How hot are your LED bulbs running

I've just bought my first led bulb and I wanted to test it out to see whether I could start using LEDs instead of CFLs. However, I'm quite surprised by how hot the bulb is getting.
The bulb is Philips 13.5W E27 2700K


I measured temperatures of up to 95C (203F) on the surface of the body (not the glass), while the bulb was standing upright. It's blazing hot to the touch. In a recessed light it was 6 degrees hotter.

Take a look at this sign on the back of the packaging. This means that it's ok to use the bulb in some sort of fixture that's open on the bottom?


What's your experience in using these bulbs throughout the house? How hot are they getting, and are you using them in some sort of enclosed fixtures? My main concern is their longevity under such high temperatures.

I measured an older (2012) home depot ecosmart 60w equivalent bulb at 198f on the heatsink surface. That bulb had a noticable 60/120 hz flicker so I replaced it with a cree a year or two later. I haven't measured to see how the newer bulbs do but their heatsinks are getting smaller and smaller, so I'm not too surprised by your numbers.

I share your concern about high temperatures impacting the lifetime of the bulbs. I don't have any personal data to share, as I only have homemade LED lights that are in the ballpark of 1500 lumens. They are running at 50C at the heatsink and intended to have a thermal path that's a bit overdesigned.

I've got a couple of little 40W equivalent LED lights that generate 300 lumens (and do look equivalent to the 40W incandescent version). They draw 4.5W, per the manufacturer, and the bulb base doesn't seem to get anywhere near the temperatures that you are seeing.

Surely Philips and other manufacturers have some data on the lifetime of these bulbs, or maybe some of the consumer watchdog groups such as Consumer Reports have done testing to evaluate the lifetime? One problem is that the designs seem to change fairly quickly, so a given design is probably replaced before any failures can be observed. Still, it would be somewhat comforting to know how well some of these designs met their advertised lifetimes.