Annoying pricing of LED products

This bugs me...

Has anyone else noticed that older, inferior LED products that have been around forever, are often times STILL priced just as high now, even though newer, better products are on the market?

Even if something CHEAPER and BRIGHTER comes out and costs less, the prices of the older LED stuff never goes down!

For example, look at the EverLED upgrades. They STILL cost $40 smackers. I remember I bought one when they were new technology, and it was $40. They still cost as much today! How can they be so wrong-headed as to charge $40 for one of those when they have been on the market for years, there are brighter options selling for that price or cheaper, and I can go to Wal-Mart and get a MagLED bulb for $15 that easily outperforms it?

There are just too many old LED lights that are dim compared to the current products coming out, yet they never get cheaper. If the old "crappy" merchandise got cheaper, maybe I would buy some of those products despite the inferior performance... But who in their right mind can justify buying an EverLED for example, when they have such ho-hum performance and cost so much?

It just kills me... The LED flashlight market is nuts!

I see the same thing with Terralux, they come out with newer brighter products that cost no more than their older products did, yet the older stuff still sits out there for its original price! Who in the hell is going to buy it?

Are these companies just relying on enough people being uninformed and buying those products because they don't know there is newer better stuff out now?

It's just wierd, I think, well maybe some of the LED upgrades will have come down in price now that a few years have passed...DOH! They still cost as much for old obsolete junk! It's like if you went to a computer store and saw Pentium 3 CPU's for sale right next to brand new Core 2 Duo CPU's, for the same price! Hmm which will you buy?

Hellbore said:

Are these companies just relying on enough people being uninformed and buying those products because they don't know there is newer better stuff out now?

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I think you hit the nail on the head right there. CPF represents the use of the cutting edge of LED technology, and even though we're seeing bigger companies like Fenix release lights with brighter LED's like the Cree, doesn't mean "Joe Consumer" is going to notice, or even know if they saw "Cree XR-E" on the package.

That said, I still think that people are in the "ooooh... this light has an LED in it!!" stage, whereas all of us know that such a claim is, well, pretty old news!

john

meh, that's why I don't buy old inferior products. Knowledge is power I guess. J6P is just getting into maglites with LEDs in them.. they have no idea what a luxeon is, much less a cree.

I love my core 2 duo clocked at 3.2 GHZ

I have noticed the over inflated prices on the Cr@ppy led products found in gift shops, supermarkets and even found on ebay. Thats why I would prefer to pay a little more
go to a reputable dealer and get something of much better quallity

I can't speak to all of it but I can address the question re: TerraLUX:

TerraLUX pricing came down ~20% this year at retail and you can expect another drop relatively shortly.

The new items, like the TLE-5K2 and TLE-6K2 do cost more to produce.

The TLE-5k2 was basically handmade in a small batch in the USA wheras the TLE-5 standard model is produced offshore by the 10's of thousands.

The TLE-6K2 is also being handmade in the USA and when you compare it to the DB3W has a voltage control circuit, a regulation circuit and a more expensive emitter.

TLE-5's are now ~20, they were 25+ a year ago. DB3W's were 25-30 and are now selling for $20-25.

I think the other respondants have made valid points as well regarding the typical buyer. CPF'ers are a different breed and have much more up to date information available to them.

I can't explain what other Mfr's and Retails do but we've been running specials on many of our 3W imports for the last few weeks. Lights that sold for $35-40 are now $25-30 but then we tend to deal with more knowledgeable customers.

Regarding EverLED I think they make some product fitments that really no one else does. Expect that to change. Whether their pricing will change I have no idea.

Well I didn't know prices on older Terralux parts had come down because the stores I have looked at still have them for the same prices as they did 3 years ago! :S

Well that's why you should buy from me!

I bet, nay I am sure, those local guys don't even have the new hotness K2 models.

When I went thru airport security recently, I accidentally packed a nice 2AA Luxeon light in my carry-on and the security people literally destroyed it because it could have been a bomb. So I wanted to get a replacement and I was shocked to find that nice 2AA Luxeon 3's are still selling for $35 to $50. The manufacturers and retailers had better wake up and realize that Cree led's have changed everything. Their old Luxeon flashlights are no longer the best. It's time for a huge garage sale on Luxeon lights: half the brightness/ half the run-time /twice as hot.

I find the pricing of LEDs themselves to be just as puzzling. If you look at the catalogs of many electronic parts distributors you'll see LEDs with ridiculously low mcd ratings priced higher than similar eBay ones with 100 times the brightness. Not only that, but why are LEDs with ratings of 5 or 10 mcd (even with a narrow beam) even made anymore, by anybody? Does somebody have a huge stock of very old LED dies that they're trying to get rid of? Even the low end dies nowadays put out ten to a hundred times the light of these stinkers. I know these are indicator LEDs, but why have an LED which is barely adequate for that purpose at 20 mA when a higher brightness one can do the same thing at 1 mA, both saving power and giving longer life? Even worse, why are these inferior LEDs priced more than others which are better in every respect? Who even buys them? Don't the end users at least keep up with the technology enough to know they're getting screwed royally?

Uh LightScene, outside of CPF and industry people no one has heard of Cree LED's. The mass market has just become aware of LED lights in general and Luxeon remains the kleenex/xerox etc of the LED game.

Luxeon has been on top of the market for what, 4 years? Cree lights still haven't reallly hit the market yet - the dozen or so lights that are available are all basically low production run items.

There will be no huge garage sale. Luxeon lights are still selling like hotcakes and are still a revelation to most folks.

LightScene said:

The manufacturers and retailers had better wake up and realize that Cree led's have changed everything.

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Maybe in your corner of the world, but here they haven't changed a thing. Not yet, anyway, although I look forward to when they are commonly available. I'm not holding my breath tho.

Edit - bummer about your 2AA.

jtr1962 said:

Who even buys them? Don't the end users at least keep up with the technology enough to know they're getting screwed royally?

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[Ahem.] No offence intended, but most of your comments make me think of a Surefire with something like 80 lumens, yet costing hundreds of dollars. :huh2: Even a (gasp) Luxeon can do better than that. Are you guys sold on the quality of such lights rather than the raw lumen rating?

At this point I think the reason is that a lot of the major companies probably have huge supplies of the older Luxeon components, and since they know that most people probably won't know the difference anyway, they'll continue selling their old stock at the same price rather than upgrading to the newer components and rendering their old stock obsolete. In technical terms it already is, but the public doesn't know that aside from a handful of techies, like those that browse this forum.

One reason for this is that there's no standard for how to judge brightness for flashlights. I find it irritating how most lights simply post wattage, which is essentially useless -- it says nothing about the efficiency of the LED, or the efficiency of the optics. Advertized lumens/candela ratings are also vary by so much as to be almost useless for most flashlights on the shelf. If there were a mandated standard lumens rating system, similar to what is done with light bulbs, there would be a lot more of a marketable benefit to having an LED that is twice as efficient. As it is, packaging like "twice as efficient" or "twice the runtime" for some future Cree LED at Wal-Mart won't mean a whole lot to most people without some standard to compare it to.

I see this sort of thing all the time, and that's precisely why I have always become active on online forums where people can tell me which products are the best before investing money into any sort of hobby.

LightScene said:

When I went thru airport security recently, I accidentally packed a nice 2AA Luxeon light in my carry-on and the security people literally destroyed it because it could have been a bomb.

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Interesting, what airport was that if you don't mind my asking. I'm the guy who goes thru the airport with a backpack full of all sorts of stuff:
headlamp, a couple flashlights, basic first aid bandages... minus my emt shears :thumbsdow..., sam splint, cpr mask, quik-clot, thermal space blanket, compass, water purification tablets, 4oz hand sanitizer... in a ziploc bag, waterbottles... now empty till after "the line", food, powdered gatoraide packets, magnesium firestarter (oddly allowed back on planes a couple years ago; not sure about it atm), signaling devices, sunglasses, extra clothes (for when my luggage is lost for not flying Southwest), Gameboy DS Lite and games, cellphone, and whatever important documents I need, pens, paper, keys, wallet, a couple carabiners on my pack.

The interesting thing is that flying out of SeaTac, WA and Portland, OR the TSA workers thnk nothing of this. (I've also had very little hassle from Colorado Springs when I'm out at the Olympic Training Center.) They just check electronic devices with the bomb wipe/sniffer and send me on my way.
However flying out of other assorted airports they often take a look in my bag and send me to high security, start asking me what all this stuff is for, recheck my ID, metal detectors, pat downs, rip my bag apart, etc. I've found LAX to be one of the worst.
Interesting though that they went berzerk over a small flashlight. I'll have to be sure and avoid flying thru your airport.
:lolsign:

Guys, we are in a very lucky position. We have the opportunity to play with leading edge (not quite bleeding edge) stuff and we can see what is around and who makes what, etc... To the general public, a LED is a LED. Most still think of LEDs in 5mm packages.