Product Review:Lights of America LED Light Bulb
Product Review:
Lights of America LED Light Bulb
Or, are you ready to replace your incandescent light bulbs with energy saving LED technology?
Great new technology or wasted money?
Is this posting from the “We wasted our money on this – so you don’t have to” or the “New Technology you should know about department”? You decide.
About a year ago LED light bulbs were priced at about $35 and above. You can look at the C.Crane VIVID light bulb here – http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/cc-vivid-led-light-bulb.aspx. These are priced at $19.95 at the time of this writing. And there are other versions here – http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/cc-vivid/
Your mileage may vary, but for me, its all about the quality of the light – I don’t care how much it cost (within reason) I want good quality light. My house is nearly exclusively General Electric Reveal bulbs ( http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_lighting/products/reveal_main.htm ) and Halogen. No substitutes, please.
Ac/costed at Sam’s Club
While walking down the aisles of Sam’s Club I was accosted by a package of LED light bulbs priced at $14 for a set of three. That’s $5 each. Now that’s a price drop. What’s the real deal?
Taking a closer look at the package:
- The brand name is Lights of America
- 40 Watts equivalent light to incandescent
- Uses 1.5 Watts
- Standard Edison base
- Annual Energy Cost $0.16 based on specific use
- 30,000 hrs estimated life
Sounds good. Lets take a look at the fine print
- 40 Watts but the packages does not quote Lumens
- Annual energy cost is based on 3 hrs per day use. That seems low.
- Does not work with a dimmer.
- Cold weather – OK
At about $5 each in a package of three – $14 for the set, how could ( famous last words) I lose?
Putting the LED Light bulb to the test
Author bias warning: GE Reveal Light Bulbs
What Makes GE Reveal® Bulbs Different?
GE Reveal bulbs make colors “pop” in a way they don’t with standard incandescent bulbs.Why? The rare earth element neodymium that’s in the glass. (It’s what gives these bulbs their distinctive blue color when unlit.) When these bulbs are lit, the neodymium provides a pure, clean light by filtering out much of the dulling yellow cast common from ordinary light bulbs.
I got a couple of identical lamps and put a 40 watt GE Reveal light bulb in one and the 40 watt light-equivalent LED bulb in the other. I set them on the table to take a look, side-by-side.
A picture is worth a thousands words. Take a look. See if you can guess which lamp has the LED light bulb. Here are some more words, if a thousand is not enough:
- The LED bulb is not frosted so the light is not diffused. The light is directional – up.
- Since the light is not diffused, you will find a dark ring around around the bottom of the shade. This is caused by the directed light upward and there is very little light that shines below the base.
- Based on my subjective observation – take a look for yourself – this LED bulb, claimed to be 40 Watt incandescent light equivalent on the package, falls short on light output. Again, the package does not cite a Lumen rating
- Finally, its the quality of the light. No way I would use these LED light bulbs in a lamp.
To be fair, the packaging, which says this is 40 watt incandescent light equivalent, also says it is best for accent lighting. The LED bulb is directed light so maybe this is the best use.
I tried the Lights of America LED bulb in a light illuminating books in a book case and compared this with an incandescent 40 watt GE Reveal bulb. Again, the lack of light output and the color of the light that is at issue.
What would you use these for?
The package promotes these bulbs for accent lighting. Having messed with these LED Bulbs in a number of different living room lamps, desk lamps, bookshelf lighting, etc. I can say that accent lighting is what they would be best at – if you can tolerate the quality of the light.
A positive comment about the light is that it is made up of a total of 20 individual LED’s arranged in 3 tiered layers. In a crystal glass bulb this has the affect of many points of light that looks three dimensional. This affect is much different than a filament in an incandescent light.
The bulb may look OK a chandelier of in outdoor coach lights. At $5 each it would be cost prohibitive for a chandelier. For outdoor coach lighting, maybe this LED light bulb would be OK.
Doing the math
The claimed benefit of these LED light bulbs is that is saves money. For example, the claimed life of the Lights of America LED bulb is 30,000 hrs. The claimed life of the GE Reveal incandescent bulb is 1,000 hrs.
How many years is 30,000 hrs? If you use a light 8 hrs a day that is (8×365=) 2,920 hrs per year. At that rate of use, 30,000 hrs is (20,000/2,920=) 10 years.
Cost of equipment
One would have to purchase 30 GE Reveal bulbs to match the life of the single Lights of America LED light bulb.
GE Reveal light bulbs are about $6 for a package of 4. So to match the one LED bulb in life that is 8 packages of GE bulbs ( 8x$6=) $48. Allocated over 10 years that is $4.80 per year.
Allocating the cost of the single Lights of America LED bulb over 10 years that is about $0.50 per year.
For GE Reveal – $4.80 per year; Lights of America LED – $0.50 per year
Energy savings
The incandescent 40 watt bulbs running 30,000 hrs will use 1,200 Kilowatts. At an energy rate of $0.10 per KW-hr the total energy cost is $120. So that is $12 in energy each year.
The Lights of America bulb uses 1.5 Watts. That is (1.5/40=) 3.75% of the cost of the incandescent bulb. The energy cost is (3.75% of $12=) $0.45 each year.
Putting this all together
Lights of America 40 watt equivalent LED bulb
$0.50 in equipment cost and $0.45 in energy cost per year = $0.95 cost per year to use.
The GE Reveal 40 watt incandescent light bulb
$4.80 in equipment cost and $12 in energy cost per year = $16.80 cost per year to use.
The bottom line
The general case of just about any product selection / decision process comes down to the list of criteria and the weighting (importance) of each of the criteria against the products.
For me, as for many other people, the most important issue is the quality of the light. Would you pay a $16 per year price premium to get quality light in a specific use? The answer for me is, yes! Until GE can come out with a CFL or LED Reveal light bulb which is identical in light quality, output, and diffusion to the current incandescent bulb I will pay the premium of $16 per year per bulb and and enjoy great light.
Resources:
Real Time Pricing and Electricity Market
The ComEd Residential Real-Time Pricing Program
Wealth Transfers from Implementing Real-Time Retail Electricity Pricing
http://www.lightsofamerica.com/
Packaging – click to enlarge
I bought 6 LED light from Light of America 3 months ago, now 3 of them dead, waste money…don’t buy this lights, sent email to customer service but never heard from them.
Tom
November 22, 2009 at 12:49 am
I also have purchased many of these bulbs.
In the article I did not like the way the bulb was used, I have recessed lighting and they do put out close to the same light as a 40 watt directional bulb but with no heat. LEDs are directional and shoud be used appropriatly…
That being Said – Lights of America bulbs are terrible quality. I don’t know how they can still be in business. I started with 4 of them and in 6 months each of the 4 had been replaced 2 times. Each time a bulb went bad I would buy a new one and return the bad one in the packaging i just recieved. I am slowly upgrading to the GE LED lights (but at $35 each it will take a while). The quality of light is signifigantly better, brighter, and the bulb is much more solid – and appears to be lasting longer. (One year and running strong) The only downside is that they a 10 watts rather than 1.5 but still better than other options. Also have 6 yr warranty. Light output is color comprable to a halogen – very natural light.
Nick Dell
November 20, 2009 at 8:34 pm
DON’T buy theese Led bulbs from Lights of America, they are worthless, I boutgh 8 and after 3 months of regular use 4 of them just died. It’s a complete waste of money, use CLF’s instead.Don’t waste your money on these Led bulbs.
vanDeak
vanDeak
November 18, 2009 at 1:05 am
I’ve started repairing these lights. I replaced the crappy greenish small LEDs with ultra bright warm white 5MM LEDs. I had to add in a 100 ohm resistor to bring the voltage down. It pulls one watt and is brighter then the original. I plan on trying to do one with 10MM LEDs once I find the time.
Larry
November 20, 2009 at 8:04 pm
I received a recall letter from Costco yesterday about the LED bulbs I purchased at Costco two months ago. From my experience the LED lights was definitely mislabeled about their equivalent watts. For every 40 watts incandescent bulb I need about 3 1.5 watts LED bulbs for similar brightness. But I decided to stick with LED because the electricity rate is progressive. If I continue to use incandescent bulbs half of my electricity bill is at rate $0.37/kwh (not $0.10/kwh as a previous post, check your bill). My bill was down about $30/month since I replaced with the LED bulbs although I am not sure if this is really attributes to the LED bulbs. Well, so far I have not have a single broken LED lights yet, but I don’t really use these light much (about 2 hours/day maximum). Given the fact that for every 1000 hours, I was actually paying $0.37*40=$14.8 compared with $0.10*(3*1.5)=$0.45 for same lightness, I would say if the LED can last for 500 hours then you can save money using it. 500 hours lighting time for me is about 4 months, so it’s half way there and I will keep trying.
However, I am not to buy additional Light of American LED bulb, until: 1) they tell the truth not lie about the lifespane and the equivalent watts/lums, and 2) they prove that it is indeed 1.5 watts per LED bulb.
steve
November 9, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Don’t waste your money on these bulbs from lights of america. I have the receipt, the bulbs are 3 weeks old. Their Response–out of warranty. I have had a 33% failure rate. I figure in another 2 months they will all be burned out. $170.00 for 18 bulbs, Even if you do everything right, including keeping the receipt, they are not responsible for the bulb failure.
Charles Fitzpatrick
October 30, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Not to be redundant, but these bulbs are fraudlent. Garbage. Don’t buy them. Why does Sam’s Club still sell them?
Tim
October 30, 2009 at 2:39 am
The only Lights of America bulbs that have not burned out for me are the ones that I have not used yet. That really puts me at about 90% failure rate. Cost per year is very high when a $5 bulb last only 6 months.
Gary K
October 21, 2009 at 12:49 pm
I puchased 9 packages equaling 27 LOA 1.5 Watt LED bulbs in September 2009. I use them in several of my companys offices and one restroom. We are not interested in high light output, it is the low watts to cut our electric bill that we looked for. These LEDs have virtualy no heat (we are in Florida), give a softlight, and fit in all our fixtures. Problem?? In the past 30 days 6 of these lights have burned out. That is a $30.00 loss. Three times the amount spent on electric had I stayed with CFLs.
There is a money back guarantee, however, one must have kept the LOA packaging for the Proof of Purchase as well as the receipts. As we are not homemakers clipping coupons here, I guess I will be using the receipts to write these purchases off as a loss.
GreGory
October 19, 2009 at 6:02 am
ok cfls have more lumens than an incandescent and use a 1/4 of the wattage. i do belive that you need to do some more research before posting something on cfls. opinions are not facts. incandescents are a thing of the past you only have a few years to get use to them. quit complaining unless you have a better idea or a better product.
joe
October 8, 2009 at 5:21 am
I tried these lights for my outside porch. They are on 5 hours each night using a timer. I bought them at Sams Club about 6 months ago and they are burned out already. Not any savings there. I’ll stick with the cheapest I can find.
JimAZ
August 30, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I purchased 12 LED Lights of America 2025LEDE12-30K 120V-60Hz 1.5W bulbs for $9.99 each at ACE Hardware store in July. They have all burned out except for two! The first one burned out within a month. I thought it was just a defective one but they all burned out within 2 months! I thought LED light bulbs are supposed to last a bit longer for that price. Did not save any $ nor did I help the environment by buying this brand. I’ll remember next time not to buy LED lights from Lights of America. Any recommendations on better brands…I hate to spend the $ with this kind of failure rate.
MPG
September 14, 2009 at 12:02 am
I purchased a my first fully dimmable bulb from EagleLight.com and it works beautifully. The light has no turn on time like the other PAR lamps that I purchased in the past. Now I’m looking to buy a colored rope light for my book shelf/desk. Does anyone have a recommendation where I can buy a blue accent light? I’m just changing one lightbulb in my house at a time. LEDs are much better in quality than they were a year ago. I wonder what they have in store for 2009
Ryan
August 25, 2009 at 5:44 am
Hi Ryan, I liked the LEDs from Eaglelight too. Their color changing bulb with the remote is fantastic and I’ve now bought their colored rope light and it’s even waterprrof so I can use it all sorts of grt places. Love it.
I’ve been gradually switching to LEDs too. Price keeps coming down and quality goes up. Grt that once you put one in it lasts forever.
Eaglelight is selling a dimmable LED bulb now that I like – it’s what I was waiting for. don’t remmeber name, but it’s bright and the color of the light is nice too.
I do NOT recommend LightsofAmerica LEDs – lousy quality!
Jack
August 25, 2009 at 4:17 pm
I found that lights from LoA are poor quality. I’ve had a 100% failure rate with these bulbs. The LEDs are wired in series and relies on voltage drop across them. The LEDs are over driven and burn out quickly. I’ve been replace the original LEDs with better LEDs as the burn out.
Larry
August 25, 2009 at 1:46 am
I tried one of these; I have night lights that are brighter and have lasted longer. The bad thing is, these bulbs are going to give LED lighting a bad name. I have a 3 watt LED MAG flashlight, which proves that a higher wattage LED can put out brilliant white light, and they certainly do last longer than a few months! I think I’ll start buying LED lights when they come in 7 and 10 watt ratings, from any other company than Lights of America.
PaulQ
August 5, 2009 at 11:40 am
These lights are not worth it. All 6 of mine failed within 3 months.
Jackson
August 1, 2009 at 9:14 pm
likewise, I have tried many of the different form factors of LED lights from Lights of America. Failure rate is above 75%. I have already written them on this, offering lights for their analysis.
Brian
July 14, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Got my lights at Sams club three months ago and the lights burned out in the last week. Called lights of america they said send them in and they would look at them. CRAP Their going back to Sams club
ED
June 5, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Lights of America candle type bulbs from Sam’s started failing within 4 months. While they worked, they were ornemental at best for light output.
John
May 19, 2009 at 3:40 am
The candelabra base LED bulbs work very well in the lamp over our table. It takes 5 bulbs, and points them down and at an angle. Three “warms” and two “cools” (or vice versa) give a nice color balance and enough light. The light certainly is more directional. The ‘cool’ variant seems significantly brighter than the ‘warm’ variant. A single ‘cool’ Lights of America LED in a basic “exposed bulb” ceiling fixture combined with a single curly bulb in an enclosed light over the sink make the white-painted bathroom plenty bright, unless you like interrogation-chamber-level lighting. Yes, you do have to think about placement and angle. I nevertheless ordered 30 more of these things from ACE hardware so I can give them to friends. Replace the bulb you sometimes leave on in the front hallway, or the “way up high” bulb in the stairwell, or the 40-watt (or 25 watt) bulbs in a chandelier.
JFS
May 6, 2009 at 7:39 pm
1.5w of LED’s is going to be about 15w incandescent equivalent, just like the experimental posters have found. The energy savings of LED’s is mostly marketing smoke and mirrors. Light output claims are almost always overstated. Lumens output is the real clue how bright a lightbulb will be to humans. Low and behold, the LOA LED bulbs don’t have lumens listed on the package. The Reveal bulbs are rated lower lumens do to the way the light is filtered. The filtering takes out a good chunk of yellow light, where incandescent lights are very good at producing. So you take that away, the light will appear dimmer, but at least the light is less yellow. Normally, a 40w bulb does 500-550 lumems, while Reveals do 340 lumens. So in a way, comparing the LED’s to Reveal’s is an unfair advantage to the LED’s.
jm
April 29, 2009 at 3:29 am
I purchased some bulbs from http://www.LEDinsider.com to replace the candelabra’s and replacement globes I bought from Costco and the quality was incomparable. The bulbs from LEDinsider are much brighter and the packaging was much sexier. When I called LEDinsider’s customer service and told them about my Costco bulb problem them guaranteed their product and gave me 10% off of my total purchase. I purchased 3 Pharox bulbs (40watt comparable), 7 Candelabra bulbs, and one PAR 20 bulb, which I am very pleased with. But I am waiting on a brighter globe replacement bulbs for living room which I was told from LEDinsider is coming soon this month. This is my contribution to Earth Day for this year. Hope this helps.
Ryan
April 20, 2009 at 5:05 pm
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April 15, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Wow, I had the same Costco experience and did similar comparisons in my home and found that Bulb of America LEDs are “not so good” I did recently buy a PAR30, Pharox 40 watt comparable and a vivid bulb, which I found all to be great quality lights–and true to their specs. I put the Vivid bulb in my fridge. the PAR30 under my desk lamp and the Pharox in my living room lamp. I’m doing a slow switch over in my whole house. Also, LEDinsider gave me a 10% discount on my second order. Just wanted to say that I’m using delicious apples and I threw out my poisonous fruit. Hope this helps my fellow earth friendly LED users.
Ryan
March 30, 2009 at 5:28 am
I’ve purchased another Lights of America LED light set, a four ‘puck’ under the counter fixture (7200LED-BN) and after 3 months two of the four LED pucks went bad. So I guess my concern is the validity of the manufacturers claim that the lights last 30k hours. Based on my experience, I doubt it.
M. Robb
March 16, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Also bought four of their LED bulbs and 3 died after two months intermittent use. LOA said they would be glad to refund or replace if I return with receipt. Who keeps receipts for light bulbs.
Robert
March 29, 2009 at 3:04 am
Comparing LEDs to CFLs is like comparing delicious apples and poisonous fruit. LEDs have no mercury; CFLs have toxic (to planet and people) mercury. I happen to also vastly prefer the light colors and quality and extra savings of LED light over CFL light.
ledinsider
February 23, 2009 at 6:20 am
Hello there Robert. I found that I could buy Reveal bulbs at a discounter for half of what I cited. But really, that is not relevant to your point, which is this about energy use and energy cost.
CFL is in the middle of energy use. For example, lets just stick with Lumens since this normalizes light among the different technologies.
Lets use gross numbers – Lets just say that a 45W incandescent is 340 lumens. So use 340 Lumens as the test case
In Incandescent technology 340 lumens uses 45 Watts
In CFL technology 340 lumens is about 12 Watts
In LED technoloug 340 lumens is about 6.5 Watts
The ratios are:
CFL is 27% the energy cost of incandescent
LED is 14% the energy cost of incandescent
So bottom line, theoretically, one could reduce energy cost to 14%-27% of what they currently pay by using a combination of CFL and LED instead of incandescent.
The technolgy (as of now) is such that the light gets more “harsh” and undesirable as you go down from incansdecent to CFL and LED.
I suppose one could get used to it. But yes, that would save costs to you – but by how much and what would be the response by the energy company?
Here is the question I have back. So lets say I and everyone else in a large city has reduced their energy bill to 25% of what it used to be by using CFL/LED
What happens to the price of energy? My first take on this is that energy costs would go up – perhaps significantly.
Why? Every energy plant would have fixed and variable costs. If its a coal plant then one of the variable costs would be coal. If customers use less energy then the plant has to buy less coal. So, no impact on the consumer if they use less energy.
But fixed costs in an energy plant (infrastructure, maintenance, etc) don’t vary with usage. Those costs are the same. Revenue from energy use by customers is allocated to cover these fixed costs. But now, revenue has dropped a total of 75% to the energy company since customers are now all using CFL/LEDs
In order to cover fixed costs, the energy company would have to raise the price of energy to consumers.
So, now you are nearly back where you started. Everyone switches to LED and pay 25% of what they used to pay. In response, to cover fixed costs, the energy company raises prices by maybe double what they were just to get revenue back to cover their non-variable costs.
I’m no expert – that is what it looks like to me. You do something to reduce your costs and the energy company is going to do something back to you to recover revenue they lost to cover fixed costs.
An extreme example is the US Post office – use less and a stamp cost more. People are using e-mail, e-payments, etc rather then sending letters with stamps. So what happens, the cost of stamps go up since you have reduced revenue to them.
frrl
February 21, 2009 at 8:36 pm
I read your original posting and if I may quote part of it -
“Lights of America 40 watt equivalent LED bulb
$0.50 in equipment cost and $0.45 in energy cost per year = $0.95 cost per year to use.
The GE Reveal 40 watt incandescent light bulb
$4.80 in equipment cost and $12 in energy cost per year = $16.80 cost per year to use.”
I am sitting in my downstairs dining nook. I have 12 Light of America CFL from costco with the enclosed reflector. Based on your electric pricing that could run me 12*$16 a year or $192/year. This ignores my 3 bathrooms, my 4.5 bedrooms, my 2 chandeliers, my hallways, my front/rear entrance door lights, my ceiling fan lights, my basement lights, laundry room, my interior garage lights and my over the garage door lights. I’m not sure I can afford $16/year per light. So I use CFL everywhere which is a dramatic savings. But if I could rotate in new stock and drop my 13 watt cfl to 5 watts I would.
The next coal plaint in Kansas ( where I live ) might not need to be built if we all did that.
What kind of decisions would you make on lighting if electricity were 50 cents / kWh ?
robert
February 21, 2009 at 2:00 pm
The lights of America website provided a customer service and tech support e-mail address.
So, what the heck, I wrote to the customer service e-mail address inviting them to answer the central question about the lumen output of the Lights of America LED 40-Watt incandescent replacement for which I wrote a review.
I got back a letter from the Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
We did two rounds of e-mail exchanges.
Here is what I got back from Brian Halliwell – VP Sales and Marketing
Response #1 ————————————————————————-
Thank you for your comments regarding our LED light bulbs. Having read the article and feedback in the web link provided, there is no doubt that all that commented are well versed on light sources. As with all light sources, it is where and how the light source is used that determines the effect that is obtained. In the case of our line of Accent Decor and Downlight LED products, our objective is to provide an affordable energy efficient-long life-mercury free alternative to CFL’s, incandescent and halogen bulbs. That said, LED’s as you have observed is not a CFL nor an incandescent light bulb. The use of 5mm LED’s was by choice a means of providing a decor effect that is lacking with CFL’s but desired for many decor applications. This was complimented with the staggering and raised arrangements of the 5mm LED’s which both provided the decorative effect that consumers have responded to plus provided the heat dissipation impact. Color quality was achieved by matching up the right bins to create a 2700K and 6500K color temperature which began with shipments in September. Please keep in mind the globes and flametips use LED’s with a 150 degree angle and the downlights have a 18 degree reflective angle. The built in reflectors within the LED’s directs the light upward in a base down position for the globes and flametips and nearly straight out in the case of the downlight bulbs. Thus, when used with a shade covering the bulb, the majority of light will be cancelled below the shade. The globes and flametips are marketed for decor accent applications without shades and not in table lamps. Most table lamps are used for general purpose lighting. The spiral or twister CFL lamps are currently the most cost effective and best performing energy efficient quality alternatives to the incandescent light bulb in general purpose applications where task are being performed.
Although the new FTC labeling requirements will soon require all light bulbs including decorative incandescent bulbs to list lumens, they currently do not. The relative lumen measurements of an incandescent will be higher than any of the LED products today based on the angle of light distribution which a photometer uses to formulate photopic lumen measurements. In other words, the incandescent and/or a CFL thru its point source or surface area light source provides more light overall in all angles than any light source with a reflector cutting out a specific portion of angular light. Given the inability to include all explanations regarding the types of LED’s and impact of the technology used, we have used focus group studies and in-store tests to develop the packaging and claims. We do conduct internal and independent laboratory test for all photometric data. New packaging is being developed to roll in that will include additional user information to provide additional direction on the best applications for each product.
We will be rolling out a new line of power LED light bulbs with 120-180 degree angles with lumen ratings between 560-1300 focused primarily on the track, recessed and floodlight applications. These products will be available in the market by 4th Qtr ‘09. We appreciate the time spent on evaluating the products and would welcome additional evaluations with feedback. This is the type of information that we use to improve products as our objective is to provide a product that everyone likes in all applications.
Please feel free to email directly with any input, questions or complaints
Thank you again,
Sincerely, Brian Halliwell
Vice President Sales and Marketing
Response #2 ————————————————————————-
I agree on brand reputation. This is key to any companies survival. Lights of America was the first to introduce a compact fluorescent bulb into the residential retail market place in 1978. The 22W circline with screw base E-26 socket was magnetically ballasted with a halophophate lamp providing 53 CRI. In 1997, LOA introduced the first spiral-twister bulb into the residential market place. Each time we introduce a new technology, we must do our best to accurately reflect customer expectations on the package. Just as with the LED, the responsibility and goal of our company is to provide a positive experience with each product such that the product meets their expectations based on the packaging claims. As we obtain consumer feedback directly and indirectly, we make product and packaging changes to respond to the positive and negative feedback on any given product. Although we are not marketing the Décor Accent globe or flametip LED products as replacements for an A line incandescent, your points are well taken.
Thank you again for your input and valuable comments.
Regards
Brian
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February 4, 2009 at 4:17 pm
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February 3, 2009 at 8:24 am
Thanks LEDInsider
I went to your website reference and found a 45 Watt equivalent in LED.
And then I looked at the box from the GE Reveal 40 watt bulb.
The 40 Watt GE Reveal is rated 360 Lumens according to the box.
The citing below (PAR30), is 340 Lumens – that is close.
It takes 90 LEDs and 6.5 Watts to get 340 lumens on the PAR30 (see below)
The Ligts of America bulb has 20 LEDs and consumes 1.5 watts and claims 40 watts incandescent replacement. So, LOA has 22% of the LED’s and 23% the power consumption than PAR30. 23% of he light output would be (45 x 23%= ) 10 Watt equivalent.
There are experiments I did but did not publish.
I compared the L.O.A bulb with a 15 Watt clear incandescent Candelabra light bulb.
The Lights of America LED bulb almost matched the 15 Watt canderlatra light ouput but it was less.
If I use PAR30 as the standard – 90LEDs/6.5W/340Lumens and applied this to the Lights of America LED bulb (20LEDs/1.5w/Unknown-lumens) applying the 22% factor on the LOA claim of 45 Watts I get (45W x 22% =) 9.9 Watts.
So, the true lumens of the Lights of America LED bulb – claimed to be a 40 Watt Replacement – is really closer to a 10 Watt incandescent bulb. This is my observation in the comparison with the 15 Watt candelabra bulb. And as I already noted, the packaging for LOA does not quote lumens.
If it really does take 90 LEDs to make 340 Lumens then I would need (90/20=) 4.5 LOA bulbs to get what it claims on the package. At $5 each that is (5x$5=) $25. Which is the cost of the PAR30. The LOA bulb at $5 each is no deal at all. It seems a marketing rouse.
Maybe Lights of America is saying that all 3 bulbs in the package make 40 Watts equivalent replacement. Check out the packaging image. No where does it say that 40 watts refers to each bulb or does it quote lumens for each bulb.
Doing the math and by experimental result, each LOA LED bulb is really closer to 10-15 Watt incandescent replacement. Three together, in the package, would be 30-45 Watt incandescent equivalent.
Lights of America has a customer service e-mail address, so we’ll send off some e-mail on this issue and see what they say – stay tuned!
http://www.ledinsider.com/ViewProduct/45-watt-PAR30-replacement-light-bulb/64.aspx
Bulb Shape: PAR30
General Characteristics
Wattage: 6.5 watts
Comparable to a: 45watt incandescent bulb
Voltage: 110VAC
Color: Natural White and Warm White
Recommended Uses: Indoor and Outdoor
LED Element Type: 90 x LEDs
Rated LED Life: 40,000 hours
Photometric Characteristics
Beam Angle: 15 degrees
Color Temperature: Natural White: 6200K, Warm White: 3500K
Initial Lumens: Natural White 340 lumens, Warm White 280 lumens
http://www.ledinsider.com/ViewProduct/45-watt-PAR30-replacement-light-bulb/64.aspx
frrl
February 3, 2009 at 2:08 am
Thanks for this post about LEDs and your experience. I had pretty much the same experience as you did – buying LEDs at my local Costco, not being happy with how different the light was, and how dim. I started to study and learn and try different LEDs and I am very happy with these:
You’ll notice that I’m sending you to two online LED Superstore sights – LEDinsider and Eaglelight. You can get MUCH better prices there. For instance, that C.Crane VIVID LED you talked about for $19.95 has only 18 LEDs. LEDinsider sells the brighter, better 36 LED for only $9.95! here’s that link: http://www.ledinsider.com/ViewProduct/Vivid-Plus-24-LED-Incandescent-Replacement/5.aspx
First, I recommend you choose the Pharox LED bulb to replace your 40 watt bulbs. The light comes under a nice, frosted bulb so the light is very warm in color, diffuse, and glows just like the old bulbs we’re used to. Get the Pharox here – http://www.eaglelight.com/product/G25-E27-4W1/LED_light_bulb_replacement_for_standard_40_watt_incandescent_light_bulb__Eaglelightcom.html
Second, for your brighter lightbulb replacements, go with the PAR20 for 60 watt replacements. It’s a beautiful bulb with a clear glass cover and lots of reflective light and the price is only $27.95 – here is link: http://www.ledinsider.com/ViewProduct/PAR20-White-LED-Flood-Light-9-SMT-110-240-Volt/81.aspx
or go with the PAR 30 or the PAR 38 for the 75 watt and 100 watt replacements – here is link: http://www.eaglelight.com/category/shop.led_bulbs/
All the LEDs have money back guarantees so you can’t go wrong trying them
Good luck!
ledinsider
February 2, 2009 at 9:15 pm
My experience with the 1.5 W LED bulbs from Lights of America is disappointing. 4 of 9 bulbs have failed within 6 weeks of installation.
Don
March 18, 2009 at 12:55 pm