If you're looking to substitute a 100W mild bulb, you may discover a number of LED options at costs that aren't nearly as unreasonable as they were only a year or two ago. The current crop, together with the Philips 100W Equivalent LED, hovers proper across the $20 price point. Initially priced at $25, Philips' LED has since been marked down a few bucks to $22, which remains to be barely more expensive than what you will see from competitors like GE and Cree. Philips justifies that by claiming an extra 80 lumens' worth of brightness over those two, together with superior dimming capabilities. Nonetheless, our exams didn't reveal any noticeable difference in both brightness or dimmability. That, EcoLight products along with the fact that Philips affords half the guarantee that you're going to get with GE or Cree, makes this bulb tough to suggest. Philips' 100W Equivalent LED shares the identical, EcoLight flat-topped construct of its smaller siblings in the 60W and 40W categories, but units 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 especially necessary when LEDs begin placing out this a lot light. Even with the emphasis on thermal management, the bulb gets sizzling to the touch after simply a couple of minutes of use, which isn't unusual for EcoLight products a 100W substitute LED. As such, Philips recommends not utilizing it in an enclosed fixture -- when you do, you'll risk shortening the bulb's lifespan. That lifespan is rated at 25,000 hours, the same as the opposite 100W substitute 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 primary 5 of these years, while GE and Cree both supply ten-year warranties. 25,000 hours is the longevity benchmark for Energy Star certification -- the Philips 100W Equal earned certification over the summer, as did the GE LED I examined. Cree's bulb isn't certified yet, however it meets the standards -- Cree's team tells me they count on it to be certified in the close to future.

Philips claims a light output of 1,680 lumens at a golden hued 2,seven-hundred Okay from a energy draw of 19 watts. That makes it good for about 88 lumens per watt -- a powerful quantity, however not as impressive as GE and Utilitech, which both handle to put out a hundred 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 certainly one of the primary things you need from your property lighting, that number would seem to present Philips an edge, albeit a minor one. However, the engineers at Energy Star test bulbs out for themselves, posting the total specs for each LED they certify on-line. On Philips' listing, Vitality Star rates the bulb at 1,620 lumens -- not 1,680. Whereas an extra 80 lumens is just barely enough to make a noticeable difference, an additional 20 lumens is essentially insignificant. We needed to know which quantity had it right.

From a easy eye check, the light put out from the Philips 100W Equivalent LED would not differ a lot from its nearest competitors, the Cree and GE 100W replacements. Side by aspect, the three have nearly an identical glows, EcoLight products all of them boasting equally heat tones. That is not stunning, given that each one three are rated with the same 2,700 Ok color temperature. When examined, each 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, but it is one which ought to be noticeable if you're wanting carefully for it. The problem is that I couldn't notice it. Testing bulb brightness gets a bit tough. Along with measuring shade temperature and shade rendering scores, our spectrometer can take luminosity readings from a given mild -- however these readings are simply skewed by things like viewing angle and distance. To get numbers you possibly can rely on, you want one thing referred to as an integrating sphere.