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Fantastic summary! I wonder if the economics will make enough sense to overcome entrenched interests and the legislation backing them. It be great to have eff

by muser8 3y ago

Fantastic summary! I wonder if the economics will make enough sense to overcome entrenched interests and the legislation backing them. It be great to have efficient incandescent light and put the failed promises of LED longevity behind us.

tasty_freeze 3y ago
As far as I know, there isn't a law banning incandescent lamps. The law stated that such lighting needs to achieve a certain level of efficiency or greater, which in effect banned existing 1% efficient incandescent lights. > It be great to have efficient incandescent light and put the failed promises of LED longevity behind us. In my experience, the main failure mode of LED bulbs is the power supply -- they engineer every penny out of them even at the cost of reliability. Second, nearly all bulbs are dimmable, which complicates the power supply, because customers faced with dimmable vs non-dimmable will pick the dimmable one. Another factor is if you read those claims about 20 year lifetimes and such, often there is a footnote saying something like "assuming it is on for 3 hours a day or less". Finally, you are assuming that this new technology won't suffer the same fate as the LED bulbs. If they take off, they will be cost reduced at the expense of longevity. I saw the same thing happen in the era of floppy disks -- over time the price was reduced by a factor of 20 but reliability went down in parallel.
- kurthr 3y ago
  It's the pure penny pinching form of Muntzing (just cutting parts out to see what still works). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muntzing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muntzing There seem to be two dominant pop commercial successes, those where brand means everything and cost is increased well beyond any utility to signal wealth, and brand AND reliability mean nothing (because like your mattress it'll be a few years later anyway) which is just a race to the bottom.
  - elihu 3y ago
    My heuristic is to just buy LEDs made by Phillips or GE, since invariably any generic or store-brand LED I've tried seems to lack rectification and/or filtering and stobes at 60 or 120 hz. I haven't tried any fancy/expensive "smart" programmable bulbs, but plain ones I do get seem pretty reasonably priced.
    - Spooky23 3y ago
      I have a 60w Phillips Endura LED bulb that has been continuously lit since about 2014. Quality parts last.
      - leobg 3y ago
        It’s an aptly named product then. Quite rare these days.
        Spooky23 3y ago
        IIRC, it was a product designed for a huge Federal RFP. So it was built to meet a meaningful standard. The facilities guys at my former employer were very excited about it as they did an LED pilot previously that didnt go well.
      - Maursault 3y ago
        Undoubtedly it is not producing the same color spectrum as new, as phosphors fade over time, its blue spike is getting wider and taller, so it is always producing more and more blue light, slowly permanently blinding you while disrupting your circadian rhythms, increasing your chances of having diabetes and heart disease, and taking years off your life. But at least you saved a buck.
        fsh 3y ago
        Sunlight contains much more blue light than the output of any LED bulb. This scaremongering about blue content has no scientific backing at all.
orbital-decay 3y ago
> the failed promises of LED longevity LEDs last remarkably long if used correctly. You can make a light that will easily last thousands/dozens of thousands of hours. What doesn't last is a typical LED lightbulb for legacy sockets, because of the planned obsolescence/race to the bottom, and because it's a complete device (power supply, heatsink etc) which is far too powerful for its form-factor. Not sure what of that you expect to change.
- Maursault 3y ago
  LED phosphors begin to fade immediately. Within dozens of hours of use it will produce noticeably different light, getting bluer and bluer over time.
neilfrndes 3y ago
Check out Dubai Lamps: https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-lights-you-cant-buy/ https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li... > Dubai Lamps are special LED lamps designed by Philips for high efficiency and very long operational life. A simple design change reduces stress and excess heat that otherwise significantly lowers the mean time before failure of regular LED lamps

by muser8 3y ago

tasty_freeze 3y ago

As far as I know, there isn't a law banning incandescent lamps. The law stated that such lighting needs to achieve a certain level of efficiency or greater, which in effect banned existing 1% efficient incandescent lights. > It be great to have efficient incandescent light and put the failed promises of LED longevity behind us. In my experience, the main failure mode of LED bulbs is the power supply -- they engineer every penny out of them even at the cost of reliability. Second, nearly all bulbs are dimmable, which complicates the power supply, because customers faced with dimmable vs non-dimmable will pick the dimmable one. Another factor is if you read those claims about 20 year lifetimes and such, often there is a footnote saying something like "assuming it is on for 3 hours a day or less". Finally, you are assuming that this new technology won't suffer the same fate as the LED bulbs. If they take off, they will be cost reduced at the expense of longevity. I saw the same thing happen in the era of floppy disks -- over time the price was reduced by a factor of 20 but reliability went down in parallel.

kurthr 3y ago
It's the pure penny pinching form of Muntzing (just cutting parts out to see what still works). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muntzing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muntzing There seem to be two dominant pop commercial successes, those where brand means everything and cost is increased well beyond any utility to signal wealth, and brand AND reliability mean nothing (because like your mattress it'll be a few years later anyway) which is just a race to the bottom.
- elihu 3y ago
  My heuristic is to just buy LEDs made by Phillips or GE, since invariably any generic or store-brand LED I've tried seems to lack rectification and/or filtering and stobes at 60 or 120 hz. I haven't tried any fancy/expensive "smart" programmable bulbs, but plain ones I do get seem pretty reasonably priced.
  - Spooky23 3y ago
    I have a 60w Phillips Endura LED bulb that has been continuously lit since about 2014. Quality parts last.
    - leobg 3y ago
      It’s an aptly named product then. Quite rare these days.
      - Spooky23 3y ago
        IIRC, it was a product designed for a huge Federal RFP. So it was built to meet a meaningful standard. The facilities guys at my former employer were very excited about it as they did an LED pilot previously that didnt go well.
    - Maursault 3y ago
      Undoubtedly it is not producing the same color spectrum as new, as phosphors fade over time, its blue spike is getting wider and taller, so it is always producing more and more blue light, slowly permanently blinding you while disrupting your circadian rhythms, increasing your chances of having diabetes and heart disease, and taking years off your life. But at least you saved a buck.
      - fsh 3y ago
        Sunlight contains much more blue light than the output of any LED bulb. This scaremongering about blue content has no scientific backing at all.

orbital-decay 3y ago

> the failed promises of LED longevity LEDs last remarkably long if used correctly. You can make a light that will easily last thousands/dozens of thousands of hours. What doesn't last is a typical LED lightbulb for legacy sockets, because of the planned obsolescence/race to the bottom, and because it's a complete device (power supply, heatsink etc) which is far too powerful for its form-factor. Not sure what of that you expect to change.

Maursault 3y ago
LED phosphors begin to fade immediately. Within dozens of hours of use it will produce noticeably different light, getting bluer and bluer over time.

neilfrndes 3y ago

Check out Dubai Lamps: https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-lights-you-cant-buy/ https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li... > Dubai Lamps are special LED lamps designed by Philips for high efficiency and very long operational life. A simple design change reduces stress and excess heat that otherwise significantly lowers the mean time before failure of regular LED lamps