Has LED longevity been proven yet?

[StarHalo]

a cheap (Feit) LED bulb

That's promising since their CFLs are crap; so maybe even the bargain LED bulbs will get many thousands of hours more than any other format..

 

[Timothybil]

Another thing to keep in mind is that LEDs have been around for 40 years or so. I am sure that over that time experience has been gained in how they will perform and degrade with use. I had a small four-function calculator in the early 70s that had an LED display, and a watch in 1977 also used LEDs. One had to press a button to see the time because the LED used so much energy if it was on all the time, the battery would be gone in months. Yes, the designs and materials and implementations have changed over the years, but the underlying principles are still the same, and all those years of testing and real-life usage data form a great reservoir of data that was drawn upon to develop the tests and standards of today.

 

[SemiMan]

Another thing to keep in mind is that LEDs have been around for 40 years or so. I am sure that over that time experience has been gained in how they will perform and degrade with use. I had a small four-function calculator in the early 70s that had an LED display, and a watch in 1977 also used LEDs. One had to press a button to see the time because the LED used so much energy if it was on all the time, the battery would be gone in months. Yes, the designs and materials and implementations have changed over the years, but the underlying principles are still the same, and all those years of testing and real-life usage data form a great reservoir of data that was drawn upon to develop the tests and standards of today.

Low cost AlInGaAp LEDs yes, but high power InGaN LEDs with a phosphor coating and silicone encapsulation no.