The dropping price of LED bulbs is accelerating. We evaluate just a few brands to see how they're approaching design and EcoLight lower price manufacturing. You've got most likely noticed LED bulbs situated next to the incandescent and compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs at your local hardware retailer. I spend means too much time in these aisles. That is capitalism at its best! I find the battle of recent tech, sensible manufacturing, and large demand intriguing. I've switched nearly all of the lights in our house over to LED in part because of the (small) power financial savings, however mostly because I am lazy: EcoLight A 22-year lifetime means I don't must climb a ladder for some time. Once i bought my LED bulbs a few years in the past they had been around $15 a pop. As with most all tech, I've watch the value drop over time. In this case, EcoLight LED bulbs in my local Residence Depot (Philips 60W) are hovering round $10.

On a current visit to the lighting aisle I was taken off guard when a pack of two 60W bulbs by Philips were selling for $5 ($2.50 each!). This is not just a drop in value, that is an all out value war between some heavy hitters. Confusing me was the truth that proper subsequent to these 60W bulbs for $2.50 have been 60W bulbs for $10 from the identical manufacturer. Upon nearer inspection I noticed one thing odd. These decrease value LEDs had a show life of 10 years as opposed to 22. Okay, so that they shaved some value by shortening the life span of the bulb. Neat advertising trick however the engineer in me wished to know how. Nothing too loopy. Every bulb claimed to be 800 lumen at varied power consumption levels (8.5W to 9.5W). And that i only seen this now but the cheap bulbs are non-dimmable. Exhausting to see within the above picture but the bulb in the center (cheap Philips) is slightly shorter than the dearer Philips bulb.

The TCP is a couple of centimeter taller. This has little effect on lighting however millimeters of materials will start to matter. I did a fast initial take a look at to see how the bulbs performed. 13.2W). Perhaps the actual LEDs devour 9.5W and the ballast (the thing converting AC to DC) consumes the remaining. This can be a super-sneaky advertising and EcoLight bulbs marketing ploy, as I assumed the rating on the outside of the packaging was the general energy consumption of the bulb. All three bulbs had opaque plastic upper bodies. The expensive Philips bulb came apart with some strong twisting. Underneath was a neat plastic diffuser. Underneath the diffuser was a mixture of small and huge LEDs. Not what I might have expected - 14 large LEDs, 6 small. A, as well because the date code: 2014-10-14, a delta of 7 months from once i bought the bulb. The date is probably in relation to design version and not manufacture date.

With quite a bit of prying drive, the steel LED PCB comes off the metal base heatsink. This was to be anticipated