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Technology Connections talked a lot about this and the supposed planned obsolescence of light bulbs https://youtu.be/zb7Bs98KmnY https://youtu.be/zb7Bs98KmnY

• memefrog 3y ago
  More energy efficient, brighter and whiter.
• trompetenaccoun 3y ago
  Is there evidence for a real correlation beyond the obvious spurious one: Newer bulbs are more efficient and at the same time have a shorter lifespan due to planned obsolescence.
  • formerly_proven 3y ago
    No, this has never been researched.
  • rcxdude 3y ago
    The arguments from the basic physics of the problem makes sense: hotter bulbs means more light relative to heat output, but also shorter lifetime. It seems quite hard to get out from under that tradeoff even with improvements in the underlying tech (materials, manufacturing, etc).
    • trompetenaccoun 3y ago
      More efficient bulbs would be less hot, not more. The more energy gets converted to visible light instead of heat radiation, the more efficient the bulb is. So this argument only makes it more questionable, according to what you're saying modern bulbs should be lasting even longer than those old ones.
      • rcxdude 3y ago
        Not if you're using incandescence (LEDs and fluorescence use different mechanisms where this tradeoff doesn't exist in the same way). Incandescence is black-body radiation and the thing about black-body radiation is that as the temperature increases both the total energy given off and the proportion of higher energy radiation (useful visible light) to lower energy radiation (waste infrared) increase. So a hotter incandescent lightblub is more efficient than a cooler one (at least up until the point that it's so hot it starts giving off too much ultraviolet light, but that corresponds to a temperature at which no material is solid), though still pretty shockingly inefficient. Note that heat output and temperature can change seperately: a bulb running at a higher temperature (what I mean by hotter) can either have more light output for the same heat output, or less heat output for the same light output (for example, if the filament is shorter).
      • retrac 3y ago
        The hotter an incandescent element is, the more efficiently it converts heat to light. Think about how something metal and hot glows dull red, while something metal and really hot glows orange-white. Reaching white-hot is a trade-off, in balance with the limit of the material for how hot you can run the filament, before it boils away.
• speps 3y ago
  IIRC, it's not exactly "more energy efficient", but rather "brighter light bulbs mean shorter lifespan" so you use the energy better but it's not inherently using less energy, it's using the same energy to produce more light. It also explains why the light bulbs from TFA last so long, they're all pretty dim.
  • weberer 3y ago
    Wouldn't hotter bulbs mean less energy wasted as infrared light?
    • greggsy 3y ago
      You mean more?
      • falcrist 3y ago
        Turns out it's less. Cooler bulbs seem to generate a larger fraction of their energy in the infrared. Hotter bulbs generate not only more light, but a greater fraction of that light is visible.
        • montecarl 3y ago
          This is easier to think about, if you consider the extremes. A very low power bulb generates no visible light, but still consumes energy. This is super inefficient. At higher temperature the peak shifts to longer wavelengths (i.e. visible). You can compare the black body radiation at different temperatures using Planck's law.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_law#/media/File:Black_body.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_law#/media/File:Bla...
          • brazzy 3y ago
            >At higher temperature the peak shifts to longer wavelengths (i.e. visible) Shorter, not longer.
  • 3y ago
• mrfumier 3y ago
  "The Phoebus cartel was an international cartel that controlled the manufacture and sale of incandescent light bulbs in much of Europe and North America between 1925–1939. The cartel took over market territories and lowered the useful life of such bulbs, which falsely claimed to raise their efficiency and output." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
  • iamflimflam1 3y ago
    But also in the same wiki page: "As regards life standards, before the Phoebus Agreement and to this day the general service filament lamp was and is designed to have, on average, a minimum life of 1,000 hours. It has often been alleged—though not in evidence to us—that the Phoebus organisation artificially made the life of a lamp short with the object of increasing the number of lamps sold. As we have explained in Chapter 9, there can be no absolutely right life for the many varying circumstances to be found among the consumers in any given country, so that any standard life must always represent a compromise between conflicting factors. B.S.I, has always adopted a single life standard for general service filament lamps, and the representatives of both B.S.I, and B.E.A., as well as most lamp manufacturers, have told us in evidence that they regard 1,000 hours as the best compromise possible at the present time, nor has any evidence been offered to us to the contrary. Accordingly we must dismiss as misconceived the allegation referred to above."
    • masklinn 3y ago
      This is also what Alex explains in the Technology Connection video, and a lot more, with actual examples using actual lightbulbs and some surface explanations of the physics.
      • BillinghamJ 3y ago
        I believe his name is Alec btw :)
    • kipchak 3y ago
      The statement by UK Monopoly and Restrictive Practices Commission seems to be inaccurate as the objective was an average lifespan of 1,000 hours, not "on average a minimum life of 1,000 hours" as bulbs that exceeded 1,000 hours were fined, as well as those lasting less.[1] That bulbs lasting longer than 1,000 hours were fined, regardless of their wattage used to lumens produced seems explainable only by a desire to restrict lifespans, and contrary to efficiency or minimum lifespans being the goal. From [1], quoting Anton Phillips discussing members building higher voltage and longer lived bulbs, “This, you will agree with me, is a very dangerous practice and is having a most detrimental influence on the total turnover of the Phoebus Parties…. After the very strenuous efforts we made to emerge from a period of long life lamps, it is of the greatest importance that we do not sink back into the same mire by paying no attention to voltages and supplying lamps that will have a very prolonged life.” [1]https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy
• phpisthebest 3y ago
  That was one of the first videos were i disagreed with him completely... Looks like he let his personal politics get in the way. "yes they screwed over the consumer with their anti-competitive cartel but hey they were saving the planet so it is all forgiven" was is his basic take The ends justify the means. it was not up to the Phoebus cartel to choose what was a "better bulb"
  • armada651 3y ago
    > yes they screwed over the consumer with their anti-competitive cartel but hey they were saving the planet so it is all forgiven That's a misrepresentation of his take. He does not say that the cartel should be forgiven for their anti-competitive practices. He just said that what is often referred to as planned obsolescence, may simply have been an early form of product standardization and wasn't necessarily intended to be anti-competitive.
  • scrollaway 3y ago
    Did you watch the video or hear what you wanted to hear? His point was about the consumer’s end costs. It was cheaper to replace the lightbulbs than to be energy inefficient. He provided pretty solid evidence for that too. It wasn’t about “saving the planet”.
  • louwrentius 3y ago
    I think you totally misunderstood the video, that wasn’t his point at all. Because of the increased efficiency, you saved much more on the energy bill, even offsetting the extra cost for more light bulbs which were cheap even back then. Even if you don’t give a fuck about the planet, most people care about their wallet.
    • phpisthebest 3y ago
      I understood, it was a "consumers are too dumb to pick correctly so the experts must choose for them" argument. I reject that mentality, it is a path to lots of unintended consequences not to mention government over reach when the "experts" we are forced to follow also have the power of government authority
• raverbashing 3y ago
  I'm very glad he made this video, because the meme about planned obsolescence needs to die Yes you can make a bulb that lasts "forever", but it is very dim and consumes a lot of energy
  • armada651 3y ago
    Planned obsolescence in the modern day is a real problem rather than a meme of course. There is no insurmountable physics at play when a phone stops receiving security updates. I wonder if anyone has actually looked into what the real first instance of planned obsolescence was.
    • masklinn 3y ago
      > There is no insurmountable physics at play when a phone stops receiving security updates. There is the “insurmountable physics” problem of needing to spend money on something perceived as having no ROI worth speaking about (if it’s even positive). This is what most “planned obsolescence in the modern day” is about, not spending money you don’t absolutely have to. The precision of modern manufacturing and the progress of material science similarly allows very low tolerances, because you don’t need to account for anywhere near as much manufacturing variance. Therefore you can hew much closer to what you need to provide, and lower your costs as a result. An other factor is the market cycling, why would you design a phone to last for 10 years when pretty much none of your target market will keep the phone 3, and it will net you no brand loyalty whatsoever? Finally there’s time to market, pretty much all foldable phones seem to suffer from cracking or delamination, because it’s a super popular idea which commands a huge premium, so as soon as that was an option manufacturers started releasing device with limited real-world durability testing.
      • armada651 3y ago
        You've perfectly summarized why the only way we'll reduce e-waste is by introducing legislation that requires our electronic products last longer. This is exactly why the issue of planned obsolescence can't be left up to the market: making short-lifespan products presents a better ROI. Some may argue that this would stifle innovation and we would likely not have foldable phones today if such requirements were in place. But in my opinion if such innovations can't be made durable, then the world would be better off without them.