LED bulbs... any good?

holnrew

I've got a couple of not cheap but not premium brand ones in my living room, they're great.

Strat_a_tat_tat

Thanks guys... I've ordered Philips LED equivalents of 100W, 75W and 60 W bulbs... I'll see how they go.

TonyR

All the lights in out house have LED bulbs mostly warm white, but cool white in the bathrooms and kitchen

I get all our bulbs from LED Hut - great service and price.

Gagaryn

The Phillips warm white ones are the best I've tried. 

boogieman

If you use a dimmer switch, avoid the cheaper brands like the LAP ones that Screwfix sell. They will dim, but they buzz like a hornets nest. The Philips ones are better quality and cope with dimmers with no problem. 

mellowsun

They are cheap to run but they are shite. I spent £10 each on supposed quality ones but they stopped working after 6 months.

exocet

I have tried the GU10 replacements - various brands.

Over the 3 years that I've been using them I've had a few failures that completely undermine the TCO argument. 

I really like the Philips Master tone series, the colour temp and clarity of light is indistinguishable from Halogen. That said, one of the failures has been a Philips unit. 

At the cheaper end of the scale, I've found the Megaman brand to be pretty good. 

Strat_a_tat_tat

Thanks again for all the advice. I've replaced all bulbs with Philips warm white LEDs. Much brighter than the old CFLs (at identical wattage)... plus no warm up time... and they produce a honeyed tone that is a reasonable approximation of old-fashioned tungsten filament bulbs.

Liking them a lot so far. Just hope they have a reasonably long life.

ICBM

I haven't had a single failure other than of the ultra-cheap Chinese candle ones I bought as an experiment about three years ago - I've got several different brands and power ratings all around the house. I don't have any GU10s though, and I've heard more reports of problems with those.

I've found they're actually brighter than their rated 'equivalent incandescent' wattage generally, as well as being much brighter than the same power CFLs - and unlike CFLs, come on instantly at full brightness. They use about a tenth of the energy of an incandescent for the same brightness and about half that of CFL, I think.

I've converted the whole house over now apart from a couple of incandescents and CFLs in places which don't get used much, and there's no point until they die - but I think it's unlikely I'll ever buy another domestic incandescent, and absolutely not another CFL.

The recent ones are the *right* type of light, too - the very early ones were a bit too blue and 'cold', but even that was better than the dull CFL light, which I thought also seemed to flicker slightly. The current ones are very close in tone to incandescents and don't flicker.

Danny1969

I've got LED bulbs all over the house, well worth the initial cost. 

Biggest saving though is switching to cooking in a halogen oven, since doing that my electric bill has decreased to £51 a month for 5 adults in a 4 bedroom house 

Rocker

We have LED bulbs all over the house apart from a couple of rarely used lights.  Expensive but give a good light quality.  Only had one failure, it lit fine then after a few minutes it started to strobe.  It did the same in the shop where I bought it - they replaced it free.  Not entirely convinced by the savings argument but a good buy anyway.

spark240

Folks....if anyone can use Led candle lamps standard ES type, let me know, i have a box full.

Roland

Switching from halogen to LED lights has saved me around £100 per year, giving a 30 month payback on the bulbs themselves. Since then the price of GU10 LED bulbs has dropped a lot further. This was done as part of a project to replace a lot of our old light fittings with GU10 spots. Payback on the whole project, including cables and fittings, is around four years.

This worked for spot lights. I don't think that LED replacements for traditional bayonet fitting light bulbs have reached the same price/performance point yet. Nor should they. It would make much more sense to use LED flat panels for a lot of domestic lighting, with spots in places where you need high intensity, such as kitchen work surfaces.

ToneControl

exocet said:

I have tried the GU10 replacements - various brands.

Over the 3 years that I've been using them I've had a few failures that completely undermine the TCO argument. 

I really like the Philips Master tone series, the colour temp and clarity of light is indistinguishable from Halogen. That said, one of the failures has been a Philips unit. 

At the cheaper end of the scale, I've found the Megaman brand to be pretty good. 

I've had some philips ones for nearly 10 years now, moved house with them. Cheaper ones often failed

chrispy108

Rocker said:

Not entirely convinced by the savings argument but a good buy anyway.

Sorry what?

You aren't convinced by basic maths?

They use less electricity. Electricity costs money. Therefore they reduce the amount of money you spend on lighting.

Rocker

Fair point @chrispy108 but I did not notice any meaningful reduction in our electricity bill since moving almost totally to LED lighting.  Our usage might be less than most households though.  We are frugal in the use of electric lighting, lights are not left on except when they are needed.  This might explain why any savings does not jump off the page...

Myranda

randella said:

Sporky said:

Chateau Sporky is mostly LED these days, apart from the poncy filament bulbs in the living room lights which look like a demented steampunk spider. In a good way.

Carbon filament bulbs, love them.  I've gone for some weird gothic look in my living room without realising it.

Traditional dichroics are a pain in the arse - I used to rent a house lit entirely by GU10s and they'd pop all the time.  Trouble was they'd take out the main breaker with them so you'd be plunged into darkness about once a fortnight.

pics?

Anyone know of any LED strip configurations that can be indefintiely expanded?  I'd like to light my shelves (as well as some ambient lighting) but everything is 4 strips per controller... 

chrispy108

Rocker said:

Fair point @chrispy108 but I did not notice any meaningful reduction in our electricity bill since moving almost totally to LED lighting.  Our usage might be less than most households though.  We are frugal in the use of electric lighting, lights are not left on except when they are needed.  This might explain why any savings does not jump off the page...

Electric lighting will be a fairly small chunk of the average household bill anyway. Energy Saving Trust estimate lighting is 18% of the average household bill, but as you say yours may be less than that.

Nonetheless, there will very definitely be a reduction.

Handsome_Chris

Myranda said:

randella said:

Sporky said:

Chateau Sporky is mostly LED these days, apart from the poncy filament bulbs in the living room lights which look like a demented steampunk spider. In a good way.

Carbon filament bulbs, love them.  I've gone for some weird gothic look in my living room without realising it.

Traditional dichroics are a pain in the arse - I used to rent a house lit entirely by GU10s and they'd pop all the time.  Trouble was they'd take out the main breaker with them so you'd be plunged into darkness about once a fortnight.

pics?

Anyone know of any LED strip configurations that can be indefintiely expanded?  I'd like to light my shelves (as well as some ambient lighting) but everything is 4 strips per controller... 

@Myranda,

I do not believe that there are any LED strips that can be indefinitely expanded and function correctly; however,  Philips say that there Hue LED strips can be extended to 10 mtrs

Handsome_Chris

@spark240, PMed