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Comment by matheweis | Hacker News Reader

> An LED bulb provides the same amount of light as an incandescent while using 90 percent less electricity

It’s a nice idea, pretty cool to light the entire house for pennies an hour.

> and lasting 25 times longer

I refuse to believe it. It may be possible but in practice even “quality” LED bulbs have either awful QC, intentionally engineered obsolescence, or both.

About a year ago I replaced every bulb in my house with upper end Phillips LED bulbs, probably 50 or more of them.

20% of them have already failed.

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Really getting sick and tired of the gaslighting around how awesome LED bulbs supposedly are. Over the last 5 years I've probably chucked more LED bulbs into the bin than I have incandescents. They flicker. They buzz. I've had an entire case of brand new Feit bulbs go bad. They generate high frequency noise making AM radio reception unusable (especially when on dimmers). I even had one melt down into a smelly, gooey, mess releasing wonderful fumes into my home in the process.

Know what I never had to do when I had incandescent bulbs? Use a lookup table to verify the make and model of my light bulb was compatible with my dimmer. Or have it not be compatible at all. Or read that the bulb is "not for use in enclosed fixtures" which is most bedroom lights and ceiling fans.

> They generate high frequency noise making AM radio reception unusable (especially when on dimmers).

You can complain to the FCC.

I've got over 50 Philips Hue Color bulbs running with no failures since 2016 (so, 7 yrs now) along with between 35-50 FEIT Electric LED bulbs (great for affordable >90 CRI) and only a few of the FEITs have failed over the years. Perhaps it's true that the quality of your electrical service matters; the power in Chicago virtually never goes out.

> I've got over 50 Philips Hue Color bulbs running with no failures since 2016

Those are $40 light bulbs. 99.999% of people do not have $2000 to spend on light bulbs, or laugh at the ludicrousness of such a thought, possibly both.

This is not the metric by which you judge everyone else's experiences. It is luxury/entitlement at its finest. Most commodity LED bulbs are garbage.

IKEA sells <$10 bulbs that in my experience basically don't break at all either. Quite nice CRI too.

Can confirm, also mostly using IKEA bulbs..

Not a single defective one

Have 10 of those running for 8 years without a single failure.

Well, it's the boots problem all over again.

A good pair of boots is expensive, but will last for many years.

Cheap boots are more expensive in the long run, because you're lucky to get a year out of them.

> 99.999% of people do not have $2000 to spend on light bulbs

You don't have to replace them all at once. Just doing one at a time, starting with the one that's on the most, would work fine.

I'm also doubtful that the average poor person has 50 light bulbs.

If I were a renter, I think I'd take my good bulbs with me when I moved, replacing them with dollar store cheapies.

I’ve lived in an apartment with all LED lighting for just over two years, and not a single light has ever gone out in my apartment.

In the apartment I had before with non LED lighting (not sure what it was specifically, I had about 25-30% of my lights fail within 18 months.

If I remember right, most incandescents that were sold in the U.S. were rated for about 750 hours of life.

That's only a little over a month of continuous burning.

Planned obsolescence. It's baked into every new tech in the last 30 years.

Huh weird. I’ve been all led since like 2015 and I’ve had one bulb fail. I think I have around a hundred bulbs. All automated with home assistant. A few even on dimmers (though never dimmed).

Agreed. You got a bad batch perhaps.

When CA first required high efficacy lighting in kitchens via Title 24 in 2010, it was a train wreck, there were no good options and it got a bad name. Slowly they were required throughout new construction in tightening requirements every three years. Then technology caught up and the quality, flexibility, color and lumen options have far exceeded incandescent bulbs. Now people are doing things never imagined (as discussed somewhat awkwardly in the article) with LEDs spurred in part by legislation that pushed the technology from behind. Perhaps one of the few times technology didn't create the product and market. Legislation has created the market, and technology responded. Doesn't usually work out that way...

Now however, the new control requirements are ridiculous and add far more cost than will ever be recouped. Most likely since these requirements were planned back when California used 90 percent more electricity for lighting, it seems rather useless especially in the face of our unaffordable housing. Hopefully I am wrong there but it seems we went a bit too far.

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