Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long,
          and you have burned so very very brightly, Roy

- Bladerunner (1982)

also, I enjoyed the last lines of the article:

Also, to preempt the orange site, I'm not saying that planned obsolescence doesn't exist.

BTW, I don't understand why having the driver converting AC to DC inside the LED spots is the default. For a new house, it seems to make sense to me to have at least one external driver for a ceiling of spots, if not one per floor (not one for the whole house because pf the drop in voltage). But 24V led spots seem much less common and I cannot find many reviews. Any idea why it's not more common ? It seems efficiency and thermals would be much easier to optimize without the size constraint, plus economy of scale with components. Any specific 24V led spots / bulbs to recommend ?

For an even deeper dive into this topic...

Technology Connections: Longer-lasting light bulbs: it was complicated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY

I've never had LED lights last anywhere near the purported 5-7 year timeframe. The worst ones are the small decorative ones with the tinier screw part that my house seems to have an inordinate number of. Those last maybe 6 months and then they start getting dimmer and then all the lights in the circuit get worse at once. I like LED lights immensely but the idea they last even 2 years is a lie in my opinion.

There are varying levels of quality for the same bulb. I don't know what the difference is in the bulb but they make a difference in the order of years.

I'm in Switzerland where we can no longer buy halogen bulbs. Every bulb in our apartment is led except 7 bulbs under the cabinets in our kitchen. I used to buy bulbs from a hardware store but they would only last about a year. When they banned halogen bulbs I found that I could buy them from a photography supplier for more money. The product number was different but it had the right specs. They've been going for three years and no burn outs.

You have been misled about spelling misled

Tungsten will burn in an oxygen atmosphere, therefore standard light bulbs actually use an inert gas (like argon). The gas pressure slows down tungsten evaporation and prevents oxidation. The main reason for short living of the bulbs is that the filament gradually evaporating over time until it thins out and snaps.

5700 is a terrible temperature for lighting unless that matches the daylight. Soft white and even reddish is much better at night. Presumably, most artificial light it used at night. 2700 is more like it.

My LED lightbulbs change temperature based on the time of day and are dull red at night so you both don't wake up and you don't stub your toe. Show me a non-LED that can do that.

That top paragraph is a masterclass in modern media standards. Tell the truth will hiding facts so your readers can be reassured that they are in fact smart and correct, while you never have to tell a lie.

Misled

I bought all new Philip hue bulbs going on 7 or 8 years ago now and not a single one has gone bad. Maybe you're just buying cheap poor quality bulbs?

A 100 out of 100 success rate after 8 years.

I have never had an LED light bulb fail. I'm still using the same 6-pack I bought over a decade ago, bringing them with me from apartment to apartment. I only have 5 remaining because the glue that holds the glass bulb onto the base eventually failed on one and I couldn't be bothered to figure out what the correct adhesive would be for lightbulbs.

Do you keep your light on constantly?

I used to have a lamp that I kept replacing bulbs for "all the time". I didn't understand why since the light bulbs claimed to last for years and years. One day I read the light bulb package more closely, and it said something along the lines of, "7 years life span at 2 hours per day" in small text (the numbers may be wrong, going by memory). Doing the math, the number of active hours claimed on the box turned out to be roughly true. I don't know if LED bulb packages play similar tricks but it's worth checking out.

Randomly, my Philips Hue E27 bulbs last far longer than any of the China Zigbee clones I've bought, but like all mass produced goods, there are outliers that fail.

The cheap China stuff tend to fail in a few months, while I've only had two Hue bulbs in my collection fail ever, so Philips seems to be doing something right.

Every Philips L-Prize bulb I bought in 2012 is still working. Some have been on about 30% of the time since purchase. A few have been dropped multiple meters onto concrete; oops. Well made LED bulbs last. Cost-optimized ones may not.

I had an LED porch light that lasted ~10 years. The fixture had light and motion sensors, so it wasn't on during the day or all night, and often it was not running at full brightness, but still it was on a lot. I was surprised it lasted that long, especially since it was outdoors.

I switched to all LED lighting many years ago. I've had a few that lasted less than a year, but by and large I'd say that nearly all the lights I've had have lasted at least on the order of years.

In mid 2016 I replaced around 25-30 incandescent bulbs (7 x 100 W, a couple or so 40 W, and the rest 60 W) with Walmart Great Value non-dimmable LEDs. Basically every incandescent bulb I could find around the house that was not on a dimmer and was A19 shape with an E26 base (except I forgot the attic and crawlspace).

There was some sort of deal between Walmart and Puget Sound Energy that applied an instant rebate automatically so that they simply rang up on checkout for $0.17.

They are all still working fine.

Enclosed fixtures can kill some LED bulbs quickly if they can't dissipate heat.

I've run 30w led modules for 10+ years by - using real power conversion components, making sure they have sufficient cooling and running them at 75% of their rated current. they still seem plenty bright.

We have several hundred smart led lights from I want to say Lutron? In my home going on year 6 soon and we’ve had to replace only 3-4 so far. 3 of those replacements were on the same circuit as well so I question if the circuit isn’t at fault.

Plural of anecdote isn’t data and all that but I think the several hundred quantity adds some weight. Also about 90 of those are in outdoor lamps so there’s a good amount dealing with weather and we’ve not had to replace any of those yet.

That is weird. Mine are basically infinite.

If you are installing LED lamps into enclosed fixtures you need to use LED lamps rated for enclosed fixtures or they will die an early death. A globe around a lamp with an open bottom and a recessed can are both enclosed, even though you can see the lamp. Heat rises.

Similarly, you can’t install recessed cans into a ceiling that is insulated without them being IC rated or they will die an early death.

Spend a few dollars more per lamps for quality ones. Philips makes decent LED lamps, I’m fond of their 2200-2700K dimmable lamps that lower the color temp as they dim. Philips makes an E12 base BA11 shape (candelabra) lamp that should fit your needs.

I buy Keystone lamps LED T8 lamps almost exclusively, but those are pretty uncommon in homes.

Commercial LED fixtures are rated for 50,000 hours typically but they have a separate LED driver and massive heatsinks to provide that sort of lifespan.

Lighting color is cultural. Go to Asia and you'll find many places, commercial and residential, lit with 5500K, traditionally fluorescents.

I've heard a theory that it has to do with genetics and lower eye sensitivity.

A dimmed incandescent bulb will shift from 2700k down to maybe 2200k. Maybe not as versatile as your LED but it worked well to somewhat mimic the sun before LEDs.

I do something similar and all my Philips hue bulbs are going strong after 7 to 8 years. I think people just get upset with themselves for being cheap.

> Show me a non-LED that can do that.

Many of use simply don't find LED lights, no matter the color they try to simulate, enjoyable.

I find my LED lights, including fancy decorative ones, bearable only because I always use one real, old-school, warm white (more like yellow really), incandescent (hence non-LED) light in my living room. And, yup, if you know what you're looking for, it's totally possible to still buy incandescent lightbulbs.

LED lights, no matter the shade/color always give such a fake / non-cosy feeling to just about everything.

I'm taking an actual candle + an incandescent lightbulb's warmth feeling any day over anything LED.

Now as I'm also conscious about saving the planet, I'll mix those with mostly LED lights. But having one incandescent lightbulb (and/or one candle) really creates, to many of us, a better atmosphere than pure LED lighting.

It's the old "you're eyes cannot detect more than 24 fps" all over again: "you cannot detect the flickering of a LED light". Except I can instantly tell if it's the cold (no matter how "warm white" the box says it is) light of a LED or the actual warm light of a proper incandescent lightbulb.

It's called a dimmer switch.