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>It is possible (and not very difficult) to design LED bulbs that will practically outlive their owners It is also possible (and not very difficult) to design
by jasonlaramburu 4y ago
>It is possible (and not very difficult) to design LED bulbs that will practically outlive their owners
It is also possible (and not very difficult) to design incandescent bulbs that will outlive their owners. In fact, the first mass produced light bulbs generally lasted 2,500+ hours. In the 1920s, the major bulb manufacturers formed the 'Pheobus Cartel' in Geneva and secretly colluded to limit the lifespan of bulbs to 1,000 hours to boost sales [1]. Another example of planned obsolescence harming consumers and the environment.
[1]https://interestingengineering.com/science/everlasting-lightbulbs-exist-ed https://interestingengineering.com/science/everlasting-light...
- shagie 4y agoThis goes into the "actual conspiracy - not a theory" category. Veritasium - This is why we can't have nice things - https://youtu.be/j5v8D-alAKE https://youtu.be/j5v8D-alAKE The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy > On 23 December 1924, a group of leading international businessmen gathered in Geneva for a meeting that would alter the world for decades to come. Present were top representatives from all the major lightbulb manufacturers, including Germany’s Osram, the Netherlands’ Philips, France’s Compagnie des Lampes, and the United States’ General Electric. As revelers hung Christmas lights elsewhere in the city, the group founded the Phoebus cartel, a supervisory body that would carve up the worldwide incandescent lightbulb market, with each national and regional zone assigned its own manufacturers and production quotas. It was the first cartel in history to enjoy a truly global reach. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
- garaetjjte 4y agoDevil's advocate: Incandescent lifetime is inversely related to efficiency, thus Phoebus cartel prevented spread of long-life but inefficient bulbs.
- neuralRiot 4y agoAn also should add that color temperature on incandescent lamps play a role on its lifespan, want long lasting lamps? Lower the current (or increase the resistance).
- xxs 4y agoincandescent light bulbs efficiency increases with their temperature/current. At low enough current they will last long enough but waste a lot energy as well. You can dim them, and provide a slow start to prevent the inrush current (which is like 10times more than nominal with tungsten resistance increasing due so high 2500K temps).
- 6510 4y agoput them in series
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Maursault 4y agoThankfully, LED lighting will probably be gone within 20 years, while incandescent will be coming back more efficient than LED could dream. Already bumping up against theoretical maximum efficiency, LED lighting can't get any more efficient, and the better LED is at color rendition, the less efficient it is. But there are vast amounts of improvement available for incandescent lighting, and a group at MIT has already created incandescent light that is twice as efficient as LED.[1] [1] https://news.mit.edu/2016/nanophotonic-incandescent-light-bulbs-0111 https://news.mit.edu/2016/nanophotonic-incandescent-light-bu...
- lightedman 4y agoThat incandescent cant reach the theoretical 40%, at the color temp/physical temp needed, the tungsten filament would melt.
- seanp2k2 4y agoExciting, but that article is from 2016 and here we are in 2023 with no commercial availability. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceDiscussion/comments/j6hwn0/what_ever_happened_to_that_efficient_mit/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceDiscussion/comments/j6hwn... asked what happened with no real updates.
- CydeWeys 4y agoAh yes, people, famous for living less than checks notes 2,500 hours.
- jasonlaramburu 4y agoPlease consider reading the linked article first. The longest continuously active incandescent bulb in the world was switched on in 1901.
- CydeWeys 4y agoI'm well aware of it. That's survivorship bias; it's literally the oldest one, and it's super dim, and it's never power cycled.
- mariodiana 4y agoPerhaps the planned obsolescence helped the consumer, because perhaps there would have been no willing producers if producing the lightbulbs at a price the users were willing to pay for wasn't going to turn out to be profitable, with respect to setting up production in the first place and then producing until the investment was paid back. When we're talking market price, we have to acknowledge that it is a meeting of the price needed to bring a product to market and the price the consumer is willing to pay. We can't assume that the price of the longer lasting bulb would have been attractive to consumers, when compared to the price of the shorter-lived bulb, even if they had all the information available. It's perfectly valid for a person to decide they'll spend more over the long run, rather than ponying up a larger sum now. And it's perfectly valid for producers to take the chance of deciding this for the consumer. As Henry Ford noted, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Was anybody stopping anyone from offering the consumer a higher-priced and longer-lasting bulb?
- bagels 4y ago2500 hours is 100 days. I hope I live longer than 100 more days :(
- jasonlaramburu 4y agoPlease consider reading the linked article. The longest continuously active incandescent bulb in the world was switched on in 1901.