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LED Lights Reviewed 2012

By On September 13, 2012 · 12 Comments

I have focused a lot of time lately towards reviewing products that will have a positive impact on the environment and consumer budgets. I recently reached out to Phillips, Sylvania, GE and LightKiwi to sample some of their LED Bulbs for a review and I hope to highlight the differences of these LED lights so here is the results.

 

The LED Bulbs

 

046677409906 IMS global 150x150 LED Lights Reviewed 2012Phillips AmbientLED

The AmbientLED is a an A19 replacement bulb made by Phillips who have been innovative in the field of LED Technology for years now. The AmbientLED is rated as 60-watt replacement and consumes 12.5 watts of electricity while producing 64 lumens per watt for a total of 800. The AmbientLED produces an amazingly bright and soft color with a 2700k lighting index and is suitable for overhead ceiling fixtures and lamps and will give rooms plenty of light without being overwhelming, all while staying at a cool temperature of 108 Fahrenheit.

I really enjoyed the unique design of the Phillips AmbientLED which looks very futuristic versus plain  and the size was compact.

 

 

sylvania led 150x150 LED Lights Reviewed 2012 Sylvania UltraLED

The UltraLED is A19 replacement bulb made by Sylvania-Osram. Like most LED’s lasts 25 times longer than an incandescent bulb. The UltraLED uses only 12 watts of power while producing 810 lumens or 67 lumens per watt which is amazingly efficient for a LED bulb. The output color for this bulb is Warm White (2700k) and the operating temperature I found was 105 Fahrenheit.

I enjoyed the Sylvania but found it a bit bulky in size and heavier than other LED bulbs on the market, however it used .5 less watts than the Phillips AmbientLED.

 

 

LED Lights Reviewed 2012LightKiwi A19

I had the opportunity to check out LightKiwi’s A19 (LK-6A19E26(D)-27) which beat its competitors in consuming only 6-7 watts while producing 2700k coloring and being a 50-watt equivelent. I really liked the color of the LightKiwi and the construction was just as solid as its competitors.
I really enjoyed the LightKiwi the light was perfect in most settings and the energy savings far exceeded the competitors bulbs.

When it came down to the energy savings this bulb really blew everything else out of the water!

 

 

54600 ge 13 watt led box 150x150 LED Lights Reviewed 2012GE 13 Watt A19

General Electric (GE) provided me with their 13-watt A19 which consumes 13-watts per hour is a 60-watt equivelant providing 800 lumens at 64 lumens per watt with a white color temp of 3000.I did not like the metal prong like fins because I felt they were just in the way and added extra weight to the bulb.

 

 

The Verdict

I believe the Sylvania and LightKiwi bulbs provide the best incentives in savings and design for most consumers looking to replace their incandescent or CFL A19′s. I am hopeful to see a Phillips LED bulb that uses even less watts in the future. As for GE, I think they need to re-think the prong design while also getting the watt usage instead down to the 12-12.5 standard, which seems to be the most common energy use factor among LED light bulbs. I will note that I hope to review a bulb by Feit and GeoBulb in the future but at the time of writing this review I had not heard back from either manufacturer.

When doing this review I also looked at a number of places to purchase bulbs and looked at reviews of other users and one concern I must urge people to pay attention to is make sure the bulb is genuinely UL certified that is it has a Underwriters Laboratory certification and marking on its packaging.

If the bulb lacks UL certification there is always a potential of fire risk and there have been reports of people buying cheap LED bulbs directly from China on sites like eBay and having them catch fire or smoke due to faulty soldering or other causes.

In closing I want people to understand that LED’s are really picking up on the consumer market and will save you a bundle over time with a bulb paying for itself in the first year or two and then saving you a more over the years. Additionally LED’s operate at a lower temperature than CFL’s and Incandescent’s which means a lower cooling bill in the summer and reduce heat in fixtures which pose a fire hazard in older homes.

Whether you buy now or later I do not anticipate major price changes in the LED market and there are already bulbs that are as cheap as $17-20 per bulb which is amazing consider cost savings.

For updates on future reviews and blog posts do not hesitate to subscribe to my RSS feed or use my e-mail subscribe at the top right hand side of my blog!

I look forward to hearing from you about your LED Bulb experiences in my comment section below!

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  • http://gravatar.com/shirgall Joshua R. Poulson

    Of the bulbs here, I have tried the Phillips, in three configurations: 40W equivalent, 60W equivalent, and 100W equivalent. It’s really striking how long the bulbs are compared to the ones they are replacing. But they are reasonably dimable and you get to ignore the odd yellow color when they aren’t turned on eventually.

    To me, color reproduction is an important aspect of evaluating LED bulbs. I have a set of the 40-watt equivalent Phillips bulbs in a ceiling fan and I have the Cree (neé LLF) LR6 6-inch can lights in my kitchen and certain items can look brown in one light and purple in the other! Admittedly Cree/LLF worked very hard on the CRI of their downlights because they were originally intended for retail showcases.

    I’ve had the Crees for years, and if there’s anything that justifies the expense of LED lights over CFLS beyond the color output, mercury, and chance of fire, it’s the long life! :)

  • http://gravatar.com/ferongr ferongr

    You should take the longevity claims of LED bulbs with a grain of salt. My father is an electrician and experienced a 15% failure rate within the first month in a commercial installation utilizing Philips AmbientLEDs in hidden reflective fictures installed in a false ceiling. In each and every one of them the electronics failed. For 30€ a pop that’s unacceptable. Needless to say, the temperature was not the issue since the ficture had ventilation slits and the old incandescents had no problem.

    One of the 3 Philips LED floodlights failed within the first 3 months too, and was installed in an extremely difficult-to-reach position (40 meters above the ground hanging from a 4 meter horizontal metal beam illuminating the shop’s fascia). And those things are very expensive compared to bog-standard HID ones.

    >will save you a bundle over time with a bulb paying for itself in the first year or two

    I hope you can back this statement with a analysis of the TCO of an LED, as compared to halogen incandescents of CCFLs.

    Personally I’ll keep using halogen (for most flicker-critical applications) and CCFL (for secondary fixtures) lamps in my house until the technology matures and the prices fall to more sane levels.

    • Benjamin Kerensa

      Notably all of the bulbs I worked with had multi-year replacement guarantees.

  • Benjamin Kerensa

    What wattage does the Cree consume and is it a A19 or different bulb type?

  • klebom

    Phillips AmbientLED and General Electric A19 probably better spread light in all directions (more sphere like), the others mostly in a half sphere shape.
    This really matters with some types of lamps.

    Since LED lights can’t be allowed to be too warm, cooling surfaces is needed. I actually commend GE for their solution as it probably spreads light more like an incandescent bulb.

    • Benjamin Kerensa

      I think the spread of the KiwiLight and Sylvania is pretty much the same believe it or not the fin design and weird Phillips design don’t seem to have any visible change in spread.

  • Benjamin Kerensa

    This blog is listed because I am a Mozillian. Why the need to comment on all of my posts with the same comment?

  • Andy Burns

    “General Electric (GE) provided me with their 13-watt A19 which consumes 13-watts per hour”

    To nitpick, it doesn’t consume 13-watts per hour, it consumes 13-watts whenever it is on.

    • Benjamin Kerensa

      Not really since if its on for 13 minutes it is not consuming 13 watts… The rate in which it consumers energy is 13-watts per hour when in use.

  • Andy Burns

    Yes really ;-)

    Whenever it is on, it consumes 13 watts of POWER, which means it consumes 13 watt-hours of ENERGY for each hour that it is on.

    Power is in watts, energy is in watt-hours (not watts per hour) so running a 13 watt lamp for 13 minutes consumes 2.8 watt-hours.

  • nelson

    Love your honest reviews.

  • http://www3.sympatico.ca/jpolowin Joel Polowin

    I’d speculate that the fins on the GE are to provide the external form factor of the “classic” incandescent. There are some lamps that need this, e.g. for lampshades that clip onto the bulb.