Excellent review. I read all the way through it. Nice work. I didn't realize the efficiency curves were that steep in the very low end. That's pretty cool.
It's a neat design but they need to reduce the BOM and thus the price. It's great that they put a good fuse in it and it looks like high build quality (minus that accordian fold thing), but they need to get the shelf price below $30 - ideally below $20, even more ideally under $10 - really move a lot of volume.
Have a lifetime of incandescent. Helps when you were a home builder that went broke. Have pallets full of wire, bulbs, plumbing, brick you name it. But very intesteing. Hope they get prices down to commoditized lvls.
that's the price of buying American. These parts are cheap but the high wages and working environments Americans command make running a business here very expensive. No way we can get the newest lightbulb tech for $20, let alone $10. LOL.
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I think it's very odd they use an Electrolytic capacitor. Not that they can do anything about that seeing as it's 22uF, but only good for 3-4000 hours??? Yikes! $50 buys you only 3000 hours?
3000hrs?
You forgot a zero. 30,000 hours. Wee bit of a difference there.
Also, they definitely have me curious.
"Assembled in America"
That's something of an interesting distinction, because it's a phrase that is completely legal but also *may* (not necessarily) be highly misleading. Corporations can claim Assembled in America when only the final component assembly happened with American workers; as in, all the sourced components may be made in China, but shipped here before being assembled into the final product.
I do like Philips quite a bit, and it could be that most of the components are manufactured here (Sylvania is good for that too), if not all of them, but why not state exactly that. I wonder if there are requirements for every single little component to be made here before "Made in America" can be stamped on the product, yet only allowing the "Assembled" phrase if a single part is sourced from another country.
that's the price of buying American. These parts are cheap but the high wages and working environments Americans command make running a business here very expensive. No way we can get the newest lightbulb tech for $20, let alone $10. LOL.
Damn Americans are ruining it for everybody!
Funny how in the "golden years" EVERYTHING was made in America, and workers were paid far better than now.
Nice teardown and review!
Or perhaps they expect to pass it down the line as replacements for the next customer with issues.
Nice overview but the quality of the PCB/soldering is very questionable particularly in these shots:
In most if not all the cases of premature LED capsule failure the sore spot is the driver circuity. Understandably they have to come in at a price point and it's obvious where corners get cut.
That's weird, some of those contacts look wave soldered others hand soldered.
Solder is solidified metal. I bet in most applications those joints will be fine. I honestly can't see them failing.
After the massive European company acquired the US home-grown LumiLEDs from HP/Agilent
I saw these bulbs at home depot recently and they were by far the best of those plugged in. Seriously bright and not a nasty white. I look forward to reading this hugely long review later! Only thing keeping me from them is the 23 dollar starting price for the starting price.
Edit: nice review...I think the ones I see at home depot are the older gray ones. I any case, these are really nice bulbs.
You have noticed that cfl don't last as long as claimed. Is it safe for us to trust the lifetime ratings of led bulbs--at least those from good brands?