LED lights
In honor of Earth Day, I wanted to post about the LED lights that we’ve put into our new kitchen. They’re LR6 lights, from Cree Lighting. If you walked in, you wouldn’t notice them — and that’s the point. They look like standard lights, are even more energy efficient than CFLs, don’t contain mercury, and can be dimmed (although they require a digital dimmer).
So, what’s the downside? Well, for now they’re somewhat overpriced. If they last as long as the company claims (on the order of 20 years), they’ll more than pay for themselves, but that assumes that we don’t discount the future stream of savings. And they’re fairly new products, so no one really knows that they’ll actually last that long. But we decided they were worth a try. And they look good enough that we’re probably going to use them in our living room as well.
I was more than a bit nervous about buying these without being able to see what they’d look like in practice. (Amicus Green has them, but as part of a display with a bunch of other lights, so it’s hard to see what the light looks like.) So, if you’re in the DC area and you’re considering these lights, feel free to email me if you want to come see them.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:16 am
I’m a little out of range to come by, but how is their color? Are they overly blue or yellow, or do they do a good job of simulating white light?
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Does lasting 30 years mean you don’t have to *change* a lightbulb for 30 years? that’s worth an awful lot all by itself. I’ll look forward to hearing how you feel about the new lights as you work in the kitchen.
bj
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Their color is designed to look like a standard incandescent bulb, so slightly warmer (more yellow) than pure white. They also make one that is a brighter white. I think it looks good.
And bj, yes, you shouldn’t have to change them for 20+ years.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
A couple things to know about LED’s. There are, for the most part 3 color temperatures. “Warm White” which is what most people have in their homes. It between 2700k and 3100k, and has a bit of a yellow tint to it. There is “Cool White” which as you mentioned EdgeWise, has a bit of a Blue tint to it, and is between 6000k and 6700k normally. There is also a new color being introduced, and it has a couple names. “Natural White”, or “Color Corrected LED’s”. These are about 4000k and actually, to my personal experience, have no blue or yellow tints to them. These are a bit harder to find as far as lighting companies, but I did manage to locate a company that sells all 3 color temperatures in almost all of their products. http://www.modalight.com for those interested.
A couple of you have mentioned the “lasting 20-30 years” for LED’s. Yes this is possible, because they have no actual elements to them. But you must realize that after that 50,000 hour mark, there is what’s called Lumen Maintenance. Basically, after that mark, the lights will only be approx. 70% or 80% of the same light output when you first turned on the light.