LED bulbs – rippoff?

[Gary WoodingParticipant @garywooding25363]

In October 2022 I purchased a pack of 3 dimmable LED bulbs, 9w equivalent to 60w incandescent. I really only needed one but had to by a pack of 3. It was for a lamp on the stairs which is used for about 5 hours per day during the winter months, and not all in the summer. So approx. 180×5 = 900 hours per year. Since the expected life was stated as 20,000 hours, that would have translated into an expected life of 22 years.

Two days ago the first one failed. It cost 1/3 of £13.99, or £4.67. The old incandescent bulb, which had cost about £0.40 was still going strong after 5 years when it was replaced by the super efficient LED bulb.

In February 2021 I paid £17.99 for a 150w equivalent LED, which failed early this year after 2 years at 6 hours per day, or just under 5000 hours use.

These are not isolated examples. Are we being ripped off?

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Well I’m not, Gary

When I moved, in summer 2022, I bought a load of simple bayonet-fit LED lamps from ‘Home Bargains’ costing approx. £1 per bulb

Branded JCB, they are equivalent to 60W, warm-white, and well diffused.

Used daily … No failures so far.

MichaelG.

 

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Quality does seem to vary. I do wonder if the claims are a bit misleading. The LED might be good for the claim but the transformer in the bulb isn’t!

I have an old incandescent spotlamp in my stairway which is difficult to reach. It has been going for over 20 years so far!

Colin

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Just changed a non dimmable bulb this morning that was fitted 10 months ago and cost £7, with 20000 hrs written on the box, so yes they are a rip off

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

The LEDs may well last  but what seems to fail is the control circuit ! One thing that will kill LEDs is heat and some run very hot – I prise off the cover, improves both the light output and cooling BUT BE CAREFUL there may be 2 pins in the middle that are at mains potential ! Big clive did an interesting video on the Dubai light bulb – a proper longlife LED. The ones I’m using seem to be OK – sofar !

Noel.

[Keith MathesonParticipant @keithmatheson47708]

I had the same conversation with a friend of mine who is a lighting component designer. He said all are made in china now.  QA /QC is better with the bigger brands he said “ Osram, GE or Sylvania.

[VicParticipant @vic]

If you’re used to living in a cave and like very dim lighting then LED lamps seem quite reliable. If however you want bright lighting then my experience is that they are a waste of money as they don’t last very long. I gave up buying them a while ago and bought a small stock of daylight fluorescents.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

I use the ones from the £1 section in Morrisons

Decent bright ones are about a tenner a pop

transformer issues seem to be the Achilles heel of LEDs

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I bought a batch of 12 when they first came out. Standing upright on a centre fitting they lasted no time, but hanging down they just go on and on. As others have said its the electronics that overheat (not transformer). I always look for the ones which appear to have vent holes to let some air in. 20000 hours is over 2 years, has anyone kept a receipt and tried to get a refund?

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I wonder if the small print says the long life is at say 210v and as temperature is the enemy of most electronics then the actual voltage, especially in country areas, is the problem. I just replaced a Phillips one after a short time so they don’t last.

However don’t forget that electronics are assessed by their ‘MTBF’ or “mean time between failure”. Some 20 years ago when I started at a company providing set top boxes the management thought the 14year MTBF meant that the product would last that long. As about 30% had failed in the first year I had to explain to them that MTBF was a military based concept that included repairing all the failures until you couldn’t get the parts anymore. In practice MTBF is the time by which absolutely every one of them will have failed on an exponential curve.

If you buy a new TV then 1 in 100 customers have it fail in the first year. It gets repaired and there are several big companies in Scotland and Poland that I have dealt with turning these around by the thousand.

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

I switched over to LED from CF bulbs over the last 15 years or so, probably in the region of twenty bulbs in total.  In that time I have only replaced one due to failure.  All of the bulbs were bought from an on line led bulb retailer based in the UK.

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

They seem to  last longer hanging down rather than standing upright. By hanging down I mean with the bayonet ( or screw )  at the top.

Roy

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

Seems there are two indicators used for Led lamp life – durabilty & light output degredation with time. The “20 000 hours” indication should have a some indication to which it refers – this article gives some further info.

There is a lot more going on in an Led lamp than an incandescent, so more potential failure points. I have a vague recollection from college a long time ago of the “bathtub failure diagram” for electronic components – a graph of failure rate against time that resembled a traditional bathtub in section –  a steep, rapidly declining vertical line that indicated early, un-anticipated failures in service, that rounded out into a straight line low “random” failure rate as time progressed and the initial weaklings were eliminated. Then, as time progresses and design life is approached, the failure rate rises at a slower rate than the initial drop.

An early failure would have probably resulted in a warranty exchange & a failure after the initial higher risk period but before the design life is probably just a random “one of those things”.

Nigel B.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

At one point about 10 or 15 years ago, councils, electric companies and others were giving away so called low energy flouresent  bulbs. That they were being generous I was not convinced of, more cynical as to an ulterior motive – the country was in fact running out of generating power and this was a desporate attempt to stave off the evil day ? Then, wishing to do my bit, and tesco making a pricing error I bought another 24, just in case (at about 12p each ). Their consumption is about twice that of LEDs and over time the light output drops ! They all got put in the shed as LEDs came round but IF the modified ( see previous post ) LEDs I use start to fail I may have to use them – Ah well. Noel

[MacolmParticipant @macolm]

You may well find that the “life” of a lamp is the average time for the light output to reduce to 50% (or whatever is stated somewhere) of the value when new. The mean “failure rate” refers to total failure and is rarely given.

[Bernard GreatrixParticipant @bernardgreatrix61453]

I’ve just replaced the  reflector bulb in the kitchen with a LED version for the second time this year.

The adjacent 2 are 60w incandescent types and have been there for probably 15 years plus.

The LED lamp quoted 30,000 hour life which I reckon should have been at least 20+ years for 4 hours a day operating not  (being generous) 20 + weeks.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if the lamp just dimmed, but these just stop dead.

 

When I break open LED lamps (we also have GU10 things that regularly fail) I usually find that 1 LED cluster is burnt out. I’ve tried to repair by un-soldering one of the remaining to use on another lamp but the cluster falls apart before it has become “unglued”.

 

So YES YES we are being ripped off

 

Bernard

 

 

 

 

[File HandleParticipant @filehandle]

We have also had some that have failed after a short time. In the loft we have a couple of boxes of tungsten filament bulbs. When we were being encouraged to ditch them my wife bought loads that were being sold off for a few pence, as she didn’t like the  light from the new bulbs. They do make good low wattage heaters when fitted inside a biscuit tin. however, if the new bulbs continue with a low failure rate I will do the maths to see if its worth using these old bulbs which will in effect cost us nothing now except the running cost.

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

We also have no idea if we are buying a well engineered LED bulb or a repackaged bargain basement or factory reject.

I bought some mid priced external LED PIR security lights and about half the LED elements in them failed after about a year.

As has been said, we can only really go by a known good company. Cannot necessarily trust the others.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Based on reliability, Gary might well feel ripped off, and perhaps he was!

But having done the maths, even though Gary’s LEDs failed prematurely, the light they produced was still cheaper than filament bulbs. The purpose of a lamp is to emit useful light, and LEDs do that very efficiently, resulting in low running costs compared with incandescent tungsten wire.   Efficiency almost always matters more than reliability, at least when I’m paying the bill.

A lamp failing is very annoying after those pesky salesmen implied it would last forever but we live in an imperfect world.  Deliberate deception apart, lamps tested in laboratory conditions show the Average Rated Life of a well-made filament bulb to be in the region of 3000 hours, whilst the ARL of a well-made LED is at least 10x that.  ARL is the average time it takes 50% of a large sample of lamps under test to fail.   So for every lamp that lasts more than 50000 hours, another lasts less than 50000 hours.  An ARL of 50000 hours doesn’t mean that each and every lamp we buy will last that long.  ARL isn’t a cut-off point, or a minimum, or an average.  It’s a reasonable indication not a guarantee.

Another misleading fact.  The world’s longest burning filament bulb was switched on in 1909, but that doesn’t means it’s technology is reliable.  Although there’s a single impressive survivor, billions of similar lamps that type failed between 1909 and today, most of them after about 2000 hours, and many millions the first time they were switched on.  Outliers, whether good or bad, don’t establish anything.  The average is much closer to the truth, but always read the small print.

Unfortunately measuring ARL in a lab doesn’t guarantee the same lamps will perform just as well everywhere else.   We have homes that suffer spiky electricity, allow lamps to overheat, get damp, and they’re vibrated as we walk around.  We also like to buy cheap.  Real world reliability is likely to be worse than laboratory reliability, but it’s

 

Beware developing a rose tinted view of the past, it’s an age thing!  I’ve not kept a record of how many lamps I’ve had to replace since leaving home, but it’s a lot!  Cars, bikes, torches, radios, ovens, and fridges etc, at least 2 or 3 per year for half a century.  My mum is filament lit throughout, and I’ve changed 8 of hers this year so far.

Gut feel is fluorescent tubes are much better than filaments, but I’ve replaced several.   CFGs tend to go dim rather than fail and the four I’m still running are nearly 10 years old.   Too early to say about LEDs, but I fitted 6 two years ago with no failures yet, and they’re bright.

Nothing new in people selling sub-standard products, planned obsolescence, and other ways of extracting money from consumers.  Light bulbs and the Phoebus Cartel was an early global example.  In 1924 all the big filament bulb makers agreed to limit light-bulb ARL to 1000 hours by design, so that people would have to buy replacements more often.  Of course bad behaviour persists today, but on the whole, my experience suggests LED lights aren’t a major offender.

Dave

 

 

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

…In 1924 all the big filament bulb makers agreed to limit light-bulb ARL to 1000 hours by design, so that people would have to buy replacements more often.  Of course bad behaviour persists today, but on the whole, my experience suggests LED lights aren’t a major offender.

Dave

 

 

I don’t think this was solely a case of stiffing the customer; as electric lighting spread, manufacturers started making lights which were brighter and whiter than the candles which most people had been brought up with. Unfortunately, the better light output came from running them hotter so they failed more quickly. Of course, few customers appreciated the reason for the short life and moaned that the fancy new bulbs were a rip-off.

The manufacturers (knowing bright bulbs were the future) agreed a standard life time which would correspond to the kind of wattage they expected to become popular, thereby avoiding customer confusion and pointless and misleading competition between manufacturers, some of whom had been claiming extreme bulb life without mentioning the feeble light output that went with it.

[David Bennett 1Participant @davidbennett1]

I bought an Osram 11w=100w LED in March 23 and it has now failed. It was used only in the bathroom with an open ended fitting so no heat problems.

The box proclaims a 3 year guarantee – I am thinking of claiming either a replacement or my £8 back when next visiting.

Anyone achieved a refund?

David

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

I fitted 3off 600mm square led panels in my kitchen, I built them into Oak surrounds. That was 10 years ago and they are still perfect. It’s a fairly large long kitchen and for a kitchen you need good lighting. Each panel uses 38W but the main lighting is only on for the time the room is in use. Under cabinet LEDs operate during down time.

For under stair lighting I would suggest led strings with a separate DC feed. They will last years.
regards Martin

[David Bennett 1]

On David Bennett 1 Said:

…….
Anyone achieved a refund?

David

Not quite the same as a bulb, but I bought a LAP brand 4 foot LED batten from Screwfix to go over the lathe. After a few months, one section went out (about 8 or 10 inches of the two rows of 48 inches.. about 10%?) – it was still perfectly usable, but feeling miffed, I took it back. I’d bought it on a clearance sale, but they replaced it with the newer, more expensive model with no arguments, just a comment that I’d done rather well on the deal. So full marks to Screwfix for customer service, and all the other batten lights I’ve had from them have been fine so far.

As an aside, a short LED lamp I was given – I think it was very cheap – caused tremendous amounts of interference on the workshop radio, so I replaced it.

Rob

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

That fed up with some early failures I now keep the receipts comes in useful sometimes the last one I returned I said to young man if I’d have left it on all the time I would not have exceeded the stated life of the laml you do the maths he looked at me no mate take your word promptly gave me a new bulb

H

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I bought two Diall LED 67 16W bulbs from B&Q about eight years ago at a clearance price, and are still working fine, they’ve even been subjected to a flashing and pulsating supply on and off for about a month, fairly recently, which was due to a corroded power line connection. Cheapish ones from Tesco, that I use in a table lamp, seem to last about eighteen months or so.

Regards Nick.

[Author]

Posts