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Philips Releases 100W-Equivalent LED Bulb, Runs On Just 23 Watts
MrSeb writes "The Light Fair convention kicks off in Las Vegas this week, so there will be any number of related announcements coming soon. Lighting giant Philips is starting things off early with the announcement of their 100W-equivalent LED bulb, the AmbientLED 23W. The model produces 1700 lumens, putting it at a very respectable 73.9 lm/W. The unveiling comes shortly after Philips' L Prize bulb was made available to consumers. That bulb currently sells for about $60 and is a more efficient light source, capable of 94 lm/W. The two use similar designs; for example, both take advantage of remote phosphor, but the AmbientLED 23W (it will be called the EnduraLED in non-consumer applications) is brighter and lacking in some of the performance characteristics of the L Prize winner, including luminous efficiency and color accuracy. Philips' 100W-equivalent bulb will be available some time in the fourth quarter. Pricing has yet to be announced, but it will likely be well over $30."
At those prices, I expect it to come with a warranty that backs up their "Lasts X years" claim. If you say it lasts 10 years, and you can't even offer a 5-year warranty, I'll keep my $60, thanks. I've seen too many of these bulb manufacturers make promises they knew they couldn't keep. CFL's in particular seem very sensitive to electricity fluctuations and brownouts. I've got a couple of fixtures in my house that burn through them like crazy, even after replacing the switches (finally just put a incandescent back in them and they do fine).
No way I'm slapping down that kind of money for a bulb unless I can be sure the thing is really going to last, and that the company has enough faith in it to put their money where their mouth is. I'd hate to buy a bunch of those only to have some local brownouts blow them in their first year (and find out the company won't back their product up with a replacement or refund).
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
And now we are discovering why they passed the law requiring all light bulbs to be higher efficiency than standard incandescents, so that Philips can sell light bulbs for $30-60.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I have fluorescent lights that use pretty much exactly the same amount of power to output 100W equivalent of light. And those bulbs cost not much more than a buck a piece. What exactly does these provide to me for $30?
The LEDs I have seen in the small sizes are just pi$$ weak. Compact fluorescents get less energy efficient in the smaller sizes, but I am thinking that since the big light bulbs have multiple LEDs, that you could get high efficiency at the low wattage end?
LEDs seem to have a directivity to them where they are more efficient as a spotlamp where a compact fluorescent has losses to the reflector whereas an LED seems to be less efficient as an area light, since it seems to want to throw its light in a cone anyway. One should play to the advantages of the particular tech.
The spectrum from a LED bulb is better than florescent. Many people don't like florescents simple because the color temperature isn't as close to incandescent.
From what I've heard, LED can come in several ranges.
Better explanations: http://www.agreensupply.com/what-is-warm-white-and-natural-daylight-cool-white-color-for-led-light-bulbs/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Temperature#Lighting
All that said, that is worth maybe $5 to me, but not $30.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
..by stockpiling 300 100w incandescent light bulbs. By the time I run out of those, a suitable, and cheaper, replacement for 100W incandescent bulbs should be available.
All these relatively small LED lights are using a phosphor layer, pumped by either a blue or UV diode or diodes, to generate something resembling reasonably white light. The phosphor step gives them much lousier efficiency compared to their monochromatic counterparts, which don't have that additional step eating photons.
I am assuming that they do this, rather than using arrays of multiple colored LEDs matched to add up to 'white', because of the difficulty of getting suitably even mixing, weird color fringes, and the like. Does anybody know what would be needed(either advances in LED fabrication, or minimum size/complexity requirements for a light fixture) to make the multiple-colors-mixed approach viable?
Interesting. I had a problem with LED holiday lights. I used an X10 appliance module so that I could turn them off by remote control. Unfortunately, when I switched to LED lights, I found that the X10 module leaked just enough current to keep the lights going, only slightly dimmer. Not very useful.
For me the problem is using the bulbs with a dimmer. CFL's DO NOT DIM. Period! Even the so called dimable ones simply drop in output maybe 30-40% then flicker and go out. If you have a multi bulb fixture the CFL's don't dim together and usually go out at different settings. In the rooms of my house that require dimable fixtures I have to use incandecents. If the LED bulbs will dim with standard dimmers (I use X10 switches than can be remote controlled) I would consider switching to them. At some point I will try the 75watt LED bulbs in the bedroom or maybe the 60w ones in the family room and see if they work with dimmers. (If they don't they will go back to HomeDepot for a refund!). The LED bulbs should also be more vibration proof than CFL's so they can be used in ceiling fan fixtures.
I recently put some rather expensive LED bulbs in my fridge (long story...) Anyhow, reaching in and pulling anything out freaks me out due to the flicker... it's like a strobe light or an old CRT... Is there a DC converter or are they still hitting the LEDs with raw AC?
So far, none of the Philips "Ambient LED" bulbs I've purchased has failed. I have several, in 40 and 60 watt equiv. The 60's (around 850 lumins) are not the latest prize winners, but are still quite efficient.
I --HATE-- the CFL bulbs. I have found them to be unreliable as well as uncomfortable to use for reading or working. These new LED bulbs, however, have a very nice color to them, a fairly wide spectrum, virtually no flicker at all, and as I said -- so far, I have yet to have one fail.
I actually prefer these new ones to incandescent bulbs for reading and lighting a room -- I would never have said that for any form of CFL or long tube fluorescent.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
As others have noted, you're forgetting the cost to power the bulb. Standard incandescent lasts 1000 hours, the LEDs should last 10K (some claim 20K, but we'll go with the lower figure). So for a 100W equivalent, you buy 10 incandescents for 20 cents a piece, or $2. Let's say the LED costs $60.
Next up is the cost of power. Over 10K hours, the incandescents consume 100W * 10K hrs = 1Mwh (1000 Kwh). The LED consumes 23W * 10K hrs = 230 Kwh. At 10 cents per Kwh (I pay about 12 cents; prices in the U.S. range from 8-25 cents), that's $100 to power the incandescents. And $23 to power the LED.
That said, a fluorescent would get roughly the same power cost as the LED, and cost less than a tenth what the LED costs up front. But they're not well-suited to dimmable fixtures, they require special disposal, and they frequently have a delay before they reach full brightness (and some claim they get less "natural" light). If none of that bothers you, then go with fluorescents. But if it does, then your fallback option would be the LED, which is cheaper over its lifespan than even 20 cent incandescents.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Since half a year now I have a 6x1W LED lamp (from IKEA) hanging off the ceiling in my kitchen. This thing fires 6 tightly focused beams at the walls, which makes 6 funny areas of bright white light to distribute around my kitchen (it has adjustable steel tentacles) . It's bright (where it shines), it's reasonable well designed, it's sturdy and looks seriously cool. It also consumes only a laughable amount of electricity.
And you know what? I happen to like that thing a lot. It eats 6 bloody watts and gives more than enough light everywhere I need it while generating a really nice light landscape. And yes, it does this while eating just 6 bloody watts of electric energy. It also fires up 100% instantly after switching it on.
Hey, there's nothing wrong with LED lights! Gimme more of those! How can geeks NOT like these things?
I have even thought of buying the cheapest LCD screens off ebay and making lamps from them. Hey, you spend how many dollars on gadgets and then you're mean on lighting? Why? Light is cool and LEDs are the next best thing after stealing fire from the gods (or nature or the OS of that particular simulation or whatever).
Stop complaining and invent BETTER LED LIGHTS! And make them cheaper! You will sell billions of them! You lazy, dumb, complacent idiots!
That's odd. AFAIK, X10 modules generally use a relay for power switching, so there should be no leakage whatsoever. Maybe it has a bad relay.
X10 modules have a local-on feature so that you don't need to use a controller to turn the device on. If you have a lamp connected to one, then turning the lamp off and then back on will trigger the X10 module to power on. It's a safety feature so a lost controller won't result in not being able to turn something on, like a light you need in the middle of the night.
That feature requires a continuous low level current through the controlled device to detect the actual switching at the device. This current is sufficient to keep a CFL blinking even after you turn the X10 power module (with the relay) off. Eventually the CFL cools down and the current isn't enough to flash the lamp and it stops. I'd guess it is also enough to keep an LED lit partially.
X10 modules generally use a relay for power switching,...
I forgot to add, the POWER modules use a relay. There are also LAMP modules that have TRIACs just like wall dimmer switches use. Unless you have a dimmable CFL, your LAMP module isn't going to dim your CFL. And both modules have the local-on feature so they both leak current to the controlled device.
If only these were made by Apple and not Phillips. There would be block long lines forming to buy the latest iBulb.
People squawk about the price but consider these factors. How many light bulbs are left on more than an hour a day in most homes? Say living room and kitchen? Maybe a family room or office? Bedroom? Okay so we are talking four or five bulbs, the rest can be compact florescent. Even at $60 you are talking about $240 to $300 to replace all the important lights in the house. Remember nation wide lighting is a large percentage of the power used. In the average house it's 14%. Say you have a $100 power bill and your lights run $14. Let's be generous and call the florescents $4 of that so the LEDs would cost around $2.50 a month so the savings was $7.50. It would take 40 months to pay them off. That's assuming 5 bulbs with no discounting or rebates. If they last 10 years then you get 6.5+ years of saving $7.50 a month and that's conservative. The returns are better than the stock market. The speed of return would be higher if you just replaced the 2 or 3 most used bulbs but the savings are still impressive on 5 bulbs. Buy one bulb a year and in 5 years they are all replaced and by then they'll be cheap enough to replace the rest of the florescent bulbs. My mind is constantly blown when people complain about paying more now just so they can get cheap or free power later. If solar panels payback in 5 to 7 years you are talking 20 years of free power and people still complain that they have to spend extra money now. Most homes can cut their power bills in half with more efficient appliances and most pay a hell of a lot more than a $100 a month. If everyone got on board they'd save a lot of money and we could shut down some coal plants instead of building more. People keep calling it a rip off and the bulb companies are cheating you but how is saving you a ton of money cheating you?
You're in a room with an incredibly old fluorescent light that uses the 'built-in' line frequency of 60 hz, instead of upping the frequency.
Or, sometimes, it tries to up the frequency, but the original frequency still makes it in. For example, it might provide a nice high frequency, except in that split second as the voltage reverses itself. (Which it does 60 times a second in our alternating current systems.)
Incidentally, these problems are provided by the 'ballast', not the 'light bulbs' tubes. It's that box at the end of the fluorescent light, and they rarely are replaced.
Fluorescent lights are basically a tube filled with gas that lights up when and only when, a current is run through them, instantly cutting the light off when the current drops below a certain level. Alternating current cuts off and reverses direction 60 times a second. Do the math yourself as to what happens when you hook those things together without thinking about this problem, which was the way they originally built fluorescents.
To be fair, fluorescent bulbs have a phosperous coating that is supposed to absorb and keep emitting light for a split second during all this...but that's just enough to keep the room from visibly falling into darkness, not to stop the flickering.
Modern fluorescent ballasts, including ones built into the base of CFLs, deal with this much better.
Incandescents, OTOH, produce light because they heat a filament up, and that filament stays heated up for a second or two no matter what the power is doing.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Been using CFLs for a long time and life has not been an issue. I have some that have not been replaced, I installed them when I moved in 8 years ago and they've not needed replacement (once that don't get used as often, needless to say). In my room, I have had to replace them, but due to brightness, not failure. I've since replaced them with LEDs, since I like the colour spectrum of the LEDs better, and they warm up faster (LEDs are instant according to my eye, CFLs take a bit). My whole house is CFL or LED too, since I live in warm climate and incandescents are double whammy.
So the people with all the failures all the time either have poor power (maybe shoddy grounds) or buy shit bulbs.
Philips does indeed say what their warranties are. I don't have that bulb, but I do have 3 AmbientLEDs. The warranty says "Philips warrants that this bulb will be free from defects in material and workmanship and will operate for a period of 6 years under normal usage..." and then goes on and on as such things do. They also state they expect it to last 15 years or more under normal usage and specify what that qualifies as (as in how many hours a day and so on).
Seems like they are willing to back it up. Philips isn't some fly-by-night company either, they've been around for quite some time, reasonable bet they are around to deal with claims, if they need to.
I'm willing to throw my money in on their bulbs. They look good, work good (they run in a regular dimmer no problem), are efficient, and so on. I'm fairly confident they'll replace them if they break, and I'm fairly confident they won't break so they are worth the money to me.
I have an investment proposal for you that will pay you back 16.8% annual interest for 5 years in constant monthly payments (like a mortgage).
Buy that $60 23W LED bulb and use it to replace a cheap 100W incandescent that you run 5 hours per day (and I assume you pay $0.12/kWH for electricity).
It comes with a warranty, right? This investment is nearly risk free.
(other assumptions: 1500 hour life for incandescent, $1/bulb replacement cost)
Can you find any other investment right now that will pay you anything like this? Why would you make fun of this before checking the actual costs and returns?
The cheaper CFLs have electronics that can't handle the heat, when ppl use them the usual way with the screw (and electronics) up and the glass part pointing down, it fries them (heat goes up).
Want to have them last longer?, make sure they are the other way, with the screw down and the glass pointing up. When they are horizontal, the longevity is average. Incandescents don't care and can point down just fine.
Incidentally i have a couple of 10w Phillips LEDs, flood lamp style. They use 4pcs of 2.5w led each. Some people has had them burn out quickly when used in a typical enclosed flood lamp fashion, perhaps pointing down from above. I noticed they also have electronics that heat like crazy; thankfully mines are pointing up (their light is too strong for my room, opting for bouncing instead) and they are uncovered, with plenty of ventilation.
Even with bouncing, their combined strength is similar to a 100w incandescent.
I believe these leds are spending a lot in ac/dc transform. Perhaps if houses had some sort of dc standard, it would make implementation and longevity easier (a single ventilated transformer elsewhere instead of lots of small inefficient ones attached).
Btw with leds if the transformer doesn't fry, they also become dimmer with time. They just last much more than fluorescents, and no mercury or fragile glass is needed.
Artix
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