Finally! A decent LED bulb for $10 (review)

[intrepidcamping]

These bulbs are pretty cool! My local store has them on sale for around $11 now. I found a review here comparing it to a plain old CFL.

 

[Leander311]

Maybe this thread is a bit short in regards as time to be a fair sample segment, but according to Haitz's law, and given the development cycles of manufacturers like Cree and Bridgelux, I'd figure we'd have seen something a little better show up on the market by now at a similar price...

 

[JohnR66]

I was quietly predicting that 2012 would be the breakthrough year for LED bulbs for the general public with price/performance becoming such that people will start buying them in much larger quantities. Perhaps I have predicted too early as price of some of this newer technology is still sky high and I have not seen very many good LED bulbs at the $10 price point. It has been almost a year since I bought these bulbs.

The warm white version of this bulb seems to be on perpetual sale for $11-$12 over the last few months. I'm not comfortable with its reliability after hearing feedback from others. The first one I bought died in a day. A reviewer on youtube had 2 of three of his quit. A few other folks lost a couple as well. A 20-40% failure rate is not that great to me and scares off public acceptance of LED bulbs. For me, the premature failure rate of CFL bulbs is less than 5%.

 

[idleprocess]

I was quietly predicting that 2012 would be the breakthrough year for LED bulbs for the general public with price/performance becoming such that people will start buying them in much larger quantities. Perhaps I have predicted too early as price of some of this newer technology is still sky high and I have not seen very many good LED bulbs at the $10 price point. It has been almost a year since I bought these bulbs.

The warm white version of this bulb seems to be on perpetual sale for $11-$12 over the last few months. I'm not comfortable with its reliability after hearing feedback from others. The first one I bought died in a day. A reviewer on youtube had 2 of three of his quit. A few other folks lost a couple as well. A 20-40% failure rate is not that great to me and scares off public acceptance of LED bulbs. For me, the premature failure rate of CFL bulbs is less than 5%.

Perhaps once the higher-temperature offerings from Cree, and Lumileds (and doubtless other LED OEM's) are out, it will help drive up reliability and drive down cost.

Still waiting to see if Switch's offerings cut it (or simple materialize at this point) - their cooling approach is novel plus it has a certain aesthetic appeal.

 

[Dave_H]

The warm white version of this bulb seems to be on perpetual sale for $11-$12 over the last few months. I'm not comfortable with its reliability after hearing feedback from others. The first one I bought died in a day. A reviewer on youtube had 2 of three of his quit. A few other folks lost a couple as well. A 20-40% failure rate is not that great to me and scares off public acceptance of LED bulbs. For me, the premature failure rate of CFL bulbs is less than 5%.

Lowes in Canada price is holding at $13 but it's not presented as a
sale price. Closest comparable product is LEDMax (Globe Electric)
8W LED bulb at $20, which is still 50% higher price.

Any better idea what the failure cause is? Could it be susceptability to bad line conditions, and some people are luckier than others? I
have really good luck, very low early failure rate for CFLs, and LEDs so far
excepting that one LOA showehead bulb (running but dimly...)

Dave

 

[idleprocess]

I
have really good luck, very low early failure rate for CFLs, and LEDs so far
excepting that one LOA showehead bulb (running but dimly...)

Dave

If "LOA" is "Lights of America" then you've had good luck indeed given their horrible reputation.

 

[LEDninja]

Dave was running his LOA outdoors in the Canadian winter. The LEDs never got hot until summer. Still 2 winters and a summer is pretty good for 5 mm LEDs.

 

[bshanahan14rulz]

LOA pisses me off. Just the other day I was talking to a very intelligent M.E., his son was in school for E.E., and he was talking about how disappointed he was in LED bulbs, after I had shown him my old rinky-dink L2 with XR-E Q3 5A tint. He was saying how many of the bulbs seemed to fail too quickly, didn't put out enough light, etc., and I knew right away what brand he was using. Grabbed the closest 5mm strawhat LED I could find, and sure enough he told me the bulbs he was using had many of those stacked in them.

I'll enlighten him sooner or later.

 

[fyrstormer]

I've been using the Philips AmbientLED 12W in my apartment as my ONLY light source for over a year now. I kept one bulb unused in my linen closet. When I compare it to bulbs that have been used daily, they look the same.

 

[idleprocess]

There is now a 5000K version of this bulb available at Lowe's for around $20 (Per lowes.com: "Item #: 352274 | Model #: LA19DM/5K/LED" ... since direct links appear to be frowned upon, you'll just have to find it yourself). I bought one for my porch light thinking it would compliment the "neutral" LED's I installed outdoors.

It's nice to see options other than the 2700/3000K options that dominate LED "bulbs" and it's not as bad as the "angry blue" of white LED's some ~5 years ago ... but it's still a bit too cold. NY existing lighting is more like 4000K, so there's a moderate mismatch. Nothing that another outdoor lighting project I've been kicking around won't change - and remove that pesky socketed fixture altogether in the process.

I'd like to think I was at least voting with my dollars for options other than 2700/3000K which is all that's available from most manufacturers.

 

[Dave_H]

Dave was running his LOA outdoors in the Canadian winter. The LEDs never got hot until summer. Still 2 winters and a summer is pretty good for 5 mm LEDs.

I was, but it dimmed in a few hundred hours. I replaced it with a Sylvania
2W/50L E27 bulb, which still works fine but moved inside; replaced with
a 4W/200L LEDMax (Globe Electric) bulb also still working fine. I may put
the Feit 8W bulb out on the porch, but the 4W one gives enough light.

Dave

 

[upriver]

Old thread but...I've had one of these running in an enclosed porch light, base up, in North Carolina (hot summers) for 6 months straight...still working fine. Maybe not turning it off and on helps.

 

[kaichu dento]

I picked up some 5.8 watt 'bulb tint' Orion Luminous 350 lumen, 40,000 hour rated bulbs for $5 each last month in Japan and have to say that while a little short of perfect on tint, are a great value for the money.
They are also dimmable by turning off the light, then back on and are supposed to give 20%, 50% and 100% brightness.

Tried all four in my friends chandelier and two of them in a horizontal ceiling fixture. With all four combined they did well enough for living room lighting, assuming you weren't trying to read the paper, but quite nice for normal room lighting to eat dinner by.
One place they're not good is in a horizontal fixture, as too much light ends up on the wall at ceiling height, and not enough on the floor below, although it seemed to bother me more than my friend.

I couldn't find the same bulb I have but here's some information on the 400 lumen version of it, and the package looks exactly the same other than the output rating.

 

[bryan_potato]

I wouldn't expect too much on this product given on its low price.

But I would say this is a bargain with such quality.

 

[EscapeVelocity]

I had the 60w equivalent 13.5w Warm White 2700K (seems they abandoned 3000K at least on the packaging) in my hand today and almost pulled the trigger. After reading a couple of threads on it, Ill probabaly give it a go next week when Im in town.

 

[SemiMan]

We've been collecting Goniospectroradiometer data, Integrating Sphere data, and thermal images of several LED bulbs. The plan is compile the data and correlate that with CAD models and simulations to generate IES ray sets and IGES files along with reports about how each bulb is made and performs. We'll make them available for download at somepoint in the near future although I can't say when. Not because it's a secret but because making the website isn't my thing.

I would hope that reputable suppliers would be able to provide that data. That has been my experience even from secondary Asian suppliers, at least photometrics. If they want EnergyStar they must have LM79 data.

Semiman

 

[SemiMan]

Same LED that is in the new 60W equivalent or it least that's what it looks like to me: http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j390/Harold_LF/P1010250.jpg

Nice layout -- not. Look at the traces from LED to LED. That appears to be the only copper on the top. It looks like they have made no use of top layer copper to improve thermal performance. Not the first Chinese made lamp I have seen with this issue. It may only make 5C difference in temp, but that could be the difference between meeting long term specs and not. Of course if the primary thermal path is through the leads on this LED, then it would make a big difference.

Semiman

 

[JohnR66]

Just a "Heads Up"...
I was at Lowes today and found these Utilitech 7.5w 3000K LED bulbs on sale for $7.98 which is $2 off the 9.98 standard price.
I also noticed that the lumen output has increased slightly from 430 to 450 and warranty is increased from 2 to 3 years.

 

[Harold_B]

I would hope that reputable suppliers would be able to provide that data. That has been my experience even from secondary Asian suppliers, at least photometrics. If they want EnergyStar they must have LM79 data.

Semiman

Wow, have I been out of touch with this thread! Bulb suppliers/manufacturers really don't supply much data as far as photometrics or ray sets or IES files needed to model their products. Fixture manufacturers do but not the bulb. Plans to post the results changed (mostly a marketing thing) so the efforts have been put on other projects.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

I just picked up one of the new 3M 60w equivalent bulbs in warm white.

Good: Nice bright white light at 3000k.

Fair: light has a faint "starry" pattern due to the integral diffusion fabric.

So-so: bulb is a little large and heavy, and at $25 it's significantly more costly than the competition.

Derp: The package says 850 lumens in large lettering. The bulb itself says 800 lumens in tiny lettering. :thumbsdow