We originally wrote about Philip’s new LED replacement for the common incandescent light bulb back in May, but we’re happy to report that this illuminating low-energy alternative bulb is now finally lining the shelves at a store near you! Designed to replace the over 425 million 60 watt incandescent bulbs sold annually that fill the lighting fixtures in our rooms, hallways, offices, and beyond, the A19 AmbientLED delivers the same illumination as a 60 watt white light incandescent, at a mere 12 watts. The new LED bulb also boasts a life of 25,000 hours, and most remarkably, a single bulb can save you hundreds of dollars per year off of your electricity bill. Even more appealing? With a life of 15 years per bulb, you won’t need to be buying new lightbulbs every year.
Each A19 AmbientLED maintains a light output of 800 lumens, and uses just 20% of the energy consumed by a standard bulb. The bulbs work with all standard table lamps and ceiling fixtures, contain no mercury or lead (unlike compact fluorescent bulbs), and won’t fade colors because it doesn’t produce any UV light. The new bulb also aptly addresses one of the major hesitations that many consumers have with switching to LEDs: ambiance and quality of light. In fact, each LED can be dimmed to personal tastes and will emit the same warm white light we’ve all become accustomed to with our incandescents.
Indoor lighting is not just a necessity — it’s also one of the most energy-hungry element of our daily lives. By simply switching out your incandescents for energy-efficient LEDs, the resulting payout will hold a greater value than the extra money in your pocket from your lowered energy bills. You’ll not only be investing in a product that boasts a useful life of 15 years, but you’ll be playing your part in reducing the environmental and carbon costs related to sourcing materials, product manufacturing, transportation, disposal and of course the burden that incandescent lightbulbs place on the world’s energy grids. If every state in the US were to switch to these LEDs we would save 32.6 terawatt-hours of electricity each year — enough energy to power 17 million homes. Sounds like a no-brainer to us.
+ Philips LEDs
Well, well well. Philips light bulbs are not that efficient if you take into account the following: 12W for a 60W incandescent light bulb. In the LED industry you can do the same with 6 X 1w Cree Chips = 6W +1W for the LED Driver.
Also Philips light bulbs have a life expectancy of 25K Hours, compared to other light bulbs in the market, that offer 50K Hours. Price $39? Very expensive for a light bulb that need twice the power as conventional led light bulbs and only 25K hours. What would the ROI on this little guy be?
Also if you pencil it out Phillips light bulbs offer 62 lm per watt, the industry now like cree offers a minimum of 90 lm watt.
Solidapollo.com
great to see more led lighting options and one’s that are attractive.
You are right, for some reason Philips bulbs seem to use more watts than other led bulbs. I almost bought this bulb but at 800+ lum was more that I wanted, in the end I bought it’s smaller sibling 400 lum. There is a $10 rebate on the Philips website which I already sent in. Offer ends in March.
http://www.greatlightswitch.com/
Solidapollo,
According to my math, 800/12 = 66.6 lumens/watt, not 62, for the Philips.
To my knowledge, Cree does not have an A19 bulb that put out 800 lumens. So you gotta give credit to Philips. What I can compare it to is the Cree CR6 E26 downlight, which is 575 lumens at 10.5 watt.
575/10.5 = 54.76 lumens/watt
So I’d say that Philips is not looking to bad in efficiency after all. Plus take into account that they have an omni-directional design, instead of the uni-directional designs of most competitors, and I think you have a winner.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Cree CR6, even at $50. They were the first viable bulb for my house; I have not found a decent dimmable CFL bulb for my Insteon dimmers. The Cree LR6 has had my attention for a while, but at $100+ per bulb it just wasn’t going to happen. The CR6 lost some efficiency but significantly lowered the cost!
As for the 25000 hour life expectancy, I don’t see it as a huge negative. The Cree CR6 is only rated at 35000 hours. I’m not sure how much faith to put into those numbers anyway; I have tons of cheap CFLs that burned out after a couple of months, no where near their expected lifetime…
Chris
cfoxga:
You are right in what you say, nevertheless there are a few points I would like to point out:
1. We have been in the LED business for over 5 year, and we have done many retail/building upgrades to LED. Every time we approach a customer, we have to show him the added value of converting to LED.
We do this through a ROI table. In a business or you get a return on investment or it will be very difficult to make things happen. Here I’m taking an economical approach and not a green approach.
2. Currently Energy Star products offer 13W CFLs with almost the same output of lumen, and with a $4 cost per bulb and a 5K hour lifetime.
3. When you want to switch a customer from CFL to LED, you have to offer something that is at least 50% less energy with the same light output or 80% less energy if upgrading from incandescent lighting.
Dont get me wrong, but the Phillips 12W does not give you a return on investment compared to a CFL.
In order to succeed in the LED business, you have to provide a green product, but also a ROI.
Imagine going to a Fast Food franchise and telling them that they will just save 1W and that in the long run they will not save money in the replacements…..
http://www.solidapollo.com- Where light meets perfection.
Can someone discuss the type of light output that an LED has compared to CFL. My understanding is that a CFL puts out light that can fade paint, furniture as well as aid in the cause of headaches where as LED’s do not.
Any thoughts?
CFLs Flicker although you don’t or cant see it, that is why some bad people get headaches. Also CFLs have a very bad photon dispersion and produce UV rays which deteriorate paint and furniture.
I don’t understand why some restaurants use CFLs as the food looks horrible under that light, and makes customers fell uncomfortable.
LEDs dot flicker (Only when there is a bad quality dimmable driver inside) or when they are using AC LEDs like the acriche models that run directly in 120V AC.
SolidApollo.com
Bought a 50W dimmable a few months ago that works great for $24, they’re now less than $15 from Amazon. We don’t use dimmers, and the output is just fine for reading lamps as well as overhead. Prices are dropping! – http://goo.gl/CVFgF