LED lighting is getting cheaper, "warmer", and more efficient. Time to switch?
An offshoot of the semiconductor industry, LED lighting technology is already abundant in our lives, from traffic lights to flat screen TVs and computer displays. That’s because LEDs produce are about 10 times more efficient than conventional incandescent lighting, and they can last up to 100 times longer, equating to substantial energy, cost and eco impact savings over time.
So is it time to re-illuminate your home sweet home? The downside is that LEDs still aren’t cheap, with standard socket LED bulbs costing anywhere from $5 to over $50. LEDs have also struggled a bit matching the “warm” light put off by incandescents, the same problem faced by compact florescent lamps (CFLs) when they first hit the market. But LED prices are coming down quickly, while both efficiency and light quality are improving. The typical LED is now twice as efficient as a CFL, and takes roughly the same amount of energy to manufacture. LEDs also last 2 to 3 times longer, and they’re better than CFLs at dimming (“dimmable” CFLs still tend to flicker, while LEDs are better at maintaining smooth illumination and color temperature, though some brands still have kinks to work out). LEDs also have a leg up on CFLs in that they don’t contain mercury, a toxic component of all CFLs that subjects users to special recycling and breakage clean-up recommendations.
If you’re ready to dive into the future of light, sites like Amazon are of course awash with LED options. Beyond price, pay close attention to customer ratings, “dimmable” claims (if you need dimming), and color temperature (2,700-3,300 K will match standard incandescent lighting, while higher numbers mean a “cooler” color). The EPA award-winning Light Bulb Finder app is a great way to quickly see how options stack up, and there are a number of fabulous online calculators out there that estimate how LED when investments will payback and start turning a profit (vs. both CFLs and incandescents). When both energy savings and longer bulb life are factored in, replacing an incandescent with a $25 LED should save you at least $150 over the 25-year life of a frequently used LED bulb, and if you’re willing to get a bit more creative with your lighting you can save even more.
LED’s are definitely the great bright hope for the future, but in terms of actual performance of off-the-shelf equipment, it’s still sort of the Wild West. You definitely mentioned that a few times (in so many ways). It comes up with efficiency– I believe that the typical LED wafers are twice as as efficient as CFL’s, but with the supporting electronics, I’ve generally seen that the typical high quality LED lamp is about as efficient as a CFL.
Also,
Lifetime– I’ve purchased several LED lamps (standard socket and MR16 base) which burned out after 2 months. I actually don’t suspect that the lamp had faulty manufacturing (they were from different companies). I’m pretty sure it had entirely to do with the fixture that I was installing it into. The recessed fixtures were the ones that were particularly deadly; the reason LED’s have such complex heat sinks is that the chips themselves are very sensitive to temperature. If they get too hot (and that’s not that hot), then they will die very prematurely.
Light color rendition:
There’s talk about coming up with a new color rendition index that’s appropriate to LED’s, not because they can’t meet up, and more because the the standard is flawed such that spectroscopic performance can indicate equivalent color rendition (say, an indicated weighted average of 2700 Kelvin, or ‘warm’ light), while our experience of the light will feel much colder.
Toxics:
This is much more minor point– LED’s clearly are far superior in terms of heavy metal content than CFL’s (which aren’t that bad in absolute terms).
But, many LED’s produce light in the same way as Fluorescents– produce UV light that will fluoresce off of phosphors that are usually made out of some kind of heavy metals.
If an LED lamp breaks, then you’d really have to pulverize it in order to make anything that could be exposed to us mortals, but it’s still there, just a teeny bit.