness, CRI, color temp, and value are all considered for various applications. https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-led-light-bulbs.html https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-led-light-bulbs.ht...
• Semaphor 4y ago
  Is there something different about smart bulbs? My oldest hue is at least 6 years old, but probably older (as I can't find the order confirmation for the bridge, so I'm guessing I bought it offline), no flickering, no getting darker. Logically, I'm thinking that the pure LED components are a much smaller part of the price, and that maybe there is less skimping?
• stevage 4y ago
  Strange. I live in Australia, where incandescents were banned years ago. I have noticed literally none of these supposed issues. I never see LED lights flickering or making weird colours or humming or anything.
• mbtwl 4y ago
  Can’t relate at all. Maybe it’s regional. In EU conventional light bulb have been phased out more than ten years ago. In the first few years there were some crappy LED bulbs until manufactures solved issues of basically completely new product. I don’t remember any LED bulb I ever bought breaking until now. And ones I bought in last 5 years (when moving to a new place) also have nice warm colour and don’t flicker. Good bulbs used to be around 5-10€ per piece, now more due to inflation. But I don’t mind since they last forever. And way more efficient, wonder how long it takes before cost is made up my savings in electricity bill.
• 99_00 4y ago
  The fact that they had to ban incandescent should have been the big red flag.
• t0bia_s 4y ago
  I pay attention to colour temperature. Lights at home are usually lighten during evening, so it should be not more then 3000K - (for melatonin). I use mostly 2700K, tried even 2000K but that was too reddish for my taste. Keep in mind that after sunset in nature there is only moon light that has blue spectrum. Fire, as light source is about 1700K.
• Whitespace 4y ago
  I recently bought EcoSmart bulbs from Home Depot (they're a HD brand) that have a color temperature selector on the side (2700k to 5000k). But it also has an option called DuoBright, which will change the temperature in response to the standard cheap Lutron Diva dimmer I have. It works *perfectly*! I can max the dimmer and it's bright white daylight, or I can dim it down to a very dim 2000k. There's no buzzing, no weird high-temp/low-light weirdness. It works magically. And it's the cheap option! I replaced all BR30 & BR40 bulbs with it. I wish it came in more shapes! I'd replace every lightbulb in the house with them. I paid $5-$13 per bulb. No one seems to know about them, not even the guy at Home Depot who worked in the aisle. He was surprised how much I raved about them.
• ineedasername 4y ago
  While my led bulbs last much longer Incandescent, and end probably save money and energy, they consistently fail very long before their stated lifetime. I believe this is due to the poor quality of the electronics that comprise the base of the bulb and control the LEDs. The same issue with compact fluorescent bulbs I had opened up some of those cf. bulbs when they burned out prematurely and found burnt ou components. I haven’t bothered to do this with LED bulbs because I have every reason to assume they’re the same manufactures that need the CF bulbs and are making the LED bulbs are pulling the same trick. It was a race to the bottom to make the cheapest bulb stand compete on price may have resulted in bulbs that are far more faulty than they need to be.
  • wnevets 4y ago
    > they consistently fail very long before their stated lifetime Do you mean the stated lifetime of a specific LED or the lifetime promises generally assigned to LEDs. In my experience you get what you pay for.
• pmarreck 4y ago
  I was an LED early adopter and many more of them have failed early than I expected, even if I followed the rules of not putting them inside an enclosure not open to the air, etc. Regarding the color criticism(s), it's wonderfully subjective and it's definitely a case of "once you see it, you can't unsee it". Early bulbs were too blue in color temperature; later ones finally got the color temperature right (at least technically) but something else still seems "off" sometimes. There needs to be a way to read reviews of these, AND people need to be willing to spend more money on quality.
• larsrc 4y ago
  I've started keeping the receipts and boxes and marking the bulbs so I can get my money back under warranty if (when) they die early. Make it not worth it for the companies to skimp on quality.
• roryisok 4y ago
  This post reads awfully whiny to me. Who cares if the new bulb that's 90% more energy efficient than your old incandescent is not exactly the same color as the totally unnatural electric light you grew up with? Sure, there are some niche areas like the gallery mentioned, where the color and evenness of the light is quite important to display a work of art properly, but the bulb in your downstairs toilet not being yellow enough is not something to get worked up over. This is as vapid and facile an argument as petrol heads complaining that electric cars don't sound right.
  • TylerE 4y ago
    And even if you are… I use Wi-Fi smart bulbs that cost less than $10 each, full then as well as a white temperature adjustable from an extreme warm orange to piercing blue. 90+ CRI too.
  • sydd 4y ago
    Because there are many more issues: - The issue is not that they are "not the same color", but that they have a low CRI which means that they make look everything bland and greyscale. - That they use some shitty low frequency PWM to drive the light causing eye fatigue and headaches - That they use low quality electronics causing your bulb to fail as fast as an iridescent one that costs 5 times less. What you are saying sounds a bit like someone complaining why people want to move on from CRT monitors.
• diebeforei485 4y ago
  LED bulbs that have a similar color as old incandescent bulbs are widely available now for in-home use. It's no longer limited to fancy bulbs like Philips Hue. That being said, I am not a fan of the white LED streetlights. Streetlight LED's should be orange.
• nitins_jakta 4y ago
  There's a forum/community of people who get migraines / severe eyestrain from LED bulbs at LEDStrain.org. It's likely related to any LEDs that flicker (PWM). Also a PhDs website: www.FlickerSense.org
• gravesisme 4y ago
  I have gradually replaced every light bulb in my house since 2017 with Philips Hue bulbs (most color, but some white only) and not one of them has flickered, become more dim, or failed. On the other hand, the "cheap $10" LED bulbs that I originally installed when first moving in - because I could not afford $50 a bulb - have all died and were part of my motivation for upgrading to Hue. This has also happened with the cheaper LED bulbs that my mother and in-laws installed, which lasted about a year. I wonder why the Hue bulbs last so much longer? They have been well worth the money and have become a staple of my home automation.
• jacobp100 4y ago
  Just some notes on LEDs for anyone having problems with dimmer switches:- - Make sure your dimmer switch is compatible with LEDs - ideally only compatible with LEDs, as sometimes the ones that also handle halogen bulbs can buzz - Make sure your bulbs are dimmable - The LED and dimmer switch need to either both be leading edge, or both be trailing edge (but almost all are trailing edge now) - If your bulbs are too dim, read the manual for your dimmer switch - there will be a series of pushes and twists to configure it and/or manufacture reset - Lights starting up slower than a normal on/off switch is normal - it's the bulb and dimmer "negotiating", and it makes them both last longer
  • amluto 4y ago
    > Lights starting up slower than a normal on/off switch is normal - it's the bulb and dimmer "negotiating", and it makes them both last longer Negotiating? Some dimmers might “adapt” and choose which style to be (leading or trailing edge), but most don’t. I think the real issue is the startup time of the power supply, especially when starting dimmed and therefore getting a horrible waveform.
• deleted 4y ago
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• sizzle 4y ago
  Bought several boxes of 10 LED bulbs from Costco, the brand “Feit” and literally every bulb flickered and died in a few months. So disappointing.
• noduerme 4y ago
  > There ought to be a term for what happens when the light gets weaker and everyone acts as if it’s as strong as always. Cute.
• Bloating 4y ago
  LTF Sunlight 2 are the best light quality LEDs I've personally seen. The warm dim is incredibly clear amber https://ltftechnology.com https://ltftechnology.com Ketra used to make a good smart bulb, like Hue but much better quality light. Bought out by Lutron, who disabled the open Restful API RAB now makes a decent warm-dim, comparable to the Phillips warm-dim.
• teajunky 4y ago
  Anyone watching Star Trek Picard knows that we all will sit in the dark in the future.
• cyberax 4y ago
  One thing that bothers me is that our current wiring is not well-suited for LEDs. Each lamp has to have a rectifier, and there's only so much you can do to squeeze in enough circuitry into the LED base. So I shopped around for alternatives. It turns out that we're now standardizing on 24V DC wiring for lighting for commercial buildings, which makes sense. 24V can be directly used by LEDs wired in series, and the wiring cross-section is similar to 120V lamps. I even found some dim-to-warm 24V LEDs. But so far they are all kinda niche. I don't want to risk buying hardware from a supplier that can go out of business in a couple of years, leaving me with a slowly degrading system. If you want to try, then search Google for "tunable-white lighting".
• Bluzzard 4y ago
  I know everybody here is a democrat (or a pseudo democrat) so I’ll ask here, when are you people gonna stop finding new regulations to get police to implement? Like, it really just seems like you people don’t have anything else to do besides mind other peoples business.
• bofaGuy 4y ago
  LEDs also cause interference with WiFi and other radio signals. Found out after putting a LED bulb in my smart garage door opener.. which immediately went offline.
• peanut-walrus 4y ago
  So much of the problem with LED lights is from the integrated power supplies. Why is it not more common by now to just wire up indoor lights with 48v DC supplied from a PSU in your wiring cabinet and the lights can be just plain LEDs? Lower overall cost, more reliable, safer.
• dbg31415 4y ago
  I think the bulb versions of LEDs really do suck. Like... I was used to the GE Reveal 100W Incandescent Bulbs. For comparison, the light bulbs with like a slight blue tint to them that just worked great. I had them all over my house. But then when I did my remodel, I put in can lights. LEDs. And the can LEDs are really great. They're bright, they're the right color, they give off plenty of consistent light. I went with 6" cans, and I used about 50% more than they said to use... so like on the box it said, "Use 4 for a room that's X by Y feet..." And I put in 6. No more than 1 every 8 feet, no less than 1 every 5 feet. The cans have this little color toggle on the back, the only thing I wish I had done is I wish they were all wifi lights... so that I could use a different warmth after sundown. But hey, that'll be my next house. (= I think it's becoming more of an easy option for most contractors to set up. https://justgetflux.com/lighting/ https://justgetflux.com/lighting/
• jon889 4y ago
  Ok but in the UK (and Europe im guessing) we had the ban on the old bulbs ages ago and yeah it was weird at first and the early LED bulbs were awful blueish white. But the bulbs are the correct color, the packaging has what tint the bulb is. Some people have smart bulbs that can change color completely and dim from apps and voice assistants. The idea that the old bulbs shouldn’t be banned is ridiculous. You only have to look at other countries than the US to see yes it can be done and yes the world doesn’t end.
  • phatfish 4y ago
    I'm not a fan of the dome shaped LED bulbs like the one in the picture, maybe i just tried the wrong colour temperature, or it is something about how the light is distributed. Luckily there are LED fillament bulbs that are awfully similar to the old incandesant bulbs, except they last far, far longer and have the same energy savings as standard LED bulbs. I buy those now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_filament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_filament
• every 4y ago
  The closer it can come to candle light (minus the flickering) the better I'll like it...
• systems_glitch 4y ago
  What are folks doing that are killing all these LED lights, causing flicker, etc.? We've got a mix of LED fixtures and Edison based replacements and don't have anything worth complaining about. I think in the seven years we've owned this house I've replaced two of them that got cooked in the weird enclosed recessed light in the living room. I did have a (commercial, hardwired) strip light fail in the basement shop, and disassembled it to find a cold solder joint on the bulk filter capacitor -- easy fix for me, probably not for most homeowners. We don't have any dimmer switches, I suspect that may have something to do with it.
• phendrenad2 4y ago
  Is it still possible to buy incandescent bulbs? Do I need to register as an antique dealer? Asking for a friend.
• ei8ths 4y ago
  I'm not really into the details like this post was, I liked the cfl bulbs bright white. I've been trying to find bulbs like that color in the led space. My go to is the home Depot branded led that have the coils in them, and I try to do bright white. They cost more then what the cfl bulbs did which sucks. The led lights also seem to not last as long, but I do think it's been getting better. I do have two wifi wiz bulbs and they have not died, been with them for 3 years. I say bring back the spiral bulbs and let the consumers choose.
• dr_kiszonka 4y ago
  Any recommendations for decent: 1) smart LED bulbs? (I have CREE, which keep disconnecting.) 2) bright as the Sun LED bulbs? (My office is very dark and I'd like something close to 10k LUX.)
• jbverschoor 4y ago
  I have good experience with the Philips master led series. High CRI, flicker free, and some have dim-to-warm.
• iconosynclast 4y ago
  I think the problem is ultimately that LED retrofit bulbs are a fundamentally terrible idea. They offer terrible thermal performance, require the power supply to be in a tiny case together with the hot LEDs, don't make good use of the directional nature of LEDs, and perhaps worst of all they compress most of the technical complexity of lighting into a tiny and super cost sensitive commodity item that is then put into some cheap fixture. Lighting is a complex thing and LEDs in properly designed lights can be fantastic but we need to get to a point where there are good offerings of purpose made lamps that integrate LEDs in a sensible fashion rather than crappy retrofits that are barely good enough because they use an amazing technology and then squander it's potential entirely. and no having the LEDs be integrated doesn't necessarily mean they are not replaceable. COB LEDs come in standardized sizes that have solder free sockets so you could totally make a lamp where the light source could be replaced when it dies or, much more likely, be upgraded when an even nicer one comes around.
• bostonwalker 4y ago
  Here’s an additional piece of nuance that these conversations always overlook: how much waste heat is actually waste heat? Where I am in Quebec, we have hydroelectric electricity in spades and since it is so cheap many homes have electric baseboard heating. Couple that with the fact that in Quebec we run our heaters for 7 months of the year, and that means that 60% of the time your waste heat is not entirely wasted. Assuming at least 75% of the infrared radiation from the bulb remains within your home, then on average year-round 45% of the thermal energy is not wasted and your 90% efficiency improvement of LEDs suddenly only looks like a 50% improvement.
• rurp 4y ago
  My biggest gripe about LEDs is the trend towards fixtures that use them as non-replaceable bulbs. The claim is that they will last X number of decades so there will be no need to change the bulb. This is bullshit, in my experience. I bought two light fixtures like this that claimed to last "up to 40 years". Almost all have weasel words like "up to". Both were dead within a year. Instead a quick operstion to swap out the bulb I had to find whole new units and re-hardwire them in. More recently I needed a new garage light and Home Depot didn't cary a single option with replaceable bulbs. Not one.
  • mark-r 4y ago
    The super bright light I bought from Home Depot for my garage has 4 arms full of LEDs. But it screws into a standard socket, so when I need to replace it (long before its time I'm sure) I'll just unscrew it and screw in a new one. I had an over-the-stove microwave with an overhead light. When the bulb burned out I replaced it with a LED. The new bulb outlasted the microwave.
• mark-r 4y ago
  I don't know why anybody's surprised by white LEDs not aging gracefully. They're generally made by using a combination of a blue LED and a yellow phosphor. The thing about phosphors is they don't age well - they get dimmer with age. So your white LED will gradually get bluer.
• ixtli 4y ago
  I hear all these horror stories but I have bought about 10 Hue bulbs in as many years and I still use each one. Also, im extremely sensitive to flickering and temp and I notice nothing at all. Im sure if I spent 10 dollars per instead of 30-40 I could find bad ones, but I didn’t and I haven’t.
• Gordonjcp 4y ago
  If your power is coming from renewables anyway, you're probably far more eco-friendly using incandescent bulbs. Someone tell me why I'm wrong, but I feel like a coil of wire in a milk bottle with all the air sucked out that you could make in a blacksmith's forge is going to be cleaner overall than 100g of plastic, fibreglass, epoxy, copper, gallium arsenide, phosphor, and a billion-dollar factory to build it in.
• ListeningPie 4y ago
  That article really needs the date at the top. I found in the bottom, published March 27, 2023. The EU banned incandescent bulbs back in 2009. I thought he was writing about first generation LEDs, until I could confirm the date.
• deleted 4y ago
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• quantumsequoia 4y ago
  H
• throwaway689236 4y ago
  > will soon be, thanks to a federal ban, the only kind you can buy I don't take issue with LED bulbs, but I would rather have a choice nonetheless.