Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

[mooncliff]

Philips LEDs are excellent, and here is a loss leader.
I have swapped out incandescents for LEDs in 20 houses and three businesses, and these seem to be about as good as it gets.
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/philips-cheap-led-bulbs/

[charliebrown]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

Thanks for the tip mooncliff, i have been waiting to get led's because of the price. I have cfl's in every high duty cycle fixture.
Do these led lights work in the cold? are they instant on? I have a closet or two that I want instant light in, and the garage where
the low temperature (20F) causes the cfl's to burn dimly.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

Thanks for the tip mooncliff, i have been waiting to get led's because of the price. I have cfl's in every high duty cycle fixture.
Do these led lights work in the cold? are they instant on? I have a closet or two that I want instant light in, and the garage where
the low temperature (20F) causes the cfl's to burn dimly.

I swapped out all my lights for LEDs. Including the ones in my garage. All 60w equivalent.

My experience: Temperature is no problem. Instant on, faster than traditional incandescents. Do not heat up at all (might be a problem for outdoor lights in the snow). Dropped energy use house-wide by a couple percentage points.

One thing to be aware of is the true-white will look blue to you. It takes some getting used to. Your house will definitely stand out on the street. BUT, that's only because all the other night-light is so yellow. After a week, if you're like me, you won't want to go back to yellow light.

They're supposed to have a very long life. It has only been about a year, so I can't speak to how long they actually last. But so far, I'm very happy with them.

[shiny!]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

I love my LEDs. The color of light from the LEDs is so much prettier than the CFLs, I will never go back to CFLs again. Heck, at this price I'm going to buy a few to swap out the CFLs where I work.

As far as being instant on, they basically are but there's a very slight delay of just a split second when you turn on the switch. Not the kind of delay you get with a CFL, but just a tiny little "micro delay" compared to an incandescent. Not enough to be a problem at all. I say go for it!

[santafe2]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

As everyone else has said, LEDs are great. We've replaced almost all of our lights with Phillips LEDs from Home Depot. The new price is amazing. The first ones we bought were over $25 each about three years ago.

[sadsack]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

We've switched out all incandescent lights inside and outside of the house with either LED or CFL, and will transition completely to LED as the deals come up. Last year Home Depot had a 10 pack of the Phillips slim style LEDs for $50 - these are my hands-down favorite. Our municipal utility sweetens the pot with rebates of $2 per LED and $1 for CFL up to a $20 total rebate within a 12-month period.

Along the way we ditched the older 2700K warm-whites for 5000K lamps; yes they have more glare but we've definitely noticed improvements in mood (melatonin related?). From our experience I recommend at least 3500K (except perhaps in the bedroom) and 5000K for family/active areas.

I'm getting Mooncliff-level energy savings. When we don't have to run the air conditioning, our electric bill is $22-23 for a 1600 sq ft house.

[lektrode]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

yep - their price is starting to look more attractive by the month - will think about buying them when they drop below CFL's
and i use up the 'lifetime supply' that i bought when the CFL's dropped to appx the price of incandescent...
which may take awhile, as i've only replaced ones that i somehow managed to break (but didnt inhale... ;)

and i kinda like the slow heatup in brightness - esp in the wee hours at way-dark30 - consider this a 'feature' as its easier on the ole eyeballs when stumbling around in the dark (esp when trying to aim fer the bowl...)

[flintlock]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

Funny I just bought 50 LEDs yesterday from Home depot online, same price. Great deal, just know these are not dimmable.

[lektrode]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

Funny I just bought 50 LEDs yesterday from Home depot online, same price. Great deal, just know these are not dimmable.

they were running a deal with RMP earlier in the year (since sometime last year) and was going to buy a few of the canlight/par30 conversion kits - and, wouldnt ya know it/of phreakin course - when i finally got round to it - as the expiration date of the rebate came up - THEY DIDNT HAVE ANY - some guy was there with me at the custserv counter saying that he was there to buy 60 of em and was perty hot about it - the mgr caved in and gave him almost as good a deal as the rebate - i decided that since i still have about a dozen CFL par30s, that i'll wait s'more...

[GRG55]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

Thanks for the tip mooncliff, i have been waiting to get led's because of the price. I have cfl's in every high duty cycle fixture.
Do these led lights work in the cold? are they instant on? I have a closet or two that I want instant light in, and the garage where
the low temperature (20F) causes the cfl's to burn dimly.

I have some Philips brand LED lamps in outdoor fixtures and they work fine in winter ambient temps as low as -35 C (-30 F).

[flintlock]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

CFLs have been fairly disappointing. The longevity has simply not lived up to claims. Poor light quality, slow starts. Quality is all over the place, even with major brands. I have seen quite a few with holes burned through the sides of them. I can't see them being around much longer now that LED prices have dropped. They were a stopgap solution and a mediocre one at that. LED as far as I can tell have almost no drawbacks vs incandescent or CFL lamps. Only negative I can see now is for candelabra bulbs in chandeliers and other applications where the bulb shows. The LED replacements are kind of ugly in that form.

Get 2700 K color if you want to keep the color we have been used to with incandescent. My customers generally demand that. I just hope the longevity lives up to claims for LED. LED technology allows a multitude of colors. You can even buy them that change colors. I have only seen one LED failure since they have come out. I installed some in a kitchen and the customer called and said one would turn a little pinkish when someone was using the treadmill upstairs. Some sort of RF interference. Even that one didn't really fail.

I am still surprised at the resistance some have to going with the LED. People can be short sighted. They won't spend $15 for an outdoor floodlight bulb that runs all night at 20% of the energy usage . Instead they will spend $5-6 on a 90 watt halogen that will require almost yearly replacement and will eventually destroy most cheap fixtures due to the heat they put out. And they will have to drag out a huge ladder or pay someone to change the high ones. They are a no brainer at this point for most situations.

[lektrode]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

CFLs have been fairly disappointing. The longevity has simply not lived up to claims. Poor light quality, slow starts. Quality is all over the place, ...

thats not been my experience with them - again, havent had ANY the couple dozen i've installed fail (yet) - forget which mfr, but the ones i bought at costco have certainly passed the test of time.
(which is a good thing - for them - as i never hesitate to return ANYTHING to costco that doesnt 'pass the test' - which seems to be happening more and more frequently... somewhat all of a sudden.)

[wayiwalk]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

I have one that is very very old, it has been around for at least 10 years, maybe older.....in a small desk lamp, some one was getting rid of it and gave to me, I remember thinking, what kind of bulb is this? It gets regular use in my home office. Maybe quality control was better for the earlier CFL bulbs?

But for those prices, I will be getting more LED lights soon.

I've had bad experience with LED flush mounts. I installed four in my kitchen to replace some halogen lights that were always burning out. With my LEDs, two of them failed in the first or second year they were installed. I replaced the entire light, there wasn't an obvious way to replace things, well heck, I sure couldn't tell what had failed. The replacements have been fine.

[flintlock]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

I have been doing residential electrical service and repair for the last 25 years so I have seen what works and doesnt work. Its usually as much about quality manufacturing as it is the technology. Heck, there is an incandescent that has been burning continuously for 113 years in some firehouse. I'm sure there are good CFL and bad ones. The problem comes in when Home Depot/Lowes/Walmart starts selling $1 CFLs and people expect them to be the same as th $4 one. As with most things, it becomes a race to the bottom in quality with a general public that only considers price. The jury is still out on the LED. I hope the LED doesnt go the same route as CFL where the quality drops right along with the price. I tend to think LED will be much more reliable, even if they dont have the claimed lifespan.

My customers universally hate CFLs. Can't say I blame them. Many times their output is less than claimed. Life is shorter than claimed. Color can be off. Slow starts. This applies to the cheap ones, which are the majority out there.

CFL reputation is so bad that people are resistant to LED because they confuse the two. Both called by three letters and they have no idea what they stand for. I have to push most people just to get them to try LED. CFLs are the reason. They felt burned.

Incandescents? They are worse than ever. Horrible qualty. So you aren't being wise by sticking with them either. Combine them with the cheapo sockets in use today and they are fixture killers.

[GRG55]

Re: Great LEDs, 2 for $5, May to July, 60w equivalent, warm white

I have been doing residential electrical service and repair for the last 25 years so I have seen what works and doesnt work. Its usually as much about quality manufacturing as it is the technology. Heck, there is an incandescent that has been burning continuously for 113 years in some firehouse. I'm sure there are good CFL and bad ones. The problem comes in when Home Depot/Lowes/Walmart starts selling $1 CFLs and people expect them to be the same as th $4 one. As with most things, it becomes a race to the bottom in quality with a general public that only considers price. The jury is still out on the LED. I hope the LED doesnt go the same route as CFL where the quality drops right along with the price. I tend to think LED will be much more reliable, even if they dont have the claimed lifespan.

My customers universally hate CFLs. Can't say I blame them. Many times their output is less than claimed. Life is shorter than claimed. Color can be off. Slow starts. This applies to the cheap ones, which are the majority out there.

CFL reputation is so bad that people are resistant to LED because they confuse the two. Both called by three letters and they have no idea what they stand for. I have to push most people just to get them to try LED. CFLs are the reason. They felt burned.

Incandescents? They are worse than ever. Horrible qualty. So you aren't being wise by sticking with them either. Combine them with the cheapo sockets in use today and they are fixture killers.

My only complaint about LEDs is that I have not found one that doesn't buzz when in a single pole dimmer circuit. I still have incandescent bulbs in those locations. Any recommendations or suggestions flintlock?