If you are trying to exchange a 100W mild bulb, you will discover a number of LED options at costs that are not practically as unreasonable as they had been just a yr or two in the past. The current crop, together with the Philips 100W Equivalent LED, hovers proper around the $20 value level. Initially priced at $25, Philips' LED has since been marked down just a few bucks to $22, which remains to be barely dearer than what you may see from rivals like GE and Cree. Philips justifies that by claiming an additional eighty lumens' value of brightness over these two, together with superior dimming capabilities. Nevertheless, our tests did not reveal any noticeable distinction in both brightness or dimmability. That, together with the truth that Philips provides half the warranty that you're going to get with GE or Cree, makes this bulb tough to suggest. Philips' 100W Equivalent LED shares the same, flat-topped build of its smaller siblings in the 60W and 40W classes, EcoLight 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, one thing that will get particularly essential when LEDs start placing out this much light. Even with the emphasis on thermal management, the bulb gets scorching to the contact after simply a couple of minutes of use, which is not unusual for a 100W alternative LED. As such, Philips recommends not utilizing it in an enclosed fixture -- in case you do, you may risk shortening the bulb's lifespan. That lifespan is rated at 25,000 hours, the identical as the opposite 100W alternative LEDs I examined, with the exception of Utilitech. That lifespan comes out to 22.Eight years if the bulb is used for a median of three hours per day. Philips warrants the bulb for the first five of these years, whereas GE and EcoLight Cree each provide ten-yr warranties. 25,000 hours is the longevity benchmark for Energy Star certification -- the Philips 100W Equal earned certification over the summer season, as did the GE LED I examined. Cree's bulb is not certified but, but it surely meets the factors -- Cree's team tells me they anticipate it to be certified within the close to future.
Philips claims a gentle output of 1,680 lumens at a golden hued 2,700 K from a energy draw of 19 watts. That makes it good for about 88 lumens per watt -- a powerful number, however not as spectacular as GE and Utilitech, which each manage to place out a hundred lumens per watt. These 1680 lumens are a slight step up from what you'll get with GE, Cree, EcoLight reviews or any of the opposite bulbs we examined. With brightness being certainly one of the first things you need from your house lighting, that quantity would seem to offer Philips an edge, albeit a minor one. However, the engineers at Vitality Star check bulbs out for themselves, posting the total specs for each LED they certify online. On Philips' listing, EcoLight bulbs Energy Star rates the bulb at 1,620 lumens -- not 1,680. While an additional eighty lumens is just barely sufficient to make a noticeable difference, an additional 20 lumens is largely insignificant. We wanted to know which number had it proper.
From a simple eye check, the sunshine put out from the Philips 100W Equal LED would not differ much from its nearest competitors, EcoLight reviews the Cree and GE 100W replacements. Aspect by aspect, the three have practically equivalent glows, all of them boasting equally warm tones. That is not shocking, given that all three are rated with the same 2,700 K color temperature. When tested, each one erred low, on the yellowy side. Remember, although, that Philips claims to place out 1,680 lumens to Cree and GE's 1,600. That is a reasonably minuscule distinction, however it is one that must be noticeable if you're looking intently for reduce energy consumption it. The issue is that I could not notice it. Testing bulb brightness gets a bit tricky. In addition to measuring colour 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 distance. To get numbers you may depend on, you need something known as an integrating sphere.