Wow, what kind of awful bulbs are you buying? I have literally a house full of LED bulbs, some of which are on dimmers, and have experienced literally none of these problems. Just for starters, I haven't had a single LED bulb fail in the 8-odd years I've been using them in my home.
But maybe there's an argument that you have to pay a significant premium to get a bulb that doesn't have the issues you've run into and, once you factor that premium into account, LED bulbs aren't worth it. But some of the broad claims here, and in the article, about the allegedly poor performance of LED bulbs just don't cohere at all with my experience with them. I made a point of buying high quality bulbs that are dimmable, don't flicker, and have the color temperature and CRI that I want and...well...that's exactly what I got.
I'm reading these comments and thinking the same. While I have had a handful fail quicker than I think they should, on the whole ours are great. A bunch of them are dimmable, most are warm-white for a cosier light.
We can turn on every light in the house and it will use less than 200w. With incandescents and halogens (for gu10s) I'd be looking at more than that just to light the bathroom. The whole house would use about 1.5kw. Given that the lights are on a lot outside of summer (I'm in the UK) that's a pretty big saving.
I've had plenty fail, stuff from the grocery store, Home Depot, Lowes. Actually the fan-size bulbs I ordered from Amazon were the worst ones, which I expected since it was almost the cheapest. Interestingly, the generic ones I got from a state-sponsored efficiency program have been the best.
But the ones that didn't fail have been fine, and lasted for years. Like CPUs, the yields aren't good but the ones that pass give good service for a long time.
Perhaps it's the 50 year old house I live in, but lots of Phillips brand, also whatever the Lowes and Home Depot in-house brands are. I bought Kree in bulk for my last house about 10 years ago and that was a huge mistake.
As for the color reproduction issue... you do experience it, I imagine you haven't done color critical work under incandescent and then under LEDs?
I do have some stupidly expensive $29 D-50 compliant LEDs in my office that don't bother me at all. One failed after about 9 months, but the company replaced it for free.
Anyway, I'm highly sensitive to LED flicker, and my wife apparently can hear the buzz from rooms away.
At risk of sounding like a consistent theorist...The market factors that led to the lighting industry forming a "cartel" 100 years ago are certainly alive and well today. I think it's likely that these manufacturers are only selling energy efficient lightbulbs to make more money than they otherwise would -- it's certainly not to save the planet.
> As for the color reproduction issue... you do experience it, I imagine you haven't done color critical work under incandescent and then under LEDs?
High quality LEDs with a good CRI are vastly better for that sort of work. You don't want to be doing anything like that under 2700k incandescent light.
Well yeah, that's why I said I have $29 D-50 compliant LEDs in my office. Though CRI, to an extent is more important than color temperature, since with high CRI under warm light you can still get a great sense for relative colors and contrast, but not so much with a mediocre CRI under a daylight bulb.
I'm not an LED hater. But I do think the Lightbulb industry has taken advantage of us in not so honest ways, as expected by their shareholders.
But maybe there's an argument that you have to pay a significant premium to get a bulb that doesn't have the issues you've run into and, once you factor that premium into account, LED bulbs aren't worth it. But some of the broad claims here, and in the article, about the allegedly poor performance of LED bulbs just don't cohere at all with my experience with them. I made a point of buying high quality bulbs that are dimmable, don't flicker, and have the color temperature and CRI that I want and...well...that's exactly what I got.