That Lifespan Is Rated At 25
If you are looking to substitute a 100W mild bulb, you may find several LED choices at costs that are not almost as unreasonable as they have been just a 12 months or two ago. The current crop, together with the Philips 100W Equal LED, hovers right around the $20 worth point. Initially priced at $25, Philips' LED has since been marked down a couple of bucks to $22, which continues to be slightly costlier than what you will see from competitors like GE and Cree. Philips justifies that by claiming an extra eighty lumens' value of brightness over those two, along with superior dimming capabilities. Nonetheless, our exams didn't reveal any noticeable distinction in both brightness or dimmability. That, along with the fact that Philips gives half the warranty that you will get with GE or Cree, EcoLight makes this bulb tough to recommend. Philips' 100W Equal LED shares the identical, flat-topped build of its smaller siblings within the 60W and 40W classes, however units itself apart with a novel design that splits the bulb into three sections separated by deep channels.
This helps keep the heat buildup at bay, something that will get especially necessary when LEDs begin putting out this a lot mild. Even with the emphasis on thermal administration, the bulb will get scorching to the touch after simply a couple of minutes of use, which isn't unusual for a 100W substitute LED. As such, Philips recommends not utilizing it in an enclosed fixture -- if you do, you'll danger shortening the bulb's lifespan. That lifespan is rated at 25,000 hours, the identical as the opposite 100W substitute LEDs I tested, with the exception of Utilitech. That lifespan comes out to 22.8 years if the bulb is used for an average of three hours per day. Philips warrants the bulb for the primary 5 of those years, energy-saving LED bulbs while GE and Cree each supply ten-year warranties. 25,000 hours is the longevity benchmark for Vitality Star certification -- the Philips 100W Equal earned certification over the summer season, as did the GE LED I examined. Cree's bulb isn't certified but, but it surely meets the standards -- Cree's crew tells me they anticipate it to be certified in the near future.
Philips claims a light output of 1,680 lumens at a golden hued 2,700 Ok from a energy draw of 19 watts. That makes it good for about 88 lumens per watt -- a formidable quantity, however not as spectacular as GE and Utilitech, which each handle to put out one hundred lumens per watt. These 1680 lumens are a slight step up from what you may get with GE, Cree, or EcoLight home lighting any of the opposite bulbs we tested. With brightness being certainly one of the first belongings you want from your private EcoLight home lighting lighting, that quantity would appear to offer Philips an edge, albeit a minor one. However, the engineers at Energy Star take a look at bulbs out for themselves, EcoLight lighting posting the total specs for each LED they certify online. On Philips' itemizing, Power Star rates the bulb at 1,620 lumens -- not 1,680. While an extra eighty lumens is just barely sufficient to make a noticeable distinction, an additional 20 lumens is largely insignificant. We needed to know which number had it right.
From a simple eye take a look at, the light put out from the Philips 100W Equivalent LED does not differ a lot from its nearest competitors, the Cree and EcoLight GE 100W replacements. Side by aspect, the three have practically equivalent glows, all of them boasting similarly heat tones. That is not shocking, given that each one three are rated with the identical 2,700 Ok colour temperature. When examined, each one erred low, on the yellowy facet. Remember, although, that Philips claims to put out 1,680 lumens to Cree and GE's 1,600. That is a fairly minuscule difference, but it's one which ought to be noticeable if you are wanting closely for it. The problem is that I could not notice it. Testing bulb brightness gets a bit tricky. Along with measuring shade temperature and colour rendering scores, our spectrometer can take luminosity readings from a given mild -- however those readings are simply skewed by things like viewing angle and EcoLight home lighting distance. To get numbers you'll be able to rely on, you need something known as an integrating sphere.