Gembird EnerGenie LED bulb on indiegogo?

Link here. Has anyone else come across this? I've seen heat pipes mentioned before in discussion of LED bulbs but dont think I've seen anything that implemented it before.

They claim 1080 lumens at 8W power consumption and a 330 degree output angle, 85CRI and 2700K and 4000K options (it's not clear if the 4000K will have 85CRI)... Oh and it's dimmable :thumbsup:

Personally, I think this product is a case of function over form (meaning: I think it's a bit ugly ) but it's interesting to see a different design of LED bulb.

Interestingly, it looks like they're pressing ahead with production and the indiegogo campaign is "to get the feedback from the market, to find out where exactly we can expect the biggest demand for the product."

sbwire.com report on the product (not much more info than the indiegogo page).

What do you guys think? Worth a pledge?

(I'm not affiliated in anyway with the company or campaign, just an interested consumer)

Edit to add: Also, that campaign video is shockingly amatureish...

A few novel concepts: It packs a small number of LED's in close, uses a heatpipe to transport the heat to big finned heatsinks, and isolates the "easily-replaceable" driver from the heat of the LED's.

Concerned about the small number of LED's - being driven hard to hit their lumen numbers. Even if they're "high voltage" packages, that still puts a lot of heat in each package.

The distinct thermal stages are interesting - heat is generated, transported away from the generation point, dissipated via radiator/heatsinks - all isolated from the driver electronics. I know that heatpipes have been used for CPU and IC cooling for years, just wonder how well the concept will work for LEDs, which seem appreciably more temperature-sensitive. The radiator section is not particularly pleasing to look at, although it seems necessary; begs the question if all those tiny fins so distant from the heatpipe are effective at conducting heat to the atmosphere. Not a worry for me since I have no centerpiece lighting fixtures that use Edison sockets anyway.

The replaceable driver sort of tries to anticipate the Zhaga Standard for discrete lamps - useful if it is indeed easy to replace and they sell them conveniently/cheaply, not so much if not. One wonders if the thing can be disassembled, and what sort of contacts are used... Seems like a gimmick as quickly as LED bulbs evolve - seriously doubt that it's going to be on the market and/or supported long enough for it to make sense to stock replacement drivers.

gravelmonkey said:

Personally, I think this product is a case of function over form (meaning: I think it's a bit ugly ) but it's interesting to see a different design of LED bulb.

Click to expand...

You're welcome to excellent Form with poor Function ... I'll choose the latter.



Tangential: I'm not understanding some of these kickstarter/indiegogo/etc campaigns that basically amount to...
Hi - we're an established company with some semblance of access to capital for R&D, yet here we are on some crowd-funding site soliciting pledges for a product anyway. Did the bank really turn us down? Did we exhaust our line of credit? Is this just some marketing ploy to gauge interest? Are we using the story of needing funds to develop the project as some way around restrictions on pre-payment? Who knows - just throw money at us and maybe you'll get our offering at a discount!

Here are my thoughts on the matter:

1) Unless I missed something recent in incandescent efficacy, we are looking at 16 lumens per watt.

16 lumens * 100 watts = 1600 lumens

They claim eight watts in nets the same number of lumens as a standard 100 watt incandescent,
i.e., 1,080 lumens:

1,080 lumens / eight watts in = 135 lumens per watt

Now, don't me wrong, that is some great efficiency. But let's call it as it is.

That is, on average, 500 or so lumens less than a "100 watt" incandescent.

2) Something doesn't seem right. First, they claim they already have all the money they need,
and they are just doing this to find out which countries have an interest. But that seems odd.

Seems more like they need the funds to get off the ground and get running.

3) $130.00 for five bulbs = $26.00 per bulb.

If this were an incandescent, we get

1,080 lumens / 16 lumens per watt = 67.5 watts

That means that in terms of output, this bulb is somewhere between a 60 watt
and 75 watt incandescent.

The Cree puts out 800 lumens using 9.5 watts.

Cree: 800 lumens / 9.5 watts = 84 lumens per watt

EnerGenie: 1,080 lumens / 8 watts = 135 lumens per watt

Definitely way more efficient.

4) I would like to know the internal temperature of the driver cavity after, say, 20 minutes
of constant operation.

Tempting, yes. But something just doesn't quite feel right...

Perhaps the gentleman in the video can drop by this thread and address some of
the concerns stated.

Emailed earlier today:

"Hello! I have some questions about the EnerGenie LED bulb.

1) At 16 lumens per watt for an incandescent, and only 1,080 for this bulb,
how can you say that this bulb is equivalent to a 100 watt incandescent?

2) Do you already have the funds to produce these? The indiegogo website
says you are only looking to see where the need is.

Or, do you need 50,000 dollars USD to get started?

3) Can you achieve 90 CRI in the future?

4) Can you send more pictures of the bulb in operation?

5) What is the power factor?

~Thank you!"

Why do I become leery everytime I look at a kickstarter type of project? Is it just because it seems like the old snake oil salesmen who show up briefly and tell you they have the greatest thing in the world and no one else has ever designed anything like it? Oh.. and they'll be gone tomorrow, so don't think about trying to get a refund or replacement for a bad product.

oh well... actually, I do like the fundamentals of the design. i.e. putting a decent heatsink on the LED light, for heaven's sake! The downside is that this increases the cost a fair bit, but $30 retail might not be a bad price. I don't know why they would use a heat pipe, though, when just a nice copper (or aluminum) rod would do a pretty good job too. Wouldn't an actual heat pipe be a rather pricey means to move the energy an inch?

Other niggling issues:

1. why does he say "if you give us $30, we'll send you a bulb for free"? I may have slightly mis-quoted it, but if I'm sending them $30, then the bulb isn't free.

2. why do they say "•No LED degradation, no decrease in light output over years of use"? They actually mean "no degradation due to the LEDs cooking at 100 degrees C", right?

3. why would I trust these guys to build a reliable product? We've seen established companies like Cree and Philips produce bulbs with some production quality issues (and maybe even design issues), so why would these guys do better? Or is this just a bit of PTSD from my job, where I've seen so many electronics suppliers periodically do remarkably dumb things?

okay, other than the usual skepticism generated by any fund raising pitch, I think that underlying concept has merit!

The following is posted with the express written consent of Gembird Europe:

1.The incandescent bulb is indeed able to produce 16 lumens per watt, but in this case its lifetime will be not 1750 hours but around 400. 400 hours is too short, this is why most of the commonly produced 100W incandescent bulbs only achieve 1050-1250 lumens, see below a typical example...

In fact our lamp is able to produce up to 1300 lumens, but in this case we should use a different driver, which would consume around 10W of energy.

2.Correct, we have already invested our own money in production of these bulbs. Our problem is that we are originally a computer company and we have no ready sales channel for the LED bulbs. With our Indiegogo project we hope to get some market feedback and perhaps find some partners for the future sales.

3.We can achieve 90 CRI right now. But in this case the bulb would be slightly more expensive.

4.Hereby I enclose another photo of the bulb in operation.

5.The power factor is 0.95.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have some more questions:

1) May I reproduce your answers here so more people can see?

http://goo.gl/6owmmd

Thanks for your message. Yes, sure, you can reproduce our answers and
pictures. In fact we were going to put them into the FAQ section of our
story as well.

2) I do not understand what you mean when you say that this bulb is
the same output as 100 watt incandescent light bulb. Yes, 100 watt
incandescent light bulb will not live as long, but 100 watt
incandescent light bulb will put out 1600 lumens vs. 1080 lumens for
this one.

Incandescent light bulb of 1600 lumen will have a very short life - around
400 hours. This is why you will not see many such bulbs on the market.

When we say that our bulb is similar to 100W incandescent bulb, this is true
for some long-life incandescent bulbs - I gave you one example in my other
message. But you are right - 100W claim is more to attract attention rather
than the big truth. What we do claim is that our bulb is around 40% more
efficient in comparison to the traditional LED bulbs.



4) Can this bulb be used in a closed fixture with no opening, like a
globe or sphere?

Or, must this bulb have air circulation for good, long life?

I will check the questions 4 and 5 of your e-mail with the relevant
departments and get back to you as soon as possible.


Here is a thumbnail of a photo he sent to me. Click it to make it very large:

I have to agree with Steve K. Some detectors triggered when scrutinizing what those guys have published.

incandescent equiv. -- think 230V efficacy vs. 120V filament efficacy.

If they wanted to commercially sell a 100w-equivalent in the EU, it would need to be 1521 lumens or more, for a sub-90 cri lamp.


So I think I'll just order a case of 4000 K, 95 cri, 1500 lm, 7 w led bulbs instead. From Nigeria, pre-paid.

*suggested frosted envelope, later noticed envelope IS frosted. Still, interesting to see what will come of this.*

The reason most LED lights fail is not because of the LEDs, but because the electrolytic capacitors fail. They really haven't addressed this issue, except to say that the driver will be replaceable. Nobody wants to take this apart and replace the driver. You might as well replace the whole thing when it breaks.

LEDAdd1ct said:

Incandescent light bulb of 1600 lumen will have a very short life - around 400 hours. This is why you will not see many such bulbs on the market.

Click to expand...

Err, no. You don't see them because various governments have decided to squeeze them out. Otherwise they would still be everywhere.

When we say that our bulb is similar to 100W incandescent bulb, this is true for some long-life incandescent bulbs - I gave you one example in my other message. But you are right - 100W claim is more to attract attention rather than the big truth.

Click to expand...

Translated: We lied, but it's OK.

Arilou said:

The reason most LED lights fail is not because of the LEDs, but because the electrolytic capacitors fail. They really haven't addressed this issue, except to say that the driver will be replaceable. Nobody wants to take this apart and replace the driver. You might as well replace the whole thing when it breaks.

Click to expand...

If they have isolated the driver from the LED heat as claimed, perhaps they will see much lower rates of driver failure to the point that their alleged replace-ability is moot.

Ken_McE said:

Err, no. You don't see them because various governments have decided to squeeze them out. Otherwise they would still be everywhere.

Click to expand...

Despite the amount of complaining most people engage in when it comes to replacing high-use light bulbs, I suspect they'd still be popular today if available.

—some more:



I checked your issues but had no time to reply till now:

1. EnerGenie bulb will have no issues with the closed fixtures. The reason -
the radiator is designed redundantly - it is able to dissipate 21W of energy
while only 8W is required. Enclosed photo of such fixture we've been testing
for a year now - no LED degradation issues whatsoever so far!

2. mass production is scheduled for January 2014

They are now using LG LEDs.

Click thumbnail for much larger photo:

Me:

"—one more question:

3) What is the temperature inside the driver cavity after 30 minutes
of operation?

I want to know to see if the capacitors/driver/electronics will wear
out fast and die, shortening lifespan of unit."

Looks like you are missing the point - in our design the driver is well
separated from both the LEDs and radiator, it does not become hot at all
(apart from 1W own consumption) and keeps the room temperature.

Hopefully enclosed picture would clarify the issue to you.

Here is the photo he sent me to illustrate his point.

Like the others, it is a thumbnail, so please click for a much larger version:




Here is my reply to him:

"If I can make one suggestion:

Maybe you can change your advertisement on your website to state
"Equal to 70 watt incandescent light bulb."

People may get upset if they expect full 1600 lumens like with
"regular" 100 watt incandescent bulb, and only get 1080 lumens.

I think if you want your business to prosper, you need to be
completely honest with your customers."

We'll see if they get sued for the design, very similar to the Filament Tower in the Cree bulb.

From our latest correspondence:

Thank you for your message and you are VERY WELCOME to contact us any time.
In fact getting the market feedback was one of the objectives we had when we
decided to publish our project at IGG. And actually you are the first person
asking some sensible questions - all this 30 days after going live!

Regarding your point about being honest to the customers, let me explain to
you again:

1. This is our first experience with a crowd-funding website and obviously
we are making a lot of mistakes. However when you look at the market place
with over 500 pages of projects, 99% of which do not get a single
contribution, the instinctive response is to shout as hard as you can to
catch at least some attention. Please, note that nowhere in the text of our
story did we mention that our EnerGenie LED bulb produces the same light as
100W incandescent bulb, we are only talking about 1080 lumens. 100W is only
mentioned in the header of our project without even referring to
incandescent bulbs.

2. I already stressed this point but perhaps you did not fully understand or
my poor English was not good enough to explain it properly. 100W
incandescent bulbs can produce anything between 1050 and 1600 lumen
depending on their lifetime. Once again, as evidence hereby I enclose a
picture of a long-life 100W incandescent bulb (GE Reveal) - it produced 1070
lumen. So technically it is not a lie to call our EnerGenie bulb equivalent
of a 100W incandescent bulb.

3. In comparison to this innocent marketing trick how would you rate the
other LED bulbs manufacturers, easily rounding lumens up and watts down,
these lumens and watts being counted at a very special place under very
special conditions? Or declaring 50000 hours of the lifetime? Or forgetting
to inform the customers about such thing as LED long-term degradation?

If you have time, I hope you can share your view with us on why our project
at IGG does not get much success. Is it because Americans consider our bulbs
too expensive and don't care about quality? Or is it because of poor quality
video/other presentation materials? Or is it some kind of mistrust of
foreigners? Any other reason?

Thanks again...


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Me:

1) ...thank you for your very long response.

2) May I please post it in this thread here?

http://goo.gl/6owmmd

Maybe then I can provide some better feedback for you.

3) With respect to marketing, I only have one response....

a) Two wrongs do not make a right,

and,

b) Even if someone else uses tricky marketing, you must still
have a higher standard to live by.

4) If it is okay to post your response in the thread here:

http://goo.gl/6owmmd

maybe then you can see what you can do to get a better level
of feedback from buyers.

5) Your English is good—much, much better than my Dutch!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You don't have to ask me, you may post all my answers on your thread.

About the marketing tricks - it is not the decision of engineers. We have
marketing people and this what they decided to do. In fact our engineers are
not English-speaking and what you see on the website is actually a
translation made by the marketing - not always 100% accurate.

Anyway, I really do not attribute our lack of success to this 100W story.

Thanks

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*END CORRESPONDENCE*
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've had a long day and I am turning in. Still not sure if I will donate to the site, but I probably will.

The driver separation from the heatsink and LEDs looks good, the efficiency looks great,
the price ain't bad, and I don't mind the wait.

We'll see what happens in March 2014...

LEDAdd1ct said:

Me:

"—one more quesiton:

3) What is the temperature inside the driver cavity after 30 minutes
of operation?

I want to know to see if the capacitors/driver/electronics will wear
out fast and die, shortening lifespan of unit."

Looks like you are missing the point - in our design the driver is well
separated from both the LEDs and radiator, it does not become hot at all
(apart from 1W own consumption) and keeps the room temperature.

...

Click to expand...

It's interesting that he fails to answer the most basic question you ask (what's the temperature of the electronics). The heat from the LEDs will travel via conduction, convection and radiation. If the bulb is mounted base-up the heat will collect around the base (convection). Heat will travel through the body and into the socket (conduction). Heat will, indeed, radiate from the fins... but if it's enclosed there is no place for it to go so the ambient rises higher.

Ask for the Ice-PAC or Flo-therm model... if he does not know what those terms are it will tell a lot about the sophistication of their method (they are computational thermodynamic CAD tools).

If it was as easy as a heat-pipe and a thermal break between the LEDs and the base, I would be _really_ surprised if a heavy weight player in this space would not have come out with this as a solution already.

Okay, I will email him and ask.

I have to confess that even though it may take a few tries to get accurate answers,
I do enjoy speaking with someone who actually writes back with info and provides pictures.

Given the time difference, by the time I awake in the morning, he will probably have written back.

EDIT: The following email was just sent:

"9) Good morning. One of my friends on our hobby forum is very
curious about the internal
temperature of the driver cavity after 30 minutes of operation. He
would like to know about the Ice-PAC or Flo-therm model.

10) While I understand that the driver electronics are physically
housed in a separate compartment, and no, it is not your lack of
English skills (they are, in fact, quite a bit better than many
Americans!), those persons who are in the LED hobby will not be
convinced without specific data. That particular piece of specific
data is the temperature of the driver housing after 30 minutes of
operation.

11) Those people in our hobby are very particular, and we put a high
value on numbers."

------> I will paste the reply when I get it.

Bedtime now. :tired:

electronupdate said:

If it was as easy as a heat-pipe and a thermal break between the LEDs and the base, I would be _really_ surprised if a heavy weight player in this space would not have come out with this as a solution already.

Click to expand...

That's kind of what I've been thinking - that simple mass of heatsink adjacent to the heat source ends up being more effective than trying to transport the heat using a heatpipe then radiate it away. Seems that the driver is going to get hot no matter what you do.

I wrote:

1) Thank you...

2) I will think it over for a few days, and probably buy five bulbs
in high CRI.

3) Is there a place in the order to indicate the CRI I want?

4) I think the quality of the video could be more professional.

5) I think most Americans have really never heard of this bulb.

Many Americans really don't care enough yet to switch over to LED bulbs.

Those who do want to switch over only want to buy the cheapest garbage.

**NOTE: I am pasting this email in verbatim. It is not my intention to insult people.
However, the point was to suggest, strongly, to the company that most people when faced with
a $30.00 LED "bulb" and a $13.00 LED "bulb" will spring for the cheaper of the two.**

6) In the American store Home Depot, you can buy 60W equivalent bulb
for about $13.00 U.S. dollars. You can buy 60W equivalent 93 CRI for
$20.00:

http://goo.gl/OZnJ9d

http://goo.gl/wezb3b

7) I would rather spend more money and get a product with good heatsinking
and separation of the driver from the LEDs, but in America, 95% of people care
about upfront cost, *not* cost savings over time.

8) A very small number of people (like me) care about quality, and
that is why I will probably support your project. But most people
only see the money they put down today, not the amount they save over
time.

Also, many people who have bought LED bulbs are upset because they
break quickly through too much heat.

But overall, people do not see a reason to buy LED bulbs for $10.00 or
$15.00 or $30.00 U.S. when they can get an incandescent bulb, in a
pack, four for one dollar.

*the next morning*

9) Good morning. One of my friends on our hobby forum is very
curious about the internal temperature of the driver cavity after 30 minutes of operation. He would like to know about the Ice-PAC or Flo-therm model.

10) While I understand that the driver electronics are physically
housed in a separate compartment, and no, it is not your lack of
English skills (they are, in fact, quite a bit better than many
Americans!), those persons who are in the LED hobby will not be
convinced without specific data. That particular piece of specific
data is the temperature of the driver housing after 30 minutes of
operation.

11) Those people in our hobby are very particular, and we put a high
value on numbers.

~Thank you!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Thanks for your message. So you think we should not focus US market with our
product, right?

For your new questions, I don't have ready answers on hand, so I have
forwarded them to the engineering team in charge of the project and will
mail you their replies in the evening.

Thanks again

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Me:

1) I don't know if you shouldn't focus on the U.S. market at all. It
is hard for me to say (I am not a business person, I am a part of a
very small group of people who enjoy LED lighting).

2) I can say that most Americans care more about price than quality.
Most Americans are happy to go to Wal-Mart and buy the cheapest
products they can.

3) However, there are people who *do* care (like me).

4) Maybe in a few years things will change.

5) I would say this:

Don't totally ignore U.S. market, because you may find customers
there. But most U.S. customers like what is cheap and available right
now. If they have to wait for something to arrive from the
Netherlands vs. buying a $13.00 bulb here in the U.S.A., they will buy
the cheaper one.

6) Again, I am not a business person, just a hobbyist.

My friends and I look forward to your reply from the engineers.

~Have a good one!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for your message!

Of course we know US market is the biggest in the world, however we have no
business in the US whatsoever while we are a decent size company in Europe.
I have to be honest with you, the feedback to our IGG project has been quite
a disappointment so far! So not so sure what our company is going to do.

Anyway, back to your questions:
1. Driver temperature in the closed lamp shade (the one I sent you a photo
of). The room temperature is 23 degrees Celsius.

EnerGenie LED E27 8W: 27.6 (after 5 minutes), 33.8 (after 10 minutes), 45.8
(after 30 minutes), 49.6 (after one hour).

For comparison here are the measurements of OSRAM (this is an A-brand in
Holland) LED E27 8W: 40.8 (after 5 minutes), 50.8 (after 10 minutes), 71.1
(after 30 minutes), 77.6 (after one hour).

The temperature everywhere are degrees Celcius (do you guys use Farenheit in
the US?)

2. Our engineers did not use the CAD tools you mention. They said that they
strongly believe that these models are very far from reality and would
provide up to 50% error.

Let me remind you that we have prototypes of the
bulb for more than a year now.

Also please, realize that we are a computer company where heat-pipe design is quite common for cooling of the CPUs. So actually they first constructed the samples and then started to study and improve them. There is no need to use sophisticated calculation models once you can measure things on the prototype.

Thanks