If you are looking to exchange a 100W gentle bulb, you will discover a number of LED options at prices that are not almost as unreasonable as they were only a year or two ago. The current crop, together with the Philips 100W Equivalent EcoLight LED, EcoLight hovers right across the $20 value point. Initially priced at $25, Philips' LED has since been marked down a couple of bucks to $22, EcoLight LED which remains to be slightly dearer than what you may see from rivals like GE and Cree. Philips justifies that by claiming an additional eighty lumens' price of brightness over these two, EcoLight LED along with superior dimming capabilities. Nevertheless, our tests didn't reveal any noticeable distinction in either brightness or dimmability. That, together with the truth that Philips provides half the guarantee that you will get with GE or Cree, makes this bulb troublesome to suggest. Philips' 100W Equivalent LED shares the identical, flat-topped build of its smaller siblings within the 60W and 40W categories, but units itself apart with a unique design that splits the bulb into three sections separated by deep channels.

This helps keep the heat buildup at bay, one thing that gets particularly important when LEDs begin placing out this a lot light. Even with the emphasis on thermal management, the bulb gets hot to the touch after simply a few minutes of use, which isn't unusual for EcoLight a 100W replacement LED. As such, Philips recommends not utilizing it in an enclosed fixture -- for those who do, you will danger 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 22.8 years if the bulb is used for a median of three hours per day. Philips warrants the bulb for EcoLight LED the primary 5 of those years, while GE and Cree each offer ten-12 months warranties. 25,000 hours is the longevity benchmark for Power Star certification -- the Philips 100W Equivalent earned certification over the summer, as did the GE LED I tested. Cree's bulb isn't certified but, however it meets the factors -- Cree's crew tells me they count on it to be certified in the near future.

Philips claims a light output of 1,680 lumens at a golden hued 2,700 Okay from a power draw of 19 watts. That makes it good for about 88 lumens per watt -- a formidable number, but not as impressive as GE and Utilitech, which both handle to put out a hundred lumens per watt. These 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 one in every of the first things you want from your house lighting, that quantity would appear to offer Philips an edge, albeit a minor one. Nevertheless, the engineers at Energy Star test bulbs out for themselves, posting the full specs for every LED they certify online. On Philips' listing, Energy Star charges the bulb at 1,620 lumens -- not 1,680. While an extra eighty lumens is simply barely sufficient to make a noticeable difference, an extra 20 lumens is basically insignificant. We wished to know which number had it right.

From a easy eye take a look at, the sunshine put out from the Philips 100W Equal LED doesn't differ much from its nearest rivals, the Cree and GE 100W replacements. Aspect by side, the three have practically an identical glows, all of them boasting similarly warm tones. That is not surprising, given that all three are rated with the same 2,700 Ok shade temperature. When tested, each erred low, on the yellowy side. Remember, although, that Philips claims to put out 1,680 lumens to Cree and GE's 1,600. That's a fairly minuscule distinction, but it's one which must be noticeable if you are looking closely for it. The issue is that I couldn't discover it. Testing bulb brightness will get a bit tough. Along with measuring color temperature and coloration rendering scores, our spectrometer can take luminosity readings from a given gentle -- but these readings are easily skewed by things like viewing angle and distance. To get numbers you can depend on, you need something called an integrating sphere.