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A Tale of Two Tests: Why Energy Star LED Light Bulbs Are a Rare Breed
cylonlover writes "Just over a week ago Gizmag reported that Philips' 22 W LED light bulb, designed as a like-for-like replacement of a 100-W incandescent light bulb, was the first LED bulb of its type to receive the stamp of approval from Energy Star. But looking at the Energy Star requirements reported by Philips in its press release, it seemed a little strange that Philips' product is the only one to have been certified – given that products long on the market appear, at face value, to meet those requirements. Since then, Gizmag has spoken to LED light bulb makers Switch Lighting and other industry players to find out why they're apparently playing catch-up."
All certifications, at some level, are scams.
Every single one.
TL; DR: the testing requirements for Energy Star for LED light bulbs require running them for 9 straight months, and one company was out of the gate first and this is the first and only one certified as energy star for its 100-W-equivalent LED light bulb. Other point: light distribution must be uniform radially for " 170 degrees of radial [sic] flux": sounds like just a smidge under a half-sphere of radiant flux which is probably what was really meant. I can't find any definition of or any other usage of the term "radial flux".
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I use "half-sphere" to mean ($2 \times \pi $) steradians, and you can pretty much visual what I mean by a half-sphere. So I guess an "A-bulb" has to radiate light almost uniformly over 8/9-ths of that solid angle.
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"Radiant Flux" is the term used to describe the radiant power : the measure of the total power of electromagnetic radiation (including infrared, ultraviolet, and visible light). The power may be the total emitted from a source, or the total landing on a particular surface. So neither "radial flux" nor "radiant flux" makes sense in that article. Wrong units either way. Spatial distribution of radiated light would be measured in steradians.
To get the Energy Star certification, the bulbs need to have a projected lifetime of 25000 on-hours (where lifetime means the bulb can emit no less than 70% of its rated light output during that time). If there's going to be planned obsolescence, it's going to be from better bulbs replacing them even though they're still working.
I'm glad to see a high bar set for the certification of LED bulbs. CFL lights rarely hit their expected life span, among other problems
I hate changing light bulbs, and frankly don't care if the LEDs cost a lot. I'd pay more just to not have to change light bulbs. I bought a bunch of the Philips 75W equivalents. While they provide the same intensity of light, the spectrum is considerably different, and very noticeable. The LED casts a cold spectrum that to my eyes is just a yellowish version of what florescent light emits. In the middle of the room, in ceiling cans, it looks fine. But one the side when it casts against walls or shelving, it really makes everything look cold.
One other odd fact, LEDs do still throw off a lot of heat, and they take much longer to cool down than incandescent lights.
"Also companies fall out because they don't have the full light distribution required. For example, with an 'A lamp,' you have to have, to get the full Energy Star standard, 170 degrees of radial flux or light distribution all around the product at generally the same intensity all the way around," he added.
This is just stupid. The light distribution needed should be a matter of application. Efficient lighting also means not wasting light in directions that do not need to be illuminated. Instead of the 170 degree standard, the bulb should be quantified to what degree of lighting coverage it does achieve, and must be marketed accurately.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If you are investing in a light source that will not need replacement for a decade then why, exactly, do you care so much about it being shaped like a light bulb?
LEDs don't like heat. Packing the equivalent of a 100W incandescent in a shape that pretty much minimized surface are to volume ratio is a very bad idea for heat dissipation.
LED light panels make much more sense.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Yeah, but since they prefixed "radial flux" with "170 degrees", it sounded more like a description of "3-d angular subtend" of just under a half-sphere. Though considering that "laser diodes" also exist, the concept of collimated light certainly does make sense with "LED" light sources. I guess inferences aren't just based on context but also on the knowledge and reading history of the reader, too! Do you work with LASERs? (does anyone ever really capitalize all the letters in laser anymore?)
The actual Energy Star requirements are for "Luminous Intensity Distribution," and call for:
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The "ugly and harsh light" is described in the industry as Color Temperature. I'm not sure if it is a requirement to include but most bulbs come with a Color Rendering Index (CRI) rating. It's a scale from 0-100 (100 being a reference incandescent bulb) to rate the Color Temperature of a bulb. LED's are harder to quantify using this method however so a new method is in development called Color Quality Scale (CQS). Who knew a simple light bulb could be so complex? I found a really good read at Jason Morrison's web site with cool pictures and everything!
But to answer your question...it depends on the LED bulb. Since LED's come in several colors but white isn't one of them LED bulbs make white using a couple of different methods. So there are some LED's that have the same harsh temperature and others that are very close to the warm glow of an incandescent. Philips just announced a new process that will bring near incandescent quality with better efficiency (200 Lumens Per Watt (LPW)) than existing LED technology but it is still a few years from production.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I grow plants indoors. I have found that a mix of big-box-store available 6500k and 4500k CFLs work quite well
Does anybody have any experience growing plants under LEDs? Does it work?
You can buy rebranded Cree CR6 fixtures at Home Depot. These replace standard 6" ceiling pot fixtures, but rather than use a bulb shape they actually replace the bulb and ceiling trim too. This lets them put the LEDs on a flat circuit board and also lets them extend some of the heat sink down onto the ceiling to radiate away the heat rather than trapping it in the fixture.
I just bought 4 and the only complaint I have is that they keep their colour temperature when dimmed. I'd prefer that they shift to orange like incandescent bulbs.
And Gizmodo has those interviews all wrong, because the interviewees aren't telling the full truth.
The REAL problem is the barrier to entry caused by Energy Star certification programs and other certifications. We're not playing catch-up; we're playing save-up so we can pay the exorbitant and outrageous extortion fees these entities are charging us.
Phillips little 22w LED ain't shit.
I can take two Cree MK-R, drive them at 6w, and absolutely utterly destroy any 100w CFL (and if Philips needs 22w to do what I can do in 12, well, you see the barrier to entry? I'm a small business, Philips has tons of money.)
And in reality, a single 6w-driven Cree MK-R destroys 100w incan/26w CFL/22w Philips LED, at 7000K CCT and a CRI of 93.
Tis okay, though. Phillips wins the interior lighting race. They still sorely lose on the horticultural side, and I'm way outperforming them across the globe (in actual tests, not sales.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
There's a consensus of sort that power supplies are often the most underengineered things out there in any electronic device. Well, guess what, in a CFL or a LED the entire electronics are the power supply, there's nothing else. When a CFL fails, it's not because the bulb has failed, it's because the power supply is dead. It's certainly possible to engineer a power supply that will last, but such know-how is rare and expensive, and engineering management often doesn't understand that it takes real effort to make a long-lasting power supply. You have to qualify every single part, pretty much -- there's no such thing as letting the purchasing loose to get the best deal. If you want to make a CFL or a LED lamp that will last as long as the life of the light-emitting element, you need to do proper design, then qualify sample parts, then do extensive testing on prototypes, then purchase a batch of parts for a production run, then re-qualify all of those parts again, then have the boards assembled, then qualify the board assemblies, and only then you ship. That's what it takes to get a quality product out. That's what it takes to get a lamp out that will be so old by the time it gets replaced that the house might have changed owners a bunch of times in the meantime. Guess how it's done in real life on consumer CFL/LED bulbs, LOL.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
The ES certification makes ZERO sense to those of us with real optoelectronics experience, for both human and horticultural lighting.
Energy Star can't even use photon flux density, the REAL SI unit.
The interpretation makes almost no sense given the totally differing methods various semiconductor manufacturers have.
And if you worked in this industry like I do, you'd see that.
It's a purely pay-for-play scam based upon the worst 'scientific' measurements ever conceived.
Speaking as a horticultural and interior lighting research director.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The Philips 22W bulb needs to *replace a standard bulb*. That is, the complete unit including the power supply needs to fit in the space of a regular bulb, and it needs to radiate in a certain pattern. If you're not limited by the standard bulb form factor then a bunch of different options open up.
Also, your comparison with the MK-R are misleading. According to their web page, a single Cree MK-R uses 15W to put out 1800 lumens (which is what the Phillips bulb puts out). Only the 2700K/3000K versions are available in a 90CRI version, and the higher the CRI the lower the lumens/Watt.
Speaking as a horticultural and interior lighting research director.
Now that's a pretty impressive euphemism for a marijuana grower.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
FTA:
There is no fee for applying for Energy Star certification, nor for using the label.
I have no such optoelectronics experience, but I am as skeptical and cynical as the next guy and curious about where the "pay-for-play" aspect comes in.
I have found there are just two ways to go.
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow. -REK, Jr.
To get the Energy Star certification, the bulbs need to have a projected lifetime of 25000 on-hours (where lifetime means the bulb can emit no less than 70% of its rated light output during that time). If there's going to be planned obsolescence, it's going to be from better bulbs replacing them even though they're still working.
As it is with CFL's it will likely be true with LED's. Sure the bulb will last that long or meet those requirements. The cheap electronics controlling it though is another story and is the reason many of my CFL's from various brands have failed. YMMV.
Well, yes and no. It's not "engineered to break" - it's engineered to be small and compact. That it happens to be susceptible to drops is an engineering tradeoff, not a design goal. There are rugged phones on the market, but they make up a small niche because they are bulky and awkward, or at the least, expensive compared to more dainty devices.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Agree. Besides, using incandescents at 99c per 2-pack is not that expensive. I've replaced only 2-3 incandescents in the last 10 years, but about 10 CFLs.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
The "ugly and harsh light" is described in the industry as Color Temperature. I'm not sure if it is a requirement to include but most bulbs come with a Color Rendering Index (CRI) rating. It's a scale from 0-100 (100 being a reference incandescent bulb) to rate the Color Temperature of a bulb.
CRI doesn't measure color temperature; it's an indirect measure of the fullness of the spectrum given off by the bulb.
Color temperature tells you how reddish or bluish the light is -- does it look more like incandescent light (reddish) or daylight (bluish)?
CRI tells you how well the light given off by the bulb will allow you to see a range of colors. A CRI of 100 means perfect color fidelity. A CRI of under 90 or so and you will notice that some colors don't look right, because the bulb has dark bands in its spectrum. The CRI measuring process takes color temperature into account -- both warm white and cool white bulbs can have similarly high CRI scores.
For an example of extremely poor CRI, see low pressure sodium bulbs that used to be used a security and parking lot lights. Everything illuminated by them -- cars, clothing, faces -- looks either yellow, black, or dark purple.
I read about that awhile back and forgot it, then a month or so later I installed a couple of LED bulbs in a room of my house close to my TV antenna... and I lost a channel in the VHF band.
Later on I remembered about the LED bulb RF emission problem, and I realized that my TV reception was impacted negatively by the LED bulbs I installed near it. So I moved my antenna and got my channel back.
VHF and UHF TV are not that relevant anymore, but some folks still choose the free option rather than pay for crappy limited expensive options from other providers, so this LED bulb interference could be bad as more people install them.
http://www.amazon.com/Light-Lumen-Replacement-G7-Power/dp/B0064AE2K4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365796844&sr=8-1&keywords=g7+led+bulb
The G7.
There are two reasons.
1: This bulb is set at 3000 kelvin.
It looks NORMAL like a regular LED bulb. I'm sorry but LED bulbs set at 2900k look either Pink or Orange to me and most the people i know. I'm sure that real incandescent bulbs are 2900 kelvin and the rest of the LED companies are trying to mimic them but it doesn't look right in LED.
2: This bulb is 900 lumens.
I know 850 lumens is supposed to replace a 60 watt bulb. But it doesn't for me. It seems dim. At 900 lumens, it seems a little brighter than a 60 watt bulb and I actually like that. I suspect 870 or 880 lumens would be the correct value for a perfect swap.
Downsides: I've never had it happen to me, but I've read that some G7's buzz.
I have approximately 12 brands of LED bulbs going in my house, including phillips. I use the phillips 75 watt in a fixture with a lamp shade. I have a 9 year old "40 watt" bulb which is really more like 20 watt on the porch-- it's always on.
I also find pretty good light (and they fit in cieling fans better) from the lights with the squashed disks. They do give light over a large area. The top is about 1/2" think and about 2" around. They also give a little more lumens than similarly rated bulbs. I have three of those.
I have some multiple fixture floor lamps that all the other random bulbs go into.
At this point, other than the "globe" fixtures in the bathroom, new bulbs going foward will all be G7's until I hear of something better.
I do also have some of the new 3500 kelvin CFL bulbs from Home Depot. I really like the light. It's "superwhite" but not "blue". But like all CFL's they seem to take 60 seconds to achieve full brightness.
I have an old random 75w CFL in my utility room.
I only have three incandescent bulbs left in the house at this point. Two globes in the bathroom and one standard 60w in the attic.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
They are actually quite expensive.
Swapping 10 fixtures to LED can save you $20 per month in direct costs. Which means you pay for more than one bulb per month with the savings. On top of that you are not pumping all that heat into your house and then paying to cool it back down.
My electric bill dropped significantly from going to LED. In terms of alternative energy- they are a hell of a better deal than solar panels or even extra insulation.
I've lost some CFL's but so far I haven't lost any LED's and I turn them on and off a lot.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.