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Panasonic's New LED Bulbs Shine For 19 Years
Mike writes "As lighting manufacturers phase out the incandescent bulb, and CFLs look set to define the future of lighting, Panasonic recently unveiled a remarkable 60-watt household LED bulb that they claim can last up to 19 years (if used 5-1/2 hours a day). With a lifespan 40 times longer than their incandescent counterparts, Panasonic's new EverLed bulbs are the most efficient LEDs ever to be produced. They are set to debut in Japan on October 21st. Let's hope that as the technology is refined their significant cost barrier will drop — $40 still seems pretty pricey for a light bulb, even one that promises to save $23 a year in energy costs."
But compact fluorescents cost $2, save almost as much power/year, and last about 10 years. They are the most cost effective.
I hope they put a capacitor in there with a bridge rectifier instead of just ignoring half of the 50/60 Hz cycle.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Provided the claim has any base in reality. I have been using CFLs for years, and so far my luck with them has been uniformly bad. They burn out in 3 to 6 months in my application. Possibly my environment is too hot for the electronics inside.
The world is my oyster. That's why it's always in a stew.
The LED lights I've seen are too directed. They don't light up a room all that well. Whatever spot the LEDs are aimed at is more illuminated, and everywhere else less illuminated than with CFLs or incandescents.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Panasonic recently unveiled a remarkable 60-watt household LED bulb that they claim can last up to 19 years
TFA
The bulbs use only an eighth the power of incandescents. That means a 60-watt-equivalent LED bulb would cost only 300 yen (about $3) a year instead of 2,380 yen ($25.80)--a significant savings over a lifetime.
The box pictured on the right has "6.9w", which if as good as a 60 watt incandescent, is probably only a watt or two better than the equivalent CFL.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
Why the hell is this offtopic? It's true - this hippie-frenzy focus on non-incandescent light sources is idiotic. Any time you're running any kind of active heating, the thermal inefficiency of incandescent lights becomes a nonissue because the heat output is not wasted. And with the usage cycle they're talking about, a $0.90 incandescent bulb should last at least 2 years. While I agree that it's nice to see LED lighting starting to measure up to the good old bulb-and-tungsten-wire approach, I don't think there's much concrete reason to move away from incandescents in cold climates. Hot climates, there's a small but measurable advantage.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
In a lamp test by a Finnish magazine the 3 EUR fluorescent lamp died at 3000 hours. The more expensive ones are still going on but starting to show longer warming times, stains/cracks and other problems. In addition to these problems fluorescents are hazardous waste and should be recycled. At 10x longer lifespan the LED light sounds like a good deal to me.
My main problem with LEDs that I have seen is that their light is to cold and white. It hurts my eyes and causes migraines. I didn't see a temperature quoted in the article.
CFLs in my house have died within a year: the ones installed in the bathroom and kitchen. They don't like the humidity and heat which is why I'm not surprised. The others have lasted since Feb 2007. Brands don't seem to matter.
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no sig for you. come back one year.
But how dim they get over time? It's pretty pointless to have a LED light that lasts 19 years, if the light gets so dim after few years that it is practically unusable.
It's unwritten law that you don't take the lightbulbs when you move house; It's just being a cheapskate. Like taking the carpets, or the hooks off the back of doors. My parents have had to walk around with candles before now because the idiot who sold the house too every bulb, and this was before the time of 24 hour shopping in the UK. They had to drag boxes out in front of the car to see what was in them.
I swear to God if anybody does that to me when I'm moving into the house they've sold, I'm turning up at their forwarding address and peeing in their letterbox.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
And what's a little mercury pollution? Its not like that stuffs harmful.
I'll take LEDs any day over a CFL. I refuse to switch to those, they're just too hazardous for home use. I'll go to leds when the color temperature works out, until then its good old incandecents.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
(What I would do if swapping to LED bulbs would be to put the bulbs I take out in a box somewhere and reinstate them when leaving.)
Yeah I would put cheap globes in too. On a different but related note I have a relative who, when he inspected a house he was buying would hide items which he wanted to own, then retrieve them after taking the place over.
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The main issues to look for with LEDs is some of the cheaper ones give out a horrible ghostly white light. The box should say what colour temperature they output, and the best ones output 3200K warm white light similar to traditional incandescents. You wouldn't even know its an LED unless you stared at it. The other issue is only some bulbs work with dimmer switches, but there are models which do that too.
The case for LEDs in other kinds of fixtures is probably less clear cut. LEDs are fairly directional so they probably require some refractive covering to be useful in hang down bulbs. But in the meantime there are plenty of CFL solutions which again save a lot more than traditional incandescents. I really don't see why anyone would bother with incandescent bulbs unless they are ignorant of how much money they're losing or they have have highly specific needs that other kinds of bulbs do not provide.
Your gas central heating is a much cheaper way to heat your house compared to incandescent bulbs.
Electricity is about 10-14p/kWh, and gas about 3p/kWh. Even with old heating it's still cheaper; my new condensing boiler is 85% efficient and was probably quite cheap (I rent, and everything else in the flat looks cheap), yours may well be even better.
I agree extra insulation is much more useful though. I'd like to see the government take the Green Party's economy-stimulation suggestion up: subsidise adding insulation to houses. Some incentive for landlords to add insulation would be good too, but I think this might happen with the home rating thing.
Ever try reading by a compact florescent bulb?
All the time.
The experience will pull your eyes out of their sockets and leave you blind by the time your thirty.
Suuure.
I miss my incandescent bulbs, my bright living room, and the ability to read a book for hours on end without getting a headache ...
Never got a headache from fluorescents either.
Yes, there's a visible difference with incandescents and compact fluorescents. Does it really matter in some way? Nope.
The problem with CCFL's is that short duty-cycle usage shortens their lifetimes. This makes them great for things like porch lighting, living rooms etc where they'll be on for hours at a time, but poor for things like bathrooms where they may be on for 10 minutes at a time tops. When used in situations that extend their lifetimes, CCFLs are indeed much more cost-effective than LEDs are currently, but as is usually the case, a mixed application of both will always be the winner. Also, I've noticed (in a very unscientific study) that some of the slightly more expensive brands of CCFLs actually do give more consistent performance in the long run.
I bought my first CFLs back in 2001 (six of them). All but one is still working. One, I had in a portable work light, and I busted it transporting it. The others survived a move to my new house in 2005.
As soon as the builders cheap incandescent lights began burning out (in 2006), I bought replacements for ALL non-dimmer lights in my house (mostly in bathrooms), about 25 bulbs. While not all of them are in use every day, every one of them is still working.
So I am well above your 1.5 estimate with a sample size greater than 30.
Me too. I've been using CFL's for almost twenty years, and I've come to the conclusion that they are a worse idea that using Edison's incandescent lighting. Here's why:
- CFLs have a power factor of around 0.5, which means they use twice as much power as rated. For example a 15 watt CFL uses 15 watts in your home, but then it uses another 15 watts at the central power plant due to the need to "rebalance" the power and restore the PF to 1.0. TOTAL == 30 volt-amps burned
- New technologies have allowed folks like GE to build 60 watt incandescants that only use 30 watts while still providing the same brightness. So the net usage is the same as the CFL. No need to abandon the old bulbs.
- CFLs *hate* heat. CFLs hate cold. CFLs hate humidity. CFLs hate dimmers. In practical terms this means CFLs can not be used in 80-90% of present fixtures. I used them in my upside-down ktichen lights - they died 2 months later. I used them outside in my porch light - it worked fine until the temperature dropped below zero, and then refused to light. I used them in my bathroom, and after a shower the humidity killed half of them. I bought a so-called "dimmable CFL" which died 5 minutes after I installed it in my living room dimmer switch. Instead of saving money, I'm wasting it on tons of dead CFLs.
- CFLs hate being turned on and off. Rapid cycling makes them die as quick as an incandescent bulb. So you've spent 5 times as much for a bulb than doesn't last any longer.
- CFLs have a warm-up time. Turn it on to read your paper, and you have to wait 5 minutes before you can see the writing. Turn it on to go down the basement stairs - and you can't see the steps because it's still too dim (a safety hazard).
I have about 20 CFLs in my home.
But I'm gradually phasing them out and
replacing them with 25 or 40 watt incandescents.
I tried to do my part to be green over the last two decades, but it's just not working. The CFLs are not the solution to reduced lighting expenses. Perhaps these new half-power incandescents from GE will provide an answer, or the new LED lights, but CFLs are not it.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If the cost of lighting your house is $90.00 for lighting only, please stop trying to replicate the surface of the sun lighting conditions in your home.
running 10- 60 watt bulbs 24/7 for 1 month costs LESS than $50.00 US. most lights are on for less than 3 hours at a time on average.
$90.00 for lighting only is so absurd for a home it's silly.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
60 watts * 5.5 hours/day * 365 days/year = 120,450 total watts = 120 Kw. Around here electricity is around $0.10 / Kw, so your total power cost for a 60 watt bulb under these usage parameters is around $12/year. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I'm going to save $23 on something that costs $12 to operate. Not that I'm against saving the electricity. I just don't like it when the numbers don't add up.
Heat pumps don't work in colder environments which, coincidentally, are also, usually, the places with the longest winters and shortest summers. In the warmer environments where a heat pump would be usable, the long summers would make much of the argument moot as the extra heat from the incandescent would be unwanted most of the year.
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