A Tale of Two Tests: Why Energy Star LED Light Bulbs Are a Rare Breed 314
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."
like for like replacement wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Avoid CFL mistakes (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been using the same ones for 11 years, one takes longer to start these days, but none have died. Perhaps they're die when a house has a bad power source?
Re:Avoid CFL mistakes (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep, this problem was alluded to in the article in explaining why this certification was so stringent.
My experience with them is very mixed. Even within brand tier it's been kind of mixed. My best experience for lifespan was from Sylvania, but second-worst was GE. Second-best was Commercial Electric (which I think is now known as nVision) and worst was Lights of America. The quality of CFLs has been very uneven and difficult to predict.
The worst experience was from when we moved into our current home ten years ago and promptly deployed CFLs en masse throughout the house. Of the Lights of America CFLs we bought at the time (about a dozen of them), two of them lived past the first month. Those two are still in service. Of the other ten, we took them back on warranty, and replaced the first few with like, but when they went out on us as well, we started getting refunds and buying another brand.
The best experience, was for two Sylvania CFLs purchased in 1994 when they cost around $20. One died last year when the fixture it was in fell over and broke the envelope. The other one had met a similar fate some years before. I felt that they didn't owe me anything.
Why light bulb form factor? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [google.com] make much more sense.
Re:Avoid CFL mistakes (Score:4, Interesting)
It has an enormous lot to do with the quality of the power supply components and how hot the bulb gets (this is also true of LEDs). Comment on TFA mentions this -- electrolytic capacitors have a lifetime that is very sensitive to heat, and can be quite short.
The main flaw with these energy star standards is that they too heavily weight towards backwards compatibility -- if, say, someone came up with a new way of packaging LEDs into new construction, where the lights and the power supplies were decoupled (one power supply, many little lights), the energy star standard would be simply unable to evaluate it -- it's not a "100W replacement", it doesn't fit into a standard fixture, etc. And there's good technical reasons to do it that way -- spreading out the lights simplifies the cooling, getting the power supply away from the lights helps with keeping those components cool, etc.
Re: 9 month test required + uniform radial flux (Score:3, Interesting)
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.