If you're seeking to substitute a 100W mild bulb, you may discover a number of LED options at costs that are not almost as unreasonable as they were just a year or two in the past. The present crop, together with the Philips 100W Equivalent LED, hovers proper across the $20 worth level. Initially priced at $25, Philips' LED has since been marked down just a few bucks to $22, which is still slightly dearer than what you may see from competitors like GE and Cree. Philips justifies that by claiming an extra eighty lumens' price of brightness over those two, along with superior dimming capabilities. However, our assessments did not reveal any noticeable difference in either brightness or dimmability. That, together with the fact that Philips offers half the guarantee that you will get with GE or Cree, makes this bulb troublesome to recommend. Philips' 100W Equal LED shares the same, flat-topped construct of its smaller siblings in the 60W and 40W classes, however sets 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 gets particularly essential when LEDs start putting out this much mild. Even with the emphasis on thermal management, the bulb will get sizzling to the contact after just a few minutes of use, EcoLight solar bulbs which is not unusual for a 100W substitute LED. As such, Philips recommends not utilizing it in an enclosed fixture -- if you do, you'll threat shortening the bulb's lifespan. That lifespan is rated at 25,000 hours, EcoLight smart bulbs the identical as the other 100W substitute LEDs I examined, with the exception of Utilitech. That lifespan comes out to 22.8 years if the bulb is used for EcoLight outdoor an average of 3 hours per day. Philips warrants the bulb for the first 5 of those years, whereas GE and Cree both supply ten-yr warranties. 25,000 hours is the longevity benchmark for Power Star certification -- the Philips 100W Equal earned certification over the summer time, as did the GE LED I tested. Cree's bulb is not certified yet, reduce energy consumption nevertheless it meets the standards -- Cree's team tells me they expect it to be certified in the near future.
Philips claims a gentle output of 1,680 lumens at a golden hued 2,700 Okay from a power draw of 19 watts. That makes it good for about 88 lumens per watt -- a powerful number, however not as impressive as GE and Utilitech, which both manage to place out 100 lumens per watt. Those 1680 lumens are a slight step up from what you will get with GE, Cree, or any of the opposite bulbs we examined. With brightness being one in every of the first belongings you want from your house lighting, that quantity would appear to give Philips an edge, albeit a minor one. Nevertheless, the engineers at reduce energy consumption Star test bulbs out for themselves, posting the full specs for every LED they certify on-line. On Philips' listing, Energy Star rates the bulb at 1,620 lumens -- not 1,680. While an additional eighty lumens is just barely enough to make a noticeable distinction, an additional 20 lumens is basically insignificant. We wished to know which quantity had it proper.
From a simple eye test, the light put out from the Philips 100W Equal LED would not differ much from its nearest opponents, the Cree and EcoLight GE 100W replacements. Side by facet, the three have almost identical glows, all of them boasting similarly heat tones. That is not surprising, given that every one three are rated with the same 2,seven-hundred Okay coloration temperature. When examined, reduce energy consumption each one erred low, on the yellowy facet. Remember, though, that Philips claims to put out 1,680 lumens to Cree and GE's 1,600. That's a reasonably minuscule distinction, but it's one that ought to be noticeable if you're trying closely for reduce energy consumption it. The issue is that I couldn't notice it. Testing bulb brightness will get a bit difficult. In addition to measuring color temperature and color rendering scores, our spectrometer can take luminosity readings from a given gentle -- however those readings are simply skewed by things like viewing angle and EcoLight smart bulbs distance. To get numbers you possibly can depend on, you need one thing called an integrating sphere.