Dark winter

[d000hg]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57407233

I love the idea of LED but in my experience they are quite disappointing. How do others feel?

[Hugh Jardon]

In the words of Lennon & McCartney......

"LED it be"

[NotAllThere]

The problem is that some LEDs noticeably flicker and others don't. And it doesn't seem to matter where they're from - it seems to be the luck of the draw.

I replaced our bathroom neon tube with an LED light. It's great.

[Paddy]

The problem is that some LEDs flicker and others don't. And it doesn't seem to matter where they're from - it seems to be the luck of the draw.

I replaced our bathroom neon tube with an LED light. It's great.

All LEDs lights flicker, some faulty ones flicker slowly.

[mattster]

Don't know when you last tried LEDs, or which ones you tried, but they've come an awful long way. It is still true that cheaper LEDs (with cheaper drivers) can flicker, since they are just rectifying the AC without smoothing it - hence a 50hz or so flicker, which cna be noticeable because of the lack of persistence of LED light. Better LEDs smooth the current as well (I'm not an electronics/hardware person, but it is something like this), so you don't get the momentary drop in voltage as the AC switches. These LEDs don't flicker at all. Every bulb in our house is now LED, and although we do still have a few flickerers we will replace with better when the time comes. Don't buy the 10 year lifespan BS tho - ours seem to fail fairly regularly, but they are so cheap now I don't care.

[rik sherman]

I used to have halogen downlighters as my main lighting in the living room which after 2 years I changed to LED. The halogens used to fail regularly, I've not had an LED bulb fail in 6 years. Plus side have dropped from 300W to 24W, downside I need to put the heating on a bit more in the winter.

[d000hg]

Don't know when you last tried LEDs, or which ones you tried, but they've come an awful long way. It is still true that cheaper LEDs (with cheaper drivers) can flicker, since they are just rectifying the AC without smoothing it - hence a 50hz or so flicker, which cna be noticeable because of the lack of persistence of LED light. Better LEDs smooth the current as well (I'm not an electronics/hardware person, but it is something like this), so you don't get the momentary drop in voltage as the AC switches. These LEDs don't flicker at all. Every bulb in our house is now LED, and although we do still have a few flickerers we will replace with better when the time comes. Don't buy the 10 year lifespan BS tho - ours seem to fail fairly regularly, but they are so cheap now I don't care.

Ours are all LED so I've installed probably about 100 in the last 4 years as we changed over after moving. If they've come on an awfully long way, I hate to think what they were like before! I've bought no-name ones from Amazon, I've bought from online LED specialists, doesn't seem to make much difference. In my experience about 1/4 will just fail within a week or a month regardless. I don't know we have any remaining from the first batch, certainly not ones that are on regularly, which was 4 years back. In a couple of odd spots, I have filament bulbs that came with the house that are still working... not sure if it's just poor QC but the rhetoric "greener, cheaper and better" is perhaps scoring 1/3 so far

THe biggest inconvenience is they're always slightly different. I have 3/5 bulb chandelier type fittings and seemingly invariably, one bulb will go early. And then I can't find the same one - it'll be a different brightness/colour slightly and bug me. I think in future I'll buy 2X as many as needed... or try to standardise through the house better rather than different bulbs in each room

[mattster]

Ours are all LED so I've installed probably about 100 in the last 4 years as we changed over after moving. If they've come on an awfully long way, I hate to think what they were like before! I've bought no-name ones from Amazon, I've bought from online LED specialists, doesn't seem to make much difference. In my experience about 1/4 will just fail within a week or a month regardless. I don't know we have any remaining from the first batch, certainly not ones that are on regularly, which was 4 years back. In a couple of odd spots, I have filament bulbs that came with the house that are still working... not sure if it's just poor QC but the rhetoric "greener, cheaper and better" is perhaps scoring 1/3 so far

THe biggest inconvenience is they're always slightly different. I have 3/5 bulb chandelier type fittings and seemingly invariably, one bulb will go early. And then I can't find the same one - it'll be a different brightness/colour slightly and bug me. I think in future I'll buy 2X as many as needed... or try to standardise through the house better rather than different bulbs in each room

I agree with most of this - they either fail early, or carry on (maybe even to the quoted lifespan?). Some brands are evidently much worse than others, and QC seems to be lacking everywhere. Probably the better solution is high quality separate drivers, but all of ours are "all in one" with integrated drivers. They are certainly better than they were, and much cheaper, so I don't worry too much about longevity - I've certainly never tried returning an early failer, although probably should have. The flickering/non flickering is resolved with more expensive units, and completely solved again with separate, decent drivers. It's getting to the point where it seems to me which should have a separate 12v DC circuit run for lights, and even other gear, since so much runs on it. Not sure how feasible that is, but at least that way you could run a very high quality DC driver and not duplicate that (probably in a cheaper/worse way) in just about everything you own.

[northernladuk]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57407233

I love the idea of LED but in my experience they are quite disappointing. How do others feel?

I have over 80 spots in the house and swapped all the halogens out for LED and they are great. No problems with them at all. That said they do fail a lot more than they say they do though. Replaced more than I thought I would have to in the few years I've had them through. Went from 2.4KW with the whole house on to 320W.

Choosing the right ones is key though and I think many people will make mistakes. There is such a bewildering array of white shades, lighting angles and positioning of LED element within the unit. It did take me a bit of time to get the ones I wanted. I have fairly low ceilings so if I got the ones where the elements are right up against the glass you end up staring right at the element so had to make sure the elements were up in the bulb to get the right ones. Also got a problem that the ones I have are now difficult to get hold of.

They do present a whole new range of issues but IMO swapping to LED was the best thing we did.

[mallisarealperson]

Are LED bulbs the ones that take a while to reach full brightness, causing some people to leave them on rather than use when needed?