How come LED Light Bulbs only last for about 2-3 Years?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨counselwolf@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

I’ve bought and replaced a lot of light bulbs, and I noticed that all of them said “up to 20,000 hours” which would be about 5 years given 12 hours of daily use (which we definitely don’t).

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TheRealKuni@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Technology Connections has advice for you!

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- counselwolf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  are there cool/non-warm colored filament led bulbs? My SO prefers the cool colored bulbs.
  
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  - TheRealKuni@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I’d be shocked if there aren’t.
    
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Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
What lasted forever for me…CFLs. downside is they just don’t seem to put out as much light. But I had some in my house 10+ years old. They lasted so long that when one finally burned out and I didn’t have a replacement of the intensity…I was pissed to learn they don’t even make them anymore. I’m not a fan of LEDs because some of the cheaper ones are like mini strobe lights and really big my eyes. I had to go through like $60 work of LEDs to find a set I actually liked

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- Blaster_M@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I’ve had the best experience with the Philips LED lights, and secondly, the GE lights. I’ve seen some here say IKEA as well are good. Others just are too cheaply made and fail quickly.
  
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MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
The same reason that filament based incandescent bulbs burned out. Planned obsolescence.

There’s a very real conspiracy (not just a theory) about the “arms race” in light bulbs for long lasting bulbs. Eventually, they made bulbs that lasted so long that they stopped making money.

Lighting manufacturers intentionally made worse bulbs to simply improve profits. They realized that they were driving themselves out of business. Everyone in the light bulb industry agreed to stop development of even longer lasting bulbs, just so they could continue to move units and make money.

Also, with LEDs, the thing that burns out fastest isn’t the LEDs (there’s usually a dozen… ish, in an LED bulb)… It’s the electronics. The power needs to be converted from line power to something the LEDs can handle, which is usually DC. So there’s a full power supply in the bulb to convert AC to DC, with a certain voltage to power the LEDs.

Sometimes this conversation is simple, a full bridge rectifier with little more than a filtering capacitor, other times it’s very complex.

The power supply in the bulb is usually what fails first.

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- Phineaz@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Something to remember: thicker filaments, while they do last longer, worsen the ratio of light to heat.
  
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- BorisBoreUs@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  This guy watched The Lightbulb Conspiracy… Am I right…?
  
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  - MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I think I watched a summary of it by a YouTuber.
    
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Rentlar@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Yeah the drivers are shit on cheap products and heat can wear them out easily. I find that LED bulbs “burn out” by just being super dim rather than physically snapping like incandescent filaments. I have these 96 cent cheapass LED bulbs that I have no expectation of lasting long, and I have other 6 dollar dimmable bulbs that I hope I will last longer.

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RaoulDook@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
My experience has been that they last for more years than I tend to notice which ones are which. I’m not mad at all about their longevity.

I had 2 LED bulbs that I know for sure that I bought prior to 2015 that only recently failed. Those bulbs lasted at least 9-10 years. The rest of my bulbs I haven’t kept up with but those 2 older ones looked very distinctive with aluminum heatsink material for their bottom halves.

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InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Are you sure you have the same set up for voltage and resistance? If you don’t you’ll pass more current and burn out faster. Similar to a laptop marketing saying 14hrs, but that’s only if you leave it on low power, airplane mode, and don’t do anything useful. I’m curious to see if someone comments the real answer.

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AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I still buy more halogen bulbs than LEDs - 4 fixtures in one room that I haven’t been able to convert go through more bulbs than the rest of the house of LED fixtures combined.

So far I haven’t bought any bulbs this year and have used only halogens, but I used up my stock of both.

My only real complaint about replacing LED bulbs is they change design more frequently than they need to be replaced - If I need to replace one bulb in a fixture, I can never find an exact match

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