DOE Announces Philips As L Prize Winner

JStyle writes "The DOE has officially announced a winner of the L Prize, giving the award to Philips in the 60W Incandescent Bulb replacement category. The goal of the L Prize competition is to 'develop high-quality, high-efficiency solid-state lighting products to replace the common light bulb.' Philips' LED light bulb won using less than 10W of power while claiming a life of greater than 25,000 hours. The light bulb is set to go on sale as early as spring of 2012."

Comments

Cost?

[grimmjeeper]

How much is a bulb like that going to cost? If it's tens or hundreds of dollars, consumer acceptance will be "less than enthusiastic", considering how cheap a 60W incandescent bulb is. Hopefully it's reasonably priced so people will want to use it.

Re:Cost?

[jtara]

I'm pretty sure this is just an update to the "60W equivalent" Phillips bulbs that Home Depot has been selling for about $30 for some time now. I have several - two in a kitchen overhead fixture, and a couple in cheap "torch" lamps and a couple of Ikea floor lamps. They really have a nice warm color and they dim reasonably well with my Insteon dimmer, though they still don't dim to "architectural" levels (10%). The range of dimming works well in my kitchen though.

These use UV LEDs. There is a glass envelope which is coated with phosphor on the inside, and the UV light excites the phosphor.

I just think they tweaked it a bit, as they were already just below the efficiency criteria for the prize.

Re:Cost?

[jtara]

BTW, at S., California electricity costs, especially if you get thrown into a "tier" a couple of notches above the baseline, this is an economic no-brainer over the lifetime of the bulb, assuming the lifetime really is as stated.

Re:Cost?

[juancn]

That's true. One thing that worries me and I don't see in lightbulbs performance assessments is the number of on/off cycles. I have a couple of CFLs in the bathroom at home and they fail very often (I've used Philips and GE). Even more often than regular light bulbs. I'm guessing that's because they get turned on and off very often and that makes the starter circuits fail. The fluorescents are fine, but the power stage just dies.

Re:Cost?

[nwf]

Heck, CFL bulbs flake out when hot. That's they most of them die, IMHO. I can't keep any going for more than a year. I suspect the bulb itself is OK, but the cheap made in China capacitors and such are just garbage. I hope that's not the case in these bulbs.

However, I don't really use any 60 W bulbs in my house. All either 100 W or 65 W recessed bulbs. I have some CFL 65 W recessed bulbs that advertise a "short warm up" that's more like 5 minutes to full brightness. Hardly short. (And at least 30 seconds to be able to really use the light.) LEDs should be better, I'd assume, since they can turn on in a few microseconds. We'll see...

Re:Cost?

[UnknowingFool]

Most likely it will not be as cheap as incandescents or CFLs in terms of upfront costs. The cost saving is in the longterm as it uses less electricity. If we assume that this bulb lasts 25000 hours, at $0.10 per KWh, a 60w incandescent will use $150, a 13W CFL will use $32.50 and this bulb will use $25. So unless each of these bulbs cost $125 than incandescent and $7.50 more than a CFL, they will be cheaper in the long run. However the incandesent will have to be replaced 33 times and the CFL 2.5 times so that factors in as well

Re:Cost?

[TeknoHog]

They really have a nice warm color

IMHO, 6000 K daylight is nicer, especially when you need to feel awake. One nice thing about fluorescents and LEDs is that it is possible to emulate a daylight spectrum, in case you prefer it to the urine tone of tungsten filaments.

OTOH, a continuous blackbody spectrum is generally nicer than the piecewise approximation in fluorescents and LEDs. Some LEDs are particularly annoying with their stark combination of yellow and blue, but at least they keep you awake. There seems to be something about the blue end and wakefulness, as I've found that even blue indicator LEDs on appliances make for a bad night's sleep.

Re:Cost?

[joelgrimes]

I've friends like that too.

They're getting light bulbs for Christmas.

Re:Cost?

[pushing-robot]

Well, light bulbs may be banned, but heaters are still OK.

Re:Cost?

[Teun]

Heat is their biggest enemy, when they are enclosed they get too hot and die prematurely.

I've got two jam pot sized ones, because of their size I put them in quite large standing lamps so they get plenty of air circulation and are getting close to 20 years old.

Re:Lumens?

[Lunix Nutcase]

The same as the 60W. That was sort of the whole point of the competition. Same light output for lower wattage.

Re:Lumens?

[JStyle]

910 lm

http://optics.org/news/2/8/8

"Perhaps because of those tough requirements, only Philips has officially entered the competition thus far – and that was nearly two years ago, back in September 2009. Over the past 18 months, its 910 lm design, which Philips says operates with an efficacy of 93.4 lm/W at a warm-white color temperature of 2727 K and offers a color rendering index of 93, has been put through extensive testing."

Re:Lumens?

[JStyle]

910 lm

For comparison, a regular 60 Watt incandescent outputs 890 lm at an efficiency of 15 lm/W

Quick & "dirty" spectral analysis

[Announcer]

Just take a common CD and hold it up so you can see the "rainbow" reflection for your light source. If it is a continuous "rainbow" then it's likely going to have good color rendering. If you see spots of color, then it's emitting peaks of various colors. My old "warm white" CFL's were peaks of about 6 colors. I hated them, but they were all that was available until recently.

Now I use "Bright White" CFL's which have what looks to be a nearly perfect, continuous spectrum. The best part is that they aren't yellow or blue tinged, they truly are a nice, crisp WHITE. I'm hooked.