Lifetime of LED bulbs

jammy420

jammy420

Adept
I have used a few LED bulbs like wipro, syska, philips. Somehow I feel all LED bulbs doesnt last more than 2 years. The previous gen CFL bulbs lasted longer than the current LED bulbs. Though they claim longer life span, but it doesnt happen I guess. Anyone else felt the same?

Also, which LED bulbs and Tubelights you found last longer ?
 
I'm using eveready, orpat, philips and syska. They last around 3-4yrs.
Worst exp. was with few evereadys which died within 2- 3 yrs and also faded. Might be a bad batch. So later on completely avoided them.
I still have orpat cfls going strong since 5yrs.

And the balloon created by cos. that leds last a long time etc. is not much true as it all depends on many factors like your overall homes wiring quality/age, electricity fluctuations, electricity quality and also how frequently they are switched on/off.

**Imp tip: Do not buy discounted ccfls/led bulbs in sale on amazon/flipkart as they are those rejected lot/bad batch and problematic too. One can read such reviews and I too have exp. it.
Either buy non discounted ones or directly from your lacal hardware shop.
 
If a led bulb fails, chances are that one or two leds inside is dead causing the circuit to be open. I just went and opened up 3 different make bulbs and all of them had one led emitter that had stopped working. One could desolder that led and replace it with a same size led or just, put a wire bypassing that led and it will work again.

In some bulbs the electronics may have gone kaput, these bulbs can act as donor for led emitters.
 
Simple question you ask nobody could answer for me either so i like with most things best way is DIY.

My experience with Phillips LED bulbs has been good. Replaced the incandescent bulbs in the whole house back in 2017. So over 20 odd bulbs. Only reason to do this was to keep the power consumption down when i got an inverter. Can't say i noticed much difference in the power bill after the switch though. Any savings must have got eaten up by other appliances.

What is more noticeable is how the brightness gradually decreases over time to around 70-80% of what it was brand new.

Number that fused until today. Just two. These were getting 10-12 hrs daily of use.

Based on its usage, it works out to around 7,000 hours life. If you use it less then more than 2 years is certainly feasible. I have several that have passed their 4th anniversary. was sceptical about the claims on life but this has been belied by how infrequently i have to replace them. They last longer than CFL's.

But on the box it says, lasts up to 15 years with usage of 2.7 hours per day. Which is 15,000 hours.

Well, my experience says divide whatever number they claim on the box by two to get the real world life.

I'm sure the emitters last longer but if any of the cheap components inside pack up then the light goes out. To repair them means having to destroy the bulb. I cannot figure out how to open them without doing any damage since they are for the most part sealed. Maybe a heat gun to loosen the cap might do it.
 
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napstersquest said:
Interesting watch.
Should give you an insight into 'why' of it.
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Fascinating but his 10-50 times longer life for LED claim is not entirely true for the general purpose lightbulbs we use.. only 10x

It's more true with higher quality CREE LED's you find in good quality flashlights. Lifetime quoted there is 50,000 hours. These ones don't flicker when you look at them with your phone camera unlike the cheaper LEDs. No PWM in the good quality LED's. A general purpose lightbulb made from these emitters would run 10x more in cost.

I was replacing incandescents at the rate of once every four months. Yeah life was ~1,000 hours. But they did cost less than a tenth of an LED. Had a better CRI than LED and threw some light up. My ceilings were noticeably darker when i switched to LED.

There is one thing he said that makes me reconsider. If the bulb is run at a lower power will it last longer ?

My bulbs are 14W and i got 7,000 hours with them. Would a 9W reach 10,000 hours ? Maybe. Lower powered light, less heat, longer life.
 
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As someone mentioned above Eveready is a no no and try to source them from your local shop. I actually bought a set of Crompton LED tubes locally to replace the incandescent ones and they are excellent. 4th year and still running like new. Their LED bulbs also appear to be good although its only been a couple of years for the ones we use.
 
Have had poor experience with wipro leds. Was bought from amazon and died within 9 months. Wipro customer support created a ticket and never followed up.
Now I just buy led bulbs locally, the shop writes the date on the bulb and gives new bulb if within warranty, no questions asked. Don't have to deal with manufacturers.
 
ankushv said:
Yeah better to buy from local shop . Atleast they honor the warranty no questions asked .
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Even after warranty period over they will honor it and provide replacement. This was my exp. with one of our electrical shops. We would happily carry the expired cfl bought from him and he would replace them no questions asked! Customer relationships + our loyalty towards his shop.
 
On average around 3 years. So when we got our own house we picked up around 35-40 bulbs which were a mix of B22 and E27. All Havells. The E27 ones started to die out after 3 years. The way they went out was weird. The bulbs would flicker on/off rapidly and then stop. When I would switch them on after some hours, same. I initially thought that the holder wiring was messed up--so never got around to the repair process. But it was actually the bulbs. (I called an electrician after eons--"he said it is bulb failure"). So am now slowly swapping to Philips Smart bulbs as they die. E27 ones really do not last long.
 
Most of the LED bulbs that are lit for an average of 5-6 hours fail around the 2 year mark for me. This is for several brands and several bulbs. I have observed that LED tubes have much longer life, almost double. I think the heat dissipation may be the issue in this case. Bulbs being smaller are less efficient in dissipating heat, whereas the tube has a much larger surface area hence much more effective in dissipating the heat.
 
I never thought that LEDs will die after some time I thought they will last for many years but the only difference between LED tubes and CFLs are the energy consumption right.
from this discussion I learnt that LEDs brightness will decrease, LEDs will eventually die & Replacements are easy fi bought locally.
Thanks again dudes.
 
bssunilreddy said:
I never thought that LEDs will die after some time I thought they will last for many years but the only difference between LED tubes and CFLs are the energy consumption right.
from this discussion I learnt that LEDs brightness will decrease, LEDs will eventually die & Replacements are easy fi bought locally.
Thanks again dudes.
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Everything has a life around and these are just fast bloomed technology items which today are latest and soon to get stale yet very brittle and uncertain!
So the era of savings etc. has blurred due to rampant increase in electricity rates etc. So indirectly we mostly are in the same era of filament bulbs except that heat isnt generated and bulbs dont utilize full wattage but light bills paid are identical or even more today and some guarantee that bulb at least lasts for a year, got warranty and doesn't conk off in a day or two or sooner in an unexpected manner.
 
asingh said:
On average around 3 years. So when we got our own house we picked up around 35-40 bulbs which were a mix of B22 and E27. All Havells. The E27 ones started to die out after 3 years. The way they went out was weird. The bulbs would flicker on/off rapidly and then stop. When I would switch them on after some hours, same. I initially thought that the holder wiring was messed up--so never got around to the repair process. But it was actually the bulbs. (I called an electrician after eons--"he said it is bulb failure"). So am now slowly swapping to Philips Smart bulbs as they die. E27 ones really do not last long.
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Mine were all B22. Don't see what difference the connector makes. The light fitting matters more. Whether it is enclosed or open so there is air circulation. Your ambient temperature too. Is it closer to 25 degrees or over 30.

I've learnt that the quality of bulb holders these days isn't what they used to be. The earlier ones had to withstand 100W incandescents, these days the assumption is they will be LED or CFL and built to lower tolerances. I've had to change a few bulb holders when i was using incadescents.

My lights went out like the incandescents. No flickering if I can remember, the last bulb i replaced went out back in 2019
 
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blr_p said:
I've learnt that the quality of bulb holders these days isn't what they used to be. The earlier ones had to withstand 100W incandescents, these days the assumption is they will be LED or CFL and built to lower tolerances. I've had to change a few bulb holders when i was using incadescents.
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The quality has considerably went down for many things around. Even the sockets and switches these days hardly last a year or two where earlier they used to last a good 10yrs or more.
Bulb holders develop crack automatically resulting in loosening of fittings, same applies to other homely items.
Stuff got cheaper but loosing on its quality.
 
Who here has bought Phillips Stellar Brights and had them die sooner than expected ?

When i bought them in bulk back in 2017 they averaged over Rs.300 a piece. The price these days is a third less.

Wipro and Havells did not offer warm white or the ones they had were not bright enough so i avoided them.
 
blr_p said:
Mine were all B22. Don't see what difference the connector makes. The light fitting matters more. Whether it is enclosed or open so there is air circulation. Your ambient temperature too. Is it closer to 25 degrees or over 30.

I've learnt that the quality of bulb holders these days isn't what they used to be. The earlier ones had to withstand 100W incandescents, these days the assumption is they will be LED or CFL and built to lower tolerances. I've had to change a few bulb holders when i was using incadescents.

My lights went out like the incandescents. No flickering if I can remember, the last bulb i replaced went out back in 2019
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It makes sense what you said above. All my E27s' were inside chandelier holders with minimal ventilation. The type where you insert your hand from the top to access the holder. All the B22s were horizontal placed or in an open holder socket (the ones attached to a fancy fan at the bottom) -- if you know what I meant!

Temperatures of course above 30C. Like average 34-38C.
 
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