Buying LED Lights
In this video I’m going to share with you important tips for buying LED lights. I’m not going to cover the basics of choosing a light such as color temperature, wattage, etc. You can find everything you need to know in our other video Choosing LED Lights. Today I’m going to cover what you need to know when it comes time to actually purchase LED bulbs.
The Unspoken Truth About LED Reliability
What no LED manufacturer will tell you is that the reliability of LEDs is actually not that great. Sure, they all claim bulbs will last anywhere from 12,000 to 25,000 hours but that only true of the actual light emitting diodes. What generally fails first are the electronics inside these bulbs. Each bulb has to convert electricity from a/c to d/c and the electronics needed to do that can either be cheap or they might fail due to prolonged heat exposure.
So should you avoid LEDs because of this? Not necessarily. The easiest but not necessarily cheapest way to mitigate bulb failure is to buy extra bulbs. This may not sound appealing but I think it is the best option because LED lights are constantly changing. Even if a light fails within the warranty period, there’s no guarantee you’ll get the exact the same bulb in return. The shape may be slightly different, the lens might be different, but even worse is that the light color may not match your original bulb. If you are replacing multiple bulbs in the same room, you don’t want mismatches colors.
Buying Extra LED Lights
Photo by Evan Smogor on Unsplash
The obvious question is how many extra bulbs should you buy? In my experience, the type or size of the bulb is a big factor in failure rate. The smaller the bulb the more likely they are to fail. The exception in my experience are these small MR16 bulbs. These have been very reliable for me. The quote unquote standard size of an A15 has had the most failures for me. I recommend buying 1 extra for every 4 bulbs you are replacing. The PAR20 lights I would also recommend buying 1 extra for every 4. When you get in these PAR30 or the BR30 as well as the larger PAR38 and PAR40, you probably only need 1 extra bulb for every 6 bulbs. If you are replacing fluorescent tubes, one extra for every 8 is what I would recommend. If you replace fluorescent tubes with LED tubes that have an external driver, then I don’t recommend any extras b/c those tubes don’t have electronics inside of them.
For specialty bulbs the number of extras really depends on whether the bulb has electronics inside it. You can tell this one doesn’t so I wouldn’t recommend extras. This one does which is evident by these cooling fins and given the relatively small size of this lamp, I would buy 1 extra for every 4.
Lastly, if you have bulbs that will be outdoors the failure rate might be higher. The PAR30 bulbs I have outdoors have had a much higher failure rate than those indoors. I live in the southeast with a warmer climate and the outdoor bulbs stay on all night so I suspect the heat is what kills these things.
Are All LED Manufacturers the Same?
Let’s talk about brands. Do brands really matter? Only a little bit in my experience. I trust the quality of brands like Cree, Feit, and Lighting Sciences group, but these haven’t been impervious to failures. I’ve had terrible luck with the Chinese brands you’ve never heard of so I avoid those. Some of the Chinese brand LED tubes though are actually very reliable. I rely heavily on reviews for all my LED light purchases. One last note on brands, if you buy an in-house brand from one the big box stores the lamp could be made by any number of manufacturers so proceed with caution and compare all the lights you plan on buying so they appear to be made by the same place.
Extra LEDs Are Still Worth the Savings
Now that I’ve recommended buying extra bulbs you might be thinking that converting to LED bulbs isn’t worth the money. In my experience, it’s still worth it. If you are replacing 4 of these with 4 LEDs, you’re probably looking at making your money back in about 4-5 months. If you buy one extra bulb, that payback period grows to probably 5 or 6 months.
In my opinion, LED bulbs are absolutely worth it. But if you don’t buy extras you might end up frustrated when you replace a bulb and it doesn’t match other bulbs in your room or area. If you want to learn about the basics of buying LED bulbs, then be sure to check out our LED Buying Guide video as well.
