THE WIRECUTTER: The Best LED Lightbulb Is the Cree Warm White

A few years ago we started using LED light bulbs. At first we used them in a couple high traffic areas like the kitchen and bathroom. I think we only have two bulbs that are not LED type now. Your electric bill will feel the difference.

Read more and see photos via the source link.

Source:
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-led-lightbulb-is-the-cree-warm-white/

John - How long have you had your led lights running and have you had any of them fail?  To what extent have you noticed their normal degradation in output?

...Tiger

John - The oldest LED bulbs were purchased in 2009-2010. These are in a free standing dual reading and indirect ceiling lamp (2 bulbs). I used to joke that I bought a $20 lamp and put in $70 worth of bulbs. Today you can do the same thing for a lot less money.

I attached a photo of most of the bulb types we have. From left to right with model numbers and rating: GE LED10P30S830/24 10W, GE LED7PAR20/NFL 7W, Grovers Special (brand unknown) RLA8W30K2BC 8W, Philips 3PM5 E335104 7W.



The oldest bulbs are the first two GE units.
The youngest bulbs are about a year old and are the Philips units. These are used in the kitchen track spots and get turned on and off a lot.
The Grovers Specials are used in the bathroom and get turned on and off a lot. After turning these off they have a bit of residual light for a while like they have capacitors in them. None of the other bulbs seem to have this characteristic.

We've only had one failure and it was after a relatively short time, maybe three months. There were two of this type (no photo) in the bathroom but we didn't attempt to return the defective unit until about a year later. Grovers refunded the price since the bulbs had a five year warranty and they no longer carried that model bulb. The remaining unit is in the bedroom now I think. We changed the bathroom fixture and the new Grovers Specials are in that.

We also have a LED flood light in a motion sensing fixture outside (no photo). That bulb replaces a 75 watt spot and goes on and off all night. This LED bulb has got to be a order of magnitude brighter than the 75 watt incandescent it replaced and uses significantly less electricity. So much so that we will be adding at least one more.

You asked if I have noticed any degradation in the output and I have to say not at all. The only bulb that failed was a brand called "Liberty Lights" and were on special at the time at Grovers. Those have a completely different construction than all the bulbs in the photo. The Liberty Lights bulbs looked more like a sealed beam incandescent flood style construction and did not have any of the "Heat Sink" properties of our other bulbs. Most of these bulbs are heavier than normal incandescent bulbs, perhaps due to the heat sink design and they seem to have some ceramic inside and around their base.

The Liberty Lights were also the only units we tried indoors with a higher light temperature. The idea at the time was to have a more "Halogen" type light temperature, but they ended up having more of a hospital fluorescent-ish looking light. The warmer 2700 K type bulbs give off a more pleasant light in my opinion.

John - Sounds like you've had pretty good luck with them.  I'm just starting to play with some of the newer generation ones in my house.  My overall experience with white leds isn't real encouraging.  I have done some projects with them and as a result have done extensive testing on virtually all brands.  To do that, I made up panels of 100 leds and ran them 24/7 for months while monitoring their output.  Even after a month, the output was significantly diminished.  What's happening is that the phosphor wears out (white leds are really UV leds illuminating white phosphor).  The Cree and Nichia leds did better than the rest in my testing, but it was still disappointing for something that is said to last something like 50,000 hours.  Cree is now claiming over 90% output after 6000 hrs (250 days) for their newer parts so I'm considering them in the house again.  I don't think I'd buy any other brand in todays market.  Heat is the killer in these things (destroys the phosphor) so I look for something with a good heat sink.  Be nice when they work out all the issues with these things so we can use them with confidence.  In the mean time, I think it's best to use them in areas with intermittent service.  Speaking of intermittent service...  Flashlights are where these things really shine!  There are some awesome flashlights with Cree leds in them now.  I just got a Streamlight model about six inches long with 600 lumen output.  It's absolutely amazing!

...Tiger