Home Depot Now Selling $20 LED Lightbulbs

[mavroxur]

[citation][nom]zoemayne[/nom]I bought about 15 fluorescent light bulbs from home depot about a year ago they are suppose to last 10 years half of them are dead now.[/citation]


The number of times the bulbs are turned on and off has a drastic effect on the lifetime of the lamp from what i've personally experienced. I have a cheapie off-brand CFL lamps in the outside post lights at my drive that have been in there for roughly 5 years, and are still working, and they burn from dusk until dawn. Incredible? Absolutely. However, i've tried using CFL's in areas of my house that turn on and off regularly, and they last 6 months, tops. I've reverted to regular incandescent bulbs in my bathrooms and hallways because of this. Even in areas that run for several hours at a time (office, den, living room), it seems they still don't live up to their published ratings (most of mine were 7 years at 4 hours a day warranted) and in the den, they aren't turned on and off often, usually on for several hours). I think it's really a game manufacturers play, banking on the fact that people aren't really going to return a light bulb that cost a few dollars after it burns out in a year or two, because A) most retailers won't take them back after 90 days, and B) since your retailer wont take it back, you have to SHIP THEM BACK TO THE MANUFACTURER for a replacement, which is pointless, considering you have to pay more than the cost of the bulb to ship them back. They could put a 500 year warranty on a CFL, and it wouldn't matter, because the manufacturer isn't saying they WON'T warranty it, it's because you have to spend $4 to ship back a $2 lightbulb to get it replaced. How many people will do this? Exactly.

 

[zoemayne]

@whitsydaddy no i didnt even throw them away yet their still in the sockets.

@cablechewer I know what LED is, I guess my point is wait 2 years till after they hit the shelves to avoid the batches of 1st gen bad ones.

 

[bildo123]

Not bright enough, give me a LED bulb around that price that can put out the equivalent lumen's of a 75W-100W incandescent. Then I'll bite. In the meantime that can make a decent desk lamp bulb.

 

[zoemayne]

@mavroxur that makes sense because the bulbs in my 2 bathrooms and living room(which get turned on and off frequently) are all dead but my kitchen, porch light, etc are fine. If this is still true even for new bulbs than I guess I should just buy regular bulbs. Of course I'm not gonna waste my time shipping back to the manu.

 

[stratplaya]

But what is the color temperature of these lights? Anything above 4000K is too cold and not very inviting.

 

[68vistacruiser]

I've noticed that the cheap "60 watt equivelent" cfl's burn out quickly, while the 75 and 100 ones last a lot longer. Either way, regular incandescent lightbulbs won't be available sooner than you think, so if you must use them, stock up now.
BTW, I've discovered that cfl's work great in trouble lights because they don't get hot and survive small drops better than regular bulbs. How many times have you burned your arm on a trouble light?

 

[mavroxur]

[citation][nom]68vistacruiser[/nom]I've discovered that cfl's work great in trouble lights because they don't get hot and survive small drops better than regular bulbs. How many times have you burned your arm on a trouble light?[/citation]

You're completely correct in that. I've been using a screw-in CFL in mine since CFL's started becoming available years ago. Run cool, don't burn out when you bump them... it's full of win

 

[jellico]

I hate CFLs! They're expensive, relative to incandescent, they don't work with dimmers, they don't last that long... basically they suck. Now don't get me wrong, I have full-size fluorescent lighting in my kitchen and garage. Those work great, last a long times and the bulbs aren't that expensive to replace.

As for the rest of the house, I'll stick with standard, 4-for-78-cents, incandescent bulbs. I think LED lights will eventually replace them, and this article shows that they are making huge strides in LED technology. They are more efficient than CFLs and they last longer. I've even read that they are working on LED bulbs that put out a "warmer" light that more closely approximates incandescent bulbs. But they still have a little ways to go yet. Still, kuddos and keep up the good work!

 

[sliem]

Mmm I don't know, $20 a pop... with saving of $4 a year (estimate)... I don't know... ex-pen-sive.

 

[kenwheeler77]

You must be an "all-night" person. I'm probably not even awake during 4 hours of darkness. I like to use my time a little more wisely.

[citation][nom]zoemayne[/nom]I bought about 15 fluorescent light bulbs from home depot about a year ago they are suppose to last 10 years half of them are dead now.[/citation]

[/citation]

I've got an almost 50% failure rate after a few weeks on those as well. It'll be good to see if these actually last and it will be nicer when they come down a little more in price. A 2 year ROI on a bulb is a little steep for me.

 

[gm0n3y]

I'll probably try out an LED bulb or 2, though living in an apartment it will probably be a few months before I even need to replace one of my current bulbs.

 

[milktea]

These LED bulbs would make good emergency back up lights (for those with power backup systems at home). They would reduce the power drain from your backup systems.

 

[Guest]

I will wait to see how reliable they end up being. I also got ripped off with the CFl's. I bought several of them and they all died in less then a year.

 

[mythostd]

[citation][nom]zoemayne[/nom]I bought about 15 fluorescent light bulbs from home depot about a year ago they are suppose to last 10 years half of them are dead now.[/citation]
At my work we are switching from florescent and incandescent for selected uses. What you have to take into account is that manufactures take 100 bulbs turn them on and see how many hours it takes 50% to burn out. They figure an average lamp is used around 2,000 hours a year so that is how long it should take half of the lamps to die. An incandescent lasts around 6,000 hours, a CFL lasts around 20,000 hours and a LED lasts around 40,000 hours.

 

[hispeed120]

[citation][nom]shin0bi272[/nom]I think were missing the point here. its a 9w led thats equal to a 40w bulb. Im pretty sure most of us use 60-100w bulbs in our home depending on location. So you will have to get two of these 20 dollar bulbs to equal the brightness you normally have from 1 incandescent... savings go out the window then.[/citation]

Watts is the metric for power consumption. Lumens is the metric for light output--more or less. However, you are somewhat correct. Since a normal incandescent bulb puts out around 15 lumnes/watt, the LED bulbs will still lack on lighting.

 

[RustyXshackleford]

LED bulbs are nice, but the power savings only add up if many many people make the switch. As someone above stated @ .10 per KWH (which is really low!) you`d save maybe $27-28a year on one, X amount of lights so on.

 

[duxducis]

well if you have 20 standard 100w light bulbs in your whole house that's 2000w, replace them with 20 15w CFL bulbs and that's 300w, can light up whole house and turn on extra 3 600w space heaters in winter for same wattage.

So far i had bad experience with LED, out of box new they shine bright, but after year lost ~20% of light, 3 years now and ~50% loss.
what's the point of 20 year life claim if LED have very fast diminishing light output curve (that's what i observed anyway)

 

[gm0n3y]

[citation][nom]__-_-_-__[/nom]USA should ban all the conventional light bulbs just like it happened in europe....[/citation]
I haven't seen incandescent bulbs in Canadian stores for a while now and according to the infallible wikipedia, Canada is banning them by 2012.

The US does their own wishy-washy version of a ban by 2012 too:

http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs#North_America

 

[husker]

[citation][nom]__-_-_-__[/nom]USA should ban all the conventional light bulbs just like it happened in europe....[/citation]
The problem with this kind of thinking is this: The only reason that incandescent bulbs are banned is because they "waste" energy. So you are giving the government the authority to ban something just because they deem it as not a good use of electricity. Fine. What if they go after your 1000W or 850W power supply next? Can you really justify the "need" for what others may see as an energy wasting extravagance? Someone may like their 100W dimmable incandescent light bulb just as much as you like your SLI or Crossfire gaming rig. Tough, get an economical Dell laptop which, if everybody just adopted, would save X amount of dollars and energy and is oh so green and good for the planet. Is that the kind of place you want to live in?

 

[Hilarion]

I'm running 20 CFL's, only one or two of them are on most of the time but in the last 7 years I've only lost 4 lamps. Most of those that died were the first ones I bought. The later ones seem to be lasting nicely and they really add up to substantial savings on my electric bill.