Incandescent light bulbs are officially banned in the U.S.::America’s ban on incandescent light bulbs, 16 years in the making, is finally a reality. Well, mostly.

  • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    55
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Nobody’s talking about the real casualty of this shift. What’s going to happen to all the jokes about “how many (insert category of person here) does it take to change a light bulb?” now that people don’t have to regularly change light bulbs anymore?

    • FontMasterFlex@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      44
      arrow-down
      13
      ·
      1 year ago

      No single LED lightbulb I’ve ever purchased lasts as long as they claim. infact, many have been outlasted by existing incandescent bulbs in my house. your joke fodder is safe.

      • AndrewZabar@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        24
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don’t know what kind of shit LEDs you’ve been buying but I’ve yet to ever have to replace one. Been using them for many years already.

        • Freeman@lemmy.pub
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          LED’s produce a lot of heat at higher “wattages”. IE: the 75w+ equivalents can throw out some heat. And if its recessed in a can or upside down on a chandelier but with a decorative covering, they will often go out due to heat. Hell I have seen some with giant heatsinks on them to try and compensate.

          I had a series of 150w LED’s i was burning through. Eventually I moved to just replace the bulb and fixture with a ceiling light like this

          LED’s are also sensitive to dirty power, probably more-so than Incandescents. I have run through some because of surges and brownouts as well.

          I generally use Phillips brand LED bulbs if it helps, but do have some others.

          Finally, the lower wattage bulbs (ie: 10-15w equivalent) will sometimes have a “pulse” to it. Dimmer LED’s also tend to do this, and you often have to tune the dimmer switch to a higher brightness for “low” to compensate.

          All that said, they are still leaps and bounds better.

          • AndrewZabar@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Funny you mention Phillips because that’s the brand I like, too. Just recommended it to someone here in fact.

            I’m not sure what wattage my ceiling fixtures are; I’ll check.

            • Freeman@lemmy.pub
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Yeah. they are generally my favorite as well.

              These were the ones I was running through like crazy in my kitchen. Storms often meant they would fail. I edited my original comment and posted a pic of the design i moved to since the can they sat in didnt evacuate heat well at all.

              https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08667M3BR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

              Frankly i tend to stick with one brand in general because it provides a consisten light color (ie: 5000k or 3500k warm yellow etc). Rando brands say 5000k daylight but are slightly off and it drives me nuts.

              I have some in warm yellow on certain fixtures and others in daylight for other fixtures. The warm yellow ones we will use at night. (i have a large number of light fixtures in my house for some reason to, which makes this easier)

          • DoomBot5@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            They generate lots less heat that an equivalent incandescent bulb. It’s most likely the dirty power problem you’ve described.

            • Freeman@lemmy.pub
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              1 year ago

              They do. But incandescent bulbs don’t have circuitry prone to heating failures. It’s just a filament.

              So it’s not an equivalency thing.

          • Aux@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I have 9W LEDs which are about 80-90W equivalent. They are barely warmer than room temperature after hours of working.

            I have a DIY LED light for my herbs running at 45W (400W equivalent?) and it’s like 40° after 12 hours. I run it 12 hours 365 days a year with zero issues.

            There can only be two reasons for overheating: issues with your power supply or your LED bulbs have electrical issues from the factory.

        • dinckel@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Same experience here. Every single LED lightbulb i’ve bought, since the time I started using them, has outlasted basically everything else I’ve purchased before. It draws less energy and doesn’t produce basically any heat too, which is excellent

      • Aux@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        I started switching to LEDs 8 years ago. Every single one of them is still working. It used to be that bulbs should be changed every year or two.

      • kadu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s really dependent on local regulation, and wether or not you bought products licensed to be sold where you live or random imports from AliExpress.

        My smart LED lights were bought in 2017, they are still working perfectly and have zero signs of issues - same brightness, same connection strength, same white point. The only exception was precisely the cheapo desk lamp one I bought from an online reseller, that one lasted a year and the control board fried itself.

      • Corhen@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’ve had one or two LED bulbs die, which is why I switched to buying “energy star” rated bulbs. As part of the accreditation process, they need to certify the lifespan

      • Ranessin@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I still have some I bought 15 years ago at Ikea, still working. Most I exchanged because of the rapid technical development in the one and a half decade not because they stopped working.

      • SloppyPuppy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Just fucking yesterday out of 12 Nisko high CRI bulbs around the house one just stopped working. All of them are mere one year old.

        And those high cri ones are the most expensive ones. Lets see how much time the others survive… ill keep you posted.

        • DoomBot5@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I think one of my 1st gen philips hue color bulbs just went out a couple weeks ago. Of course I’ve yet to open up the fixture and confirm it since the other one in there is still plenty bright.

    • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      Don’t worry, many have shitty drivers that will fail and poor cooling that will kill the diodes.

    • moobythegoldensock@geddit.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      Or the old riddle of having to match 3 lights to 3 switches with only one guess, since the solution relied on the bulb getting hot and LEDs barely get warm.

        • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          I think it’s along the lines of “you’re in a room with three lightswitches. They control three lightbulbs in a different room (so you can’t see them from the room with the switches). You get some time to use the switches, and then you go to the other room and have to guess what switch controls what lightbulb. You aren’t allowed to go back and flip the switches again once you leave.” The solution generally is to flip one switch, leave one off, and flip the last one on for awhile but then turn it off just before you leave to go to the other room. The lightbulb that’s lit obviously goes with the switch you flipped on, and the other two are off. One of these two will be warm though, because it was recently turned on, and that one goes to the switch you flipped on and then off.

        • AndrewZabar@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          It’s an old riddle where a room has three lights and outside the room is the panel with three switches. They’re not labeled and you don’t know which switch controls which bulb. You’re allowed to switch any two, then you get to open the door and you have to determine which switches control which lights.

          The solution is, that you flip switch #1, wait five minutes and then flip switch #2. Then you immediately go into the room.

          Two lights will be on, meaning the bulb that’s off is the third switch. Then you feel the bulbs that are on: the one that’s warm already is the #1 and the other that’s on but still cool is #2.

          LEDs don’t heat up like that so this technique is broken.

        • moobythegoldensock@geddit.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          “A windowless room contains three identical light fixtures, each containing an identical light bulb or light globe. Each light is connected to one of three switches outside of the room. Each bulb is switched off at present. You are outside the room, and the door is closed. Before opening the door you may play around with the light switches as many times as you like. But once you’ve opened the door, you may no longer touch a switch. After this, you go into the room and examine the lights. How can you tell which switch goes to which light?”

          The solution is:

          • Turn two switches on, leave one off
          • Wait a few minutes
          • Turn one of the “on” switches off

          Now, when you enter the room, you’ll have one lit bulb, one warm unlit bulb, and one cold unlit bulb, letting you solve the riddle.