That Lifespan Is Rated At 25
If you are looking to exchange a 100W light bulb, you will discover a number of LED options at costs that aren't almost as unreasonable as they had been just a yr or two ago. The present crop, including the Philips 100W Equal LED, hovers right around the $20 price point. Initially priced at $25, Philips' LED has since been marked down a number of bucks to $22, which remains to be slightly more expensive than what you may see from competitors like GE and Cree. Philips justifies that by claiming an extra 80 lumens' price of brightness over these two, together with superior dimming capabilities. Nonetheless, our checks did not reveal any noticeable distinction in both brightness or dimmability. That, together with the truth that Philips presents half the warranty that you'll get with GE or Cree, makes this bulb tough to advocate. Philips' 100W Equivalent LED shares the same, flat-topped construct of its smaller siblings in the 60W and 40W categories, but units itself apart with a singular 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 especially vital when LEDs begin putting out this much mild. Even with the emphasis on thermal management, the bulb gets hot to the touch after just a few minutes of use, which isn't unusual for a 100W substitute LED. As such, Philips recommends not utilizing it in an enclosed fixture -- in case you do, you may threat shortening the bulb's lifespan. That lifespan is rated at 25,000 hours, the same as the other 100W substitute LEDs I tested, with the exception of Utilitech. That lifespan comes out to 22.Eight years if the bulb is used for a mean of 3 hours per day. Philips warrants the bulb for the primary 5 of these years, while GE and Cree both offer ten-year warranties. 25,000 hours is the longevity benchmark for Vitality Star certification -- the Philips 100W Equivalent earned certification over the summer, as did the GE LED I examined. Cree's bulb isn't certified but, but it meets the criteria -- Cree's team tells me they expect it to be certified within the close to future.
Philips claims a light output of 1,680 lumens at a golden hued 2,700 Ok from a energy draw of 19 watts. That makes it good for about 88 lumens per watt -- an impressive number, however not as impressive as GE and Utilitech, which each handle to place out 100 lumens per watt. These 1680 lumens are a slight step up from what you will get with GE, Cree, or any of the opposite bulbs we tested. With brightness being one among the first stuff you need from your own home lighting, that quantity would appear to provide Philips an edge, albeit a minor one. Nonetheless, the engineers at Vitality Star test bulbs out for themselves, posting the total specs for each EcoLight LED bulbs they certify online. On Philips' listing, Vitality Star charges the bulb at 1,620 lumens -- not 1,680. While an additional eighty lumens is just barely sufficient to make a noticeable distinction, an extra 20 lumens is largely insignificant. We wished to know which number had it proper.
From a easy eye test, the light put out from the Philips 100W Equivalent LED does not differ a lot from its nearest rivals, the Cree and GE 100W replacements. Facet by facet, the three have practically equivalent glows, all of them boasting similarly warm tones. That isn't stunning, given that each one three are rated with the same 2,700 Okay colour temperature. When examined, EcoLight every one erred low, on the yellowy side. Remember, though, energy-saving LED bulbs that Philips claims to place out 1,680 lumens to Cree and GE's 1,600. That's a pretty minuscule difference, however it is one which needs to be noticeable if you're trying intently for 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 -- but those readings are easily skewed by things like viewing angle and distance. To get numbers you possibly can depend on, you need something called an integrating sphere.