Philips' LED Lightbulb Uses 17-watts as 75-watt Replacement

The always problematic, "Why get this when there's a cheaper priced model for me?"
It's a great step down in wattage consumption, but when you spend 500$+ just to replace 10 lightbulbs it'll seem to be a hard hit on most people.

That's always the catch; it always costs more than what they're replacing, so only very few people would bother buying it. I'm also willing to bet that you'll need a special socket, or socket wattage to safely hold the bulb.

I like these far better:
http://store.earthled.com/products [...] light-bulb
$30 each, sometimes one day sales less than that.
only 7 watts. I have five so far in the house.

In theory, the price is not that bad for a light that stands a chance of outliving its owner. However, prices on these will drop as production, sales, and efficiency go up. This is not much more efficient than a CFL that costs far less. Its primary advantage over CFL is its lifetime.

That said, I would not run out and buy a bunch of these for my home. Most of my lights are already daylight CFLs, and they last a long time.

No. To all of your points.

- Cost? If you take into account energy saving and the longer lifespan, the total cost of ownership is lower for LED's. Besides, they keep dropping in price. If you have half a brain, you look at what a product will cost you per year rather than upfront.

- Special socket? Not anymore, modern LED's use the same screw-in design that outdated lightbulbs use. Several brand offer drop-in replacement LED's already. On the other hand, I don't see why they should maintain that design for new homes: LED's can use smaller, prettier sockets too if needed.

Gotta wait a few years, just like when CFL bulbs came around.

Anyone knows whatever happened to VU1 ESL lights? Anyone actually tried it or reviews etc? It sounded pretty good on paper : http://www.vu1corporation.com/about/

I hate that warm yellow glow of light bulbs. i much prefer the cold white light.

OK, so how many people know that when CFL's fail, they EXPLODE. It's all in the mercury and stepping up the voltage yadda yadaa...Yeah... I don't like them much. In fact, many major home insurance policies have a part that say if you have cfl's installed, they won't cover your house being burned down. Lots of local agents don't know this until they do paperwork and there's a simple question for it, and tada! not covered. I'm being honest and not out to bash CFL's since I love lower electric bills, but they are honestly dangerous and very specific to where you should use them(it requires venting at the base where they get hot, unlike typical bulbs where the heat is in the filiment near typical openings), just google it.

Anyways. I use the bulb pictured above and two other LED bulbs in my house. They are in the fixtures that are turned on the most. My wife loves lamps, so her favorite lamp to just have turned on all day (I try... honest) has one, as well as two overheads that have a tendancy to get left on..(rolls eyes). LED bulbs are worth it, just be reasonable and pick your most used lights.

i'll wait a little longer for the Chinese to figure out something cheaper and better

Oh, since LED bulbs step down the voltage instead of step it up, they're alot safer than CFLs, that's where the first part of my comment was heading.

I agree with marco that i prefer high temperature (blue tinted) lights versus the low temperature yellow ones. If I need light, I want a nice bright light that keeps my mind active. Also, the better the CRI the better. A quick check on what colors your light is producing, take a cd/dvd and look at the "rainbow" pattern on it, The missing colors are the colors the lightbulb isn't making, fun stuff. Some lights only make bands or stripes, some miss out on alot of the red, etc. It is slightly entertaining to see what you have.

How many lumens does it produce? If it doesn't surpass 800 lumens, i have no interest in buying it.

pricing is ridiculous and there is no guarantee the thing will actually last 25 times longer and they count on the fact most people will forget when they purchased the thing by then or the company may be long gone. High tech BS at its best.

cookoy 05/18/2011 4:23 PM
i'll wait a little longer for the Chinese to figure out something cheaper and better

These are already made (assembled) in China. LED bulbs are much more complex than CFL or incadescents where you need light source (LED), driver (control voltage and current), optics (control beam angle), phosphor (control color temperature) and heat sink (for LEDs). There is a lot of IP on LED technology so even they could replicate it, they will not be able to sell it here without getting their own IP or licensing it. The most expensive part of the LED bulb is most likely the driver which are made by semiconductor companies.

All that said, they should be significantly cheaper next year since this is relatively "new" and manufacturers figure out how to make it cheaper.

There are many variants, including remote controlled LED lights like this one, that have an RGB pattern in them, 5-7W for $25!

Other led lights like this are sold from other brands for $40 in costco today!
They are white but nothing a yellowish cap could not do.

LEDs are definitely better than CFLs but I'm waiting for ESL to hit the market. Lower power usage, better light quality, no mercury, you don't have to wait for the light to warm up to get the full brightness, you get full range of dimming, and the color of the light doesn't change over time like LEDs.

May be a good time to purchase Philips company stock, especially if the rumors are true that the US is going to mandate consumers to change use to LEDs (I thought this was a free country)...

LED is much preferred over the toxic (mercury) compact fluorescent. I have nice little led strip light hidden up under my cabinets over my kitchen sink, has 3 little lights spaced out over 12", never turn it off, uses about as much as night light. My coffee pot sucks up more juice for one pot than it does running for over a month.

Wayyyyyyyy toooooooooo expensive

I'm a Phillips distributor as well as a lighting specialist. And these things are the way to go.

For those of you balking at the price, well true hardware costs money. Like CFL's and hell, even PSU's, yes the chinese will create some cheaper alternatives. And they will fail. As a stores manager in downtown Toronto I was approached by every company under the sun trying to get me to stock and sell their LED's. For the most part, they all sucked. It was still an emerging market at the time (about 6 years ago). It's not the same anymore, the big players have a product that works, and works well.

The prices will still come down, in time. Just like T8's and now T5's, the newest tech always costs more, until they become the standard and something new and better comes out. CFL's have come down a lot (and I'm not talking cheapo depot $2 offshore crap, I mean the real ones liks Phillips or Panasonic) since they hit the mainstream market, LED's will do the same.

If someone was looking to upgrade their home lighting right now, I would strongly recommend stop thinking about what's the cheapest and start thinking about what's the best. You get exactly what you pay for.

US isnt mandating switch to led, just any bulb better than incandescent.
Anyway, these things have to get alot cheaper. Ive never had a bulb of any kinds live up to its expected lifespan. Ive had cfls die out in 3 months so I dont believe those longer life numbers justify the cost.

Went there - unfortunately these are a 40 Watt equivalent bulb vs. the 75W in the article. (In my house my CFLs are at least 75W equivalent with 100W preferred.) In other words, to get the about the same light output I would need 2 bulbs of what you stated to get the same light or more out of one of these bulbs - so suddenly these bulbs are looking better to me already.


Amazingly, our country still has tons of laws that restrict our freedom to do what we want because it is for the benefit of society. Try to carry a dozen full sized bottles of shampoo onto a plane, walk around with a sword strapped to your side, drive faster than 85 mph anywhere in the USA, or marry someone of the same sex (or 2+ other people at the same time, same sex or not) and you will see it is not allowed.
In the case of lighting, incandescent to CFLs had made a significant impact in my energy consumption at my household. Multiply it by every household in the USA and you reduce the burden on an aging energy infrastructure system. Add to it our dependence on fossil fuels and reluctance to switch to renewable sources, and you can see how it extends our lifespan of feedstock (especially if that feedstock is needed to be processed into a gasoline substitute to keep our oil-based economy going).
However, I doubt such a law would ever pass in the USA.

"OK, so how many people know that when CFL's fail, they EXPLODE. It's all in the mercury and stepping up the voltage yadda yadaa"

Wow, I have been using CFLs for 10+ years and have never had one explode when they failed. They just stopped working like a non-CFL bulb does. Granted I have only had 3-4 fail in that 10+ years. When they have failed I just put them in a zip-lock bag and drop them off at Home Depot recycling on the way to work.

Building I live in converted to CFLs a couple of years ago. We have one occasionally fail, but never explode. Building I work in uses CFLs in places and I haven't heard anyone mention exploding lights.

I currently have two of the 60 watt models that only use 12.5 watts. I really enjoy the amount of light they generate and a lot less heat than incandescent bulbs.

I went with LEDs instead of the CFL because the frequent turning off and on is harder on the CFLs.

You are full of misinformation. CFL don't explode unless they are broken, just like a incandescent bulb (both are have negative pressure inside. The only remotely close thing on the web that refers to cfl's not being covered is the cleanup cost in ONE case of a woman who completely overreacted to breaking a bulb. READ the cleanup procedures recommended by the EPA. You have a higher chance of getting mercury from eating fish.

When they are double the price of a cfl, then LEDs will be worth it. Until then, I'll let the rich people buy them, much like the $10000 dollar plasmas of yesteryear they had at Costco.

17 watts for 75 watt equivalency is not that impressive. CFLs have the same efficiency and cost much less (at this time) to purchase.

Agree with you, but it's better off for the average consumer to stick with CFL for now. In the next 10 years or so, the LED becomes the standard, then prices would come down. That's when everyone should jump on the LED lighting bandwagon.

@xenophorge for a lighting specialist, you talk like a potato seller from the mid-west (wherever that is).

Still incandescent light bulbs for me.
1. The light is very good
2. It's the only bulb that emits warmth and infrared, and it's really good for the skin.
3. Price

I've stockpiled the incandescents cause CFL's are a hoax. As for LED's too expensive. Obama and his cronies want to change the way everyone lives

Yes please purchase Philips stock.
- Philips Lighting I.T. employee