60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

http://www.designingwithleds.com/cree-60w-led-replacement-bulb-review-and-tear-down/?ModPagespeed=noscript

by coldpie • 13 years ago

120 186 13 years ago

This is excellent. However, please do not say "this is enough for me" after you replace all your incandescent light bulbs with these. Household energy consumption is a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket compared to industrical energy consumption and shipping.

ams61103• 13 years ago

I'm not quite sure what you're saying... that the LED bulbs have a much higher energy and environmental "cost" in manufacturing, compared to a standard incandescent? That's quite likely true and has to be considered in the big picture (similar issues with electric vehicles, that their proponents like to ignore).

For me the answer is simple: $13 is way too much to pay for a light bulb, I don't care how efficient it is.

matt_• 13 years ago

That $13 led lamp will last you 10x as long as an incandescent while saving you all of that electricity. As long as the cri is acceptable there's really no reason not to get it.

DanBC2• 13 years ago

Nakedrobot2 is saying that industry in general wastes / uses very much more energy than households do.

While it's a good thing for households to move to energy efficient lighting it's not nearly enough. We need to work out ways for industry to reduce their energy waste / use.

$13 for a lightbulb isn't too bad, if it's a nice light and efficient and lasts a long time.

Businesses pay more than that if they need their light-bulb repair technician to get a ladder.

For me the benefit of all these low energy bulbs is to have lamps everywhere, rather than one or two bright lights. It's a shame that most of them are a harsh blue/white light at the moment.

jessriedel• 13 years ago

> $13 is way too much to pay for a light bulb, I don't care how efficient it is.

You probably should care. It only takes 6 hours per day of usage for your 60W incandecent to suck up $13 of electricity in a year. And you'll have had to change it at least once. The LEDs will last for over a decade.

Yes, if you're only renting a house/apartment for a year then you may not recoup your costs (although it will be close). Similarly if the light is on for less than an hour per day. But if you plan on sticking around awhile it makes complete financial sense. You can literally save $200 per bulb over the lifetime of a bulb used heavily.

Also, the prices will continue to fall.

EDIT: mikeash is right that I should have mentioned the dependancy of efficiency savings on your local electricity prices. I used 10 cents per kilowatt hour, which is a bit under the national average of 12 cents (meaning I was being conservative in potential savings).

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/27/141766341/the-pric...

ssmoot6• 13 years ago

OTOH, my entire house is fluorescent and LED. My monthly electricity bill is $65. For a house! I never have to replace burnt out bulbs. At $13 I'd guess the LED is actually about at break-even over the life of the bulb vs incandescent unless you're buying incandescent in the big packs of 30 bulbs for $10.

The only gas in my house is my central heating, and my old water heater. I plan to replace that with point-of-use electric tankless units. No more waiting 2 minutes for hot water at the kitchen sink! With a $3,000 grid-connected solar kit I'm pretty sure I can get to near $0/month on electricity, even with the electric water heaters and the Nissan Leaf I just bought last night. ;-)

It's the future brother. Stuff lasts longer, provides a better experience and is cheaper. It's win/win/win. The environmental wins might not be all that dramatic with the impact of production factored in, but if you're in it for the long haul I figure you can still feel OK about it if you were up to replace a bulb/water-heater/car/etc anyways when you make the switch.

PS: Have you seen the price on POU tankless water heaters? Once you have the panel/breaker/wiring in place, they're dirt cheap compared to traditional water heaters.

chaostheory5• 13 years ago

Please tell me you're using CFLs as the very least. Yes the upfront price is higher, but these bulbs actually pay for themselves in approximately two years and they start saving you money after that and not to mention time from not having to buy and install new bulbs.

stonemetal• 13 years ago

Per Ahmdal's law optimizing something like residential light bulb energy use isn't going to have a large impact. So don't do it and say "this is enough for me" because you have made the smallest drop in the smallest bucket.

sixothree2• 13 years ago

It was not very long ago that CF bulbs were $13 each. And even they were still more cost efficient to buy than incandescent bulbs.

pbreit• 13 years ago

> $13 is way too much to pay for a light bulb

A bulb that never needs replacing (assuming you stay in residence less than 10 years) and pays for itself (and more) in energy savings? Sold. Easy.

othello3• 13 years ago

This is actually a common misconception: in the US (as in most OECD countries), households consume slightly more energy than the industry.

As a case in point, in 2009, industry consumed 256 million tons of oil equivalent, versus 262 mtoe for the residential sector (ie households).

http://www.iea.org/stats/balancetable.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=US

scurvy• 13 years ago

Most energy consumption in the US goes towards heating and cooling, not illumination. Making your house more energy efficient starts with your windows and doors, not your lightbulbs.

Lagged2Death2• 13 years ago

That's a difficult chart for an outsider to interpret. How are there electricity exports if there is no electricity production? How do they count "industry" and "residential?"

In any case, I'll note that the "residential" line does indeed read 262 mtoe but the "production" line at the top is 1,686 mtoe, leaving the "residential" category consuming something like 15% of total production.

Most novices and outsiders would probably be content to count non-residential energy use as "industrial," even if that doesn't match the IEA's more detailed classification. Especially energy-intensive commercial activities that I imagine must make up the "transport" category (like aviation, trucking, railroads, and shipping).

DSingularity• 13 years ago

10 year warranty. Wow.

lucaspiller• 13 years ago

> These are white LEDs, that is, blue LEDs covered with a white-light-emitting phosphor

Could someone explain that a bit more please?

jrabone• 13 years ago

There are two ways to make a white LED;

1) put red, green and blue LEDs in the same package and either bring all the connections outside for an external balancing circuit (which also lets you do multicolour effect), or balance the currents internally and just bring out two connections.

2) make a blue LED (with substantial UV output) and use a phosphor coating to re-emit "white" light. This coating appears very yellow when the LED is off, and is similar to the way a conventional fluorescent tube works.

2) is cheaper and more efficient, but only emits "white" light - the trick is getting it to not appear too blue as the phosphor doesn't absorb all the blue light.

EDIT: also, the white light from (1) is not really very white - the spectrum is hard to tailor compared to using a phosphor.

dragontamer• 13 years ago

White light is the combination of many spectrums of light. On your monitor for example, it is red + green + blue.

LEDs however, only output one narrow spectrum. So, to solve this issue, the "white" LED is really a Blue LED + a material that converts the color blue into white.

lutusp5• 13 years ago

> White light is the combination of many spectrums of light.

You mean many wavelengths of light. The light spectrum is the sum of all wavelengths of light. Also, the plural is "spectra".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum

whiskers• 13 years ago

Based on the material used an LED produces a specific colour (wavelength). To create white light you need to emit light at all wavelengths simultaneously.

White LEDs work by emitting blue light but being coated in phosphors that emit the other colours when hit by that blue light.

Often you'll see that white LEDs appear a little "cold" in colour which is caused by the slight excess of blue light compared to the phosphor generated other wavelengths.

bjustin• 13 years ago

LEDs emit light in a narrow frequency band, i.e. LEDs have intrinsic colors. White is not just one color, so your options to make white light from LEDs are:

1) Use multiple colors of LEDs, which will make the light source look white but objects lit by this source will have off colors.

2) Use a phosphor coating on the LEDs, where the phosphor absorbs (most of) the narrow frequency band output by the LEDs and emits the color(s) that you want.

In this case, they went with option 2 with a phosphor that absorbs blue light and emits broad spectrum white light.

Steuard2• 13 years ago

I'm not an expert (just a physics prof), but my understanding is that LEDs always emit one specific color (wavelength) of light rather than white light (which is a mixture of many wavelengths). So if you want to use an LED to produce white light, you set up a material that absorbs light at one wavelength and then re-emits it in a wide variety of wavelengths (that is, the phosphor).

(This is also the way that fluorescent bulbs work: the hot mercury vapor inside produces invisible ultraviolet light, but the phosphorescent coating absorbs that UV and re-emits it in a range of visible wavelengths. And it's no coincidence that they're using a blue LED with a short wavelength: in general, a phosphor can only re-emit at longer wavelengths than it absorbed. That may imply that these bulbs emit little or no violet in their "white" light, since violet has a shorter wavelength than blue.)

hcarvalhoalves• 13 years ago

If it uses a phosphor coating, isn't it also prone to the same issue of diminishing lumens over time as the CFLs? These bulbs lose up to 30% luminosity in 6 months (the tri-phospor ones, more expensive, can a last a year begore losing 10%/20%).

If they lose power like CFLs, even though the warranty is 10 years, you may be forced to replace it way before that.

unwind• 13 years ago

Basically, LEDs are typically mono-chromatic, i.e. they generate light within a pretty tight range of wavelengths (what we perceive as color).

There are two ways to get white light (which is light of "all" visible wavelengths) from a LED: combining a red, a green and a blue LED, or using a coating that when energized by (typically blue) light, in turn reacts and emits white light.

You can read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#White_ligh..., of course.

Note: I'm just an (embedded) software guy with a hobby interest in electronics. :)

sixothree2• 13 years ago

This graph helps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#RGB_system...

melling• 13 years ago

It seems like we're near the tipping point where LED lights will start to make an impact:

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=99&t=3

In addition, all those places on earth where it's dark at night should be able to use lower power lights, when the price comes down a little more.

wtdominey3• 13 years ago

Prices keep coming down. I was at IKEA last week and they were having a sale on their E26 LED bulb for only 6 bucks. Hadn't tried their LEDs before (have others from Home Depot/Lowes) but it has great light/color. Of course it being IKEA who knows what the actual mileage will be, but they're worth checking out.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/liv...

Samuel_Michon• 13 years ago

“it being IKEA who knows what the actual mileage will be”

When I moved into my home 6,5 years a go, I bought compact fluorescent lamps at IKEA (the kind that looks like a regular incandescent light bulb). I have yet to replace one.

bcl• 13 years ago

On the flip-side, I bought those same ones and haven't had them last a year. Same for the CF from Costco. I'm looking forward to long lasting LEDs. $13 is still a bit too high to replace all my lights, but I'll pick up a couple for the most used ones.

wtdominey3• 13 years ago

I've owned a bunch of those IKEA CFL bulbs. Some -- like yours -- have lasted years while others have died within a year or two. Despite their unpredictable nature I still prefer them to most big box store CFLs I've tried.

hmottestad• 13 years ago

The most powerful IKEA led is 600 lumen and uses 10W and costs 14$. The OP bulb is 800 lumen and uses 9.5W.

I read an article about the IKEA bulbs being quite good about 85% colour rendition compared to normal bulbs. If you feel like it you can test it by printing a camera colour test chart and compare how it looks under different lighting.

kyrra• 13 years ago

So I'm wondering how well this bulb would do in the L-Prize competition[1]. It looks like they have a number of testing requirements, but their primary goal is to have a good lumen output and lumen/watt ratio. It's run by the US Department Of Energy. Consumer Reports[2] started testing the previous winner[3] of the L-Prize competition.

[1] http://www.lightingprize.org/

[2] http://news.consumerreports.org/home/2012/08/first-look-at-t...

[3] http://www.usa.philips.com/c/energy-saving-light-bulbs/ambie...

ars7• 13 years ago

It doesn't meet the requirements, so it can't enter.

The competition requires a CRI of at least 90, but this bulb only rates 80.

ck2• 13 years ago

We talked about this a month or two ago here.

The amazing part of this bulb is not it's watts or it's cost.

It's that a manufacturer finally put it's warranty where it's mouth is.

With a 10 year warranty I will actually buy it compared to the Phillips.

BTW I've yet to have a cheap chinese led 110v bulb last more than 3 years.

qompiler• 13 years ago

Until your LED bulb starts making a strange noise and you discover these things actually have a cooling fan inside of them. This thing WILL fail if kept running for a long time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5avJVvrFedc

benjamincburns3• 13 years ago

MR16s (the type of bulb in the parent's video) are tough because of their size and limited surface area relative to their lumen output. Most retrofit lamps such as the A19 (the form-factor that most people think of when they think of a light bulb) have 100% passive thermal management. That said, there are a few really good fully-passive, high-output MR16s on the market.

I believe switching capacitors in the power supply are what limit the lifetime of most LED bulbs - electrolytic caps being one of the worst offenders. Good thermal management helps mitigate these problems, but a lot of failures are chemical in nature - caused by the degradation of the capacitor's electrolyte. This is why we've all seen the capacitor choice in motherboards and PSUs used as a marketing item.

Full disclosure: I used to work for a well-known LED lighting company, but please take the above with a grain of salt as I am not an electrical engineer. [Edit: And of course, these views I've expressed are my own and not representative of my past employer.]

ars7• 13 years ago

We talked about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5329732

And the biggest problem with this bulb is the CRI of 80. That's much worse than CFL's which are typically around 90.

justin666• 13 years ago

Is that really the typical CFL number? I ask because I've got one of the new Cree bulbs and I find the quality of light really a lot better than that of the (admittedly cheap) CFLs I've bought at Costco.

So I guess I'm struggling with the significance of CRI.

Cyranix• 13 years ago

Is it correct to assume that CRI stands for color rendering index? New term to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

No12• 13 years ago

"That's much worse than CFL's which are typically around 90."

How did you come up with that typical number? Typically, CFLs meet the minimum energy star requirement which is 82.

If you don't believe me, browse through GE's catalog for a while...

http://genet.gelighting.com/LightProducts/Dispatcher?REQUEST...

chaostheory5• 13 years ago

I'm not sure how revolutionary this is mainly because I live in a state the subsidizes the cost of energy efficient light bulbs and the IKEAs sell $10 60W equivalents.

ars7• 13 years ago

$10 for a CFL?? Or led? Because CFL's cost about $1, not $10.

tocomment2• 13 years ago

I'd be pretty happy to get away from compact fluorescencts. They're filled with mercury gas (I think). It's bad news if you break one and inhale it. And I'm not sure what happens to the mercury when you dispose of them either.

Edit:

For you downvoters out there, it is considered a serious risk. Here's another article about the problems: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7431198

Nursie2• 13 years ago

It's no big deal.

www.popularmechanics.com/home/reviews/news/4217864

If you make a habit of breaking them open near your face and inhaling the gas, you probably have bigger problems. I've read that the actual average mercury exposure from a broken CFL is less than 10% of the mercury exposure from a serving of tuna.

tocomment2• 13 years ago

Yeah they say that, but then in that same article look at the advice for cleaning up a broken CFL. If it's no big deal, why do I need to open the windows, wear gloves, etc?

What is the proper way to handle a broken CFL? Open the windows and let the room air out for 15 to 30 minutes, then remove as much material as possible without a vacuum cleaner. Using disposable gloves, scoop the glass onto a piece of cardboard and wipe the area with a wet paper towel. For smaller pieces of glass and powder, use duct tape to pull up the fragments and wash your hands after cleaning up the debris.

natch2• 13 years ago

I had upwards of 20 CFL light bulbs in my house and over time I noticed that they typically were cracking at the base, thereby leaking whatever was in them, after a few years of use. After you replace 20 with 20 more, and repeat a few times, the numbers start to add up. I decided to get rid of them. And I don't eat tuna.

officialjunk• 13 years ago

Rant: when are we going to stop using watts as a unit for lightbulb "brightness?" The actual unit we care about is only implied by saying "60 watt equivalent." :(

tiziano88• 13 years ago

Brightness: 800 lumens

lutusp5• 13 years ago

It's technically questionable, but the alternatives require units with which the public may be unfamiliar. A "better" unit in some cases might be lumens per watt, but this still doesn't help an unsophisticated consumer choose a replacement for a 60W incandescent bulb.

cjensen• 13 years ago

Yep. 60W incandescent bulbs do not all have the same lumen output, which leads to LED makers claiming "60W equivalent" when they really mean "equivalent to a lousy 60W bulb".

codemonkeymike• 13 years ago

The real benefit comes from not having to break out the ladder every time your ceiling light goes out.

wtdominey3• 13 years ago

Exactly. I have a friend who never turns on his (high) ceiling lights to avoid replacing the bulbs. I suggested LEDs. Funny, for he'd rather the bulbs be functional and never on than non-functional and never on, which is kind of OCD when you think about it.

protomyth3• 13 years ago

So, what LED bulb is available to replace 100W incandescent?

chaostheory5• 13 years ago

It already came out last year: http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/128669-philips-new-10...

protomyth3• 13 years ago

Is it any good?

mp99e99• 13 years ago

Its amazing how small changes like these can cause a seachange in power consumption real difference in our collective future. This change alone could be a serious bear market for power companies! This, mixed with generally growing renewable means a greener planet may be closer than we think... most data assume constant consumption/or growth with population.

nsxwolf4• 13 years ago

I like the color temperature of incandescent bulbs. That alone is worth the extra electricity expense.

It's a bit funny how many of us obsess about the calibration of our monitors and tablets, even installing utilities that change the color temperature at different times of day to be easier on our eyes. But we don't seem to care as much about the ambient light that we see everywhere.

Also, many of my fixtures expose the bulbs and look ridiculous without a clear glass incandescent bulb.

nexox• 13 years ago

I obsess about lighting plenty (more than just color temperature - florescent flicker that most people don't notice irritates me to no end,) but I don't subscribe to the idea that incandescent light sources are automatically better.

I recently acquired a 40W-equivalent version of this bulb, and in A/B testing vs a 57W "efficient" incandescent, I lost track of which bulb was which. The LED bulb actually had a warmer color that the incandescent, plus very similar brightness.

Of course, most of my bulbs are horrible, dim, slow, ugly, toxic, cool white CCFLs, installed by the previous owner (even in fixtures with exposed bulbs,) so pretty much any bulbs constitute a serious improvement.

jseliger2• 13 years ago

Try Switch LEDs: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/11/... . They're actually available, and I have a couple, which are pretty good, though the upfront cost is high.

nsxwolf4• 13 years ago

Looks worth a shot for some rooms/fixtures, but not the chandeliers.

Also: I forgot about my can lights. They don't seem to have that form factor.

drivers992• 13 years ago

Efficient lightbulbs come in various color temperatures. You don't need incandescents to get the same color temperature. I don't like the harsher blue ones so I buy the warmer ones for at home.

nsxwolf4• 13 years ago

I still suspect it won't "look right", as there's more to it than just color. The geometric patterns it may cast on the wall, maybe some other "intangible" effects.

I'll have to try one out. It may just be that I'm on the vinyl side in the lighting equivalent of the "vinyl vs CD" debate.

jcampbell14• 13 years ago

You can match the color temperature. The problem is the color rendering. With CFLs, 10 different shades of red that you can distinguish under incandescent bulbs all look the same.

The CRI of incandescents is 100, LEDs are around 90, and CFLs are around 70. Under real world tests, the human eye can't distinguish additional colors in LED vs incandescent bulbs.

thrownaway24244• 13 years ago

"Under real world tests, the human eye can't distinguish additional colors in LED vs incandescent bulbs."

No.

protomyth3• 13 years ago

As a side note, there is an fxguidetv[1] episode[2] where they talk to Dedo Weigert about LEDs. It is a very interesting interview that talks about some LED myths and color temperature.

1) http://www.fxguide.com/fxguidetv

2) http://www.fxguide.com/fxguidetv/fxguidetv-170-dedo-on-dedol...

natch2• 13 years ago

Surprised that site has not done a teardown of the (more expensive) Phillips bulbs that have similar specs. They've been around longer and are the ugly oddly shaped yellow plastic ones. Mine have a bit of a buzzing sound when dimmed, even though the packaging claims this won't happen... am thinking of moving to Crees but it would be nice to see a comparison of the innards.

lutusp5• 13 years ago

> They've been around longer and are the ugly oddly shaped yellow plastic ones.

They're certainly ugly, but for the record, they aren't yellow when powered. I also learned today that they have a little fan inside -- supposedly silent in most circumstances.

I suspect that ten or twenty years from now we'll look back on these early designs and laugh our heads off. Just as with computers.

deweller• 13 years ago

Anyone else having trouble actually buying these? I ordered two on March 7th and am still waiting for delivery to my local Home Depot.

lutusp5• 13 years ago

The good news is that Home Depot's price for this item is lower than anyone else's. (Amazon.com has the same item for $17.44.) The bad news is they can't actually deliver it.

This is a common practice -- attract shoppers with a killer low price on an item that, for one reason or another, isn't actually available. I'm not saying Home Depot intentionally did this -- maybe they innocently underestimated public interest.

dhstylez2• 13 years ago

Actually I saw a bunch of these in-store today. The Cree "60W replacement" was ~$10.

FWIW, I picked up 'Philips 9.5-Watt BR30 Indoor Flood Soft White (2700K) LED Light Bulb (4-Pack)' for $60 online from Home Depot, thought it was a pretty decent deal at the time.

com2kid7• 13 years ago

I am unimpressed by 60 watt equivalent bulbs. A 60 watt equivalent is about enough to be a desk lamp, if I need to provide light for even a small room it is a useless amount unless I get a large number of bulbs together.

Unfortunately 60 watt equivalent has become some sort of benchmark for new light bulb technology. If you really want to replace lighting in some meaningful way, start quoting 100 watt equivalent numbers to me.

hnriot• 13 years ago

Nonsense! You're eyes adjust to very low light levels, far below what a 60W bulb outputs in lumens.

EliRivers2• 13 years ago

Good enough to see, not good enough for fine work.

60W was enough for me a decade ago. Now for fine work I need 100W. I can still see with 60W, but what was enough for fine work a decade ago is not enough now. I understand this will get worse as I get older. I don't have any particular visual conditions; I'm just aging.

ajross3• 13 years ago

If only someone made a "fixture" for lighting with multiple bulb sockets in a convenient, attractive mounting that could be attached to the ceiling of a room.

The 60W incandescent light bulb has been the "standard lightbulb" since before most of us were born. Honestly I don't understand this criticism at all. Certainly LED lighting is available in many form factors other than a 60W bulb...

com2kid7• 13 years ago

> If only someone made a "fixture" for lighting with multiple bulb sockets in a convenient, attractive mounting that could be attached to the ceiling of a room.

My condo's living room doesn't have a ceiling mounted light fixture, or a place to install one at. I'm sure the job could be done, but it'd be a major pain.

> The 60W incandescent light bulb has been the "standard lightbulb" since before most of us were born. Honestly I don't understand this criticism at all. Certainly LED lighting is available in many form factors other than a 60W bulb...

Thus I'm stuck using a stupid stand lamp, which right now is only 1 bulb. (My previous 3 bulb stand started smoking when I put in a 150W equivalent CFL, heh)

Sure 60W has been standard, but for what purpose? Just one of them is useless, and heck 3 of them isn't much better. 3 75s is actually useful, and a couple of 100s is preferred.

mixmastamyk• 13 years ago

1 x 100w is a lot more efficient than 3 x 60.

benjamincburns3• 13 years ago

This is kind of an obsolete way of thinking. Most people think of "X-watt equivalent" as the area illumination caused by an X-watt omnidirectional A19 incandescent. Industry expresses equivalency in terms of lumens, or total light output, but not total illumination of a specified area. This is only apples-to-apples for fully omnidirectional bulbs.

LED lighting is costly and complex enough that directional LED bulbs are more or less at cost parity with omnidirectional LED bulbs. In fact, true omnis are often more expensive just because LEDs are inherently directional. This is the first time in the history of lighting where omni wasn't significantly less expensive than directional.

Truth is, there are very few scenarios where a high-output omnidirectional lamp actually makes sense. We're used to omnis because they were much cheaper to purchase than their more efficient, directional brethren and because it's convenient to just slap a bright bulb in a socket and say "eh - good enough."

Since most people buy LED bulbs for the gains in efficiency, doesn't it make more sense to buy the lower-power directional lamps which are more fit for their application? How many fixtures do you have in your home that require a true omni-directional lamp? How many of those fixtures need a high-output omni? Now, how many fixtures do you have that could make good use of a directional bulb (either narrow or wide-beam)?

tl;dr: Talking about incandescent watt equivalency only benefits marketing people and confuses consumers - take a look at directional lamps and you'll be less disappointed.

com2kid7• 13 years ago

> LED lighting is costly and complex enough that directional LED bulbs are more or less at cost parity with omnidirectional LED bulbs. In fact, true omnis are often more expensive just because LEDs are inherently directional. This is the first time in the history of lighting where omni wasn't significantly less expensive than directional.

There was that awesome Kickstarter awhile back for a nice omnidirectional LED bulb, I'm looking forward to its delivery!

> Truth is, there are very few scenarios where a high-output omnidirectional lamp actually makes sense. We're used to omnis because they were much cheaper to purchase than their more efficient, directional brethren and because it's convenient to just slap a bright bulb in a socket and say "eh - good enough."

With this I disagree. Open spaces such as a living room are perfect for omnidirectional lighting.

Indeed when I have lived in places with track lighting the annoying part was always trying to spread the light out enough to make it seem omnidirectional without having a bunch of bright hot spots around the room.

When I am cooking or something, sure, light up my working surfaces, but for general ambiance when I am at home I want the entire bloody room I am in lit up!

Now just do that while saving power. :)

Indeed, if you look at how recessed lighting is installed (and I'll be the first to point out that recessed lighting is generally stupid), there are a ton of cans installed in a grid throughout the ceiling to provide what is essentially uniform brightness in a room.

jseliger2• 13 years ago

If you really want to replace lighting in some meaningful way, start quoting 100 watt equivalent numbers to me.

Here you go: http://store.earthled.com/products/switch-switch100-led-ligh... , though note that the upfront cost is high. Scroll down to see the performance specs.

lutorm3• 13 years ago

Even if I want more light, one single high-output bulb is a bad way to do it. Spreading the light out over more sources gives a much more even, ambient-like illumination.

dClauzel• 13 years ago

Absolutely.

The real challenge is to propose an affordable LED bulb that can provide at least 1300 lumens.

rdl3• 13 years ago

What I'd really prefer is using LEDs to do novel kinds of lighting fixtures, not just replace edison-screw-base incandescents. I want a glowing uniform ceiling square, wall square, undercounter wide strip, etc.

dfc2• 13 years ago

Under cabinet?

drakaal• 13 years ago

This is Spam. There are a few dozen of these with better economics on Amazon. And if you want to light a house on the cheap, the LED "ropes" are more efficient, and will last longer.

Also a CFT would be 12W and cost $2 ($1.25 if you look around). Over 10 years in most markets that would be cheaper.

PS: My Home is almost 100% LED's. I love them. But that doesn't mean they are always the cheapest, the most efficient, or the best for the planet. I just prefer the dimmable nature and the consistent color across the dimming.

pizza• 13 years ago

I thought the analysis was insightful..

RHSeeger• 13 years ago

We use CFT in our house for a number of places (kitchen lamp, etc). For other places, we use LED... specifically in places where, when I flip the switch, I want full light output immediately like my office. CFTs are horrible at taking too long to get to a useful state of light output.

umsm3• 13 years ago

If a bulb slowly becomes brighter, it's easier on the eyes.

umsm3• 13 years ago

Home Depot has CFTs on sale for less than $3 for a pack of 4. A few months ago, they had a sale: 4 bulbs for $1 :D Needless to day, I bought a box full of them.

jcampbell14• 13 years ago

I dislike the consistent color across dimming. The whole point of dimming lights is to lower the color temperature. It is impossible to get a candle like ambiance with LEDs. If you want less total light, it is easy to just turn fewer lights on.

hosh2• 13 years ago

What an amazing insight! Turn on less lights! ;-)

justin666• 13 years ago

> I dislike the consistent color across dimming. The whole point of dimming lights is to lower the color temperature.

To each his own, but it's funny, I _love_ this about the LED lights. It has been a pet peeve of mine pretty much forever that I cannot get the low level of light I want out of dimmed incandescents because the light becomes unbearably orange when turned down that low.

clauretano2• 13 years ago

Philips has solved this with "DimTone" http://www.usa.lighting.philips.com/lightcommunity/trends/le...

efraim• 13 years ago

Here's a video teardown of one of these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlyYjcXgz1s

ahen• 13 years ago

Note: author did a followup article with questions for Cree (manufacturer) a week later: http://www.designingwithleds.com/qa-with-cree-about-60w-repl...

craftkiller• 13 years ago

Not that anyone would care, but I have one of these illuminating my room right now. I think I am done with CFLs.

ZeroCoin2• 13 years ago

I just bought a 5k and 2.7k versions from Home Depot here in Canada for $15.97 CAD each.

My only gripe is the ~22% markup over the US pricing when the Canadian Dollar is worth ~2% more than the American (and has been for some time now).

I found it funny the way they had their lights laid out in my local store. There has always only ever been one aisle dedicated to twist-in bulbs.

When I entered the store today, and walked straight to that aisle. All I could find were phillips LED bulbs. Rashes of them. Almost every shelf in the aisle featured a Phillips LED bulb of some sort, for twice the price of the Crees. There were even Phillips LED comparison kisosks where consumers could turn on and off all of Phillips' LED bulbs. It was really quite a spectacle.

I broke down and finally asked a sales rep, only to be told the Cree bulbs were in the "fancy/expensive" lighting section of the store. The one where they sell all of the chandeliers and lamps, and you have never been able to find twist-ins for sale.

My gut feeling is that Phillips is scared they're going to lose market share over this, and are using their massive Home Depot contracts to negotiate poor placement for the Crees (and possibly poor pricing?). FYI 90%+ of the bulbs sold in Home Depots are Phillips.

justin666• 13 years ago

> My gut feeling is that Phillips is scared they're going to lose market share over this, and are using their massive Home Depot contracts to negotiate poor placement for the Crees (and possibly poor pricing?). FYI 90%+ of the bulbs sold in Home Depots are Phillips.

It'd be interesting to know what kind of maneuvering the companies are doing. Here in the US Cree is paying for a single "end cap" (end of the aisle placement in the front of the store) and the bulbs are selling out fast. Home depot is also their main distributor. But the store is littered with other brands, not just Philips.

ZeroCoin2• 13 years ago

I should take a picture of my Local home depot's light bulb "selection", it truly is humorous.

I picked up my two cree bulbs in an "end cap"-esque box today, however it was not at the end of any aisle, rather hidden away in the lamp section.

moheeb• 13 years ago

That is something I've never understood...how can the Canadian dollar be worth 2% more when prices are nearly always much higher in Canada?

qu4z-22• 13 years ago

Because exchange rates and cost of living are two separate things.

The Canadian dollar is worth 2% more, meaning for one Canadian dollar you get USD$1.02. On the other hand, stuff in Canada is more expensive no matter whether you're paying in CAD or USD. Exchange rate is to do with currencies, independent of location; cost-of-living is to do with location [pretty much] independent of currency.

To see a much more drastic difference in cost of living, try going somewhere like Siam^WThailand.

Maybe someone else can fill in the details on the factors that influence exchange rate and cost of living.

EEGuy2• 13 years ago

Something not qualified numerically about LED or CFL lamps, but a moderate consideration for me is analog FM radio interference ("RFI").

In one of the smallest rooms of my house, there are two of the Philips LED bulbs of the "yellow when off" variety. In an adjoining area there is another bulb of the same type.

There is audible RFI with the room's lights on when the battery-powered FM radio (with a rod antenna, about 3 feet from one of the bulbs) is accurately tuned in to a favorite but moderately distant (perhaps 30 miles), moderately powered (6 KW, not a lot) FM station. Moving the rod antenna away can stop the RFI, but then the antenna happens to block a doorway.

Turning off the lighting stops the RFI. The lamp in the adjoining room is apparently distant enough not to interfere with the FM radio.

I wonder if the CREE bulbs are any better in this regard, but not seeing anything in the teardown pictures that looks like shielding or ferrite chokes makes means I'll probably keep the existing bulbs; the RFI isn't bad enough.

60W equivalent LED bulb uses 9.5W and costs $13

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