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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?
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?
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!
If only these were made by Apple and not Phillips. There would be block long lines forming to buy the latest iBulb.
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.