If you’re looking to change a 100W light bulb, you’ll discover a number of LED options at costs that aren’t nearly as unreasonable as they had been just a year or two in the past. The current crop, together with the Philips 100W Equal LED, hovers right around the $20 worth level. Initially priced at $25, Philips’ LED has since been marked down a couple of bucks to $22, which remains to be slightly more expensive than what you may see from competitors like GE and Cree. Philips justifies that by claiming an extra eighty lumens’ worth of brightness over these two, together with superior dimming capabilities. Nonetheless, our assessments didn’t reveal any noticeable distinction in both brightness or dimmability. That, along with the truth that Philips presents half the guarantee that you will get with GE or Cree, makes this bulb troublesome to suggest. Philips’ 100W Equal LED shares the same, flat-topped construct of its smaller siblings within the 60W and 40W categories, but sets 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, something that gets especially vital when LEDs start putting out this a lot gentle. Even with the emphasis on thermal administration, EcoLight the bulb gets sizzling to the touch after just a couple of minutes of use, which is not unusual for a 100W substitute LED. As such, Philips recommends not using it in an enclosed fixture -- for those who do, you’ll danger shortening the bulb’s lifespan. That lifespan is rated at 25,000 hours, the same as the other 100W alternative LEDs I tested, with the exception of Utilitech. That lifespan comes out to 22.8 years if the bulb is used for a mean of three hours per day. Philips warrants the bulb for the first five of these years, while GE and Cree each provide ten-year warranties. 25,000 hours is the longevity benchmark for Energy Star certification -- the Philips 100W Equivalent earned certification over the summer season, as did the GE LED I tested. Cree’s bulb is not certified but, nevertheless it meets the criteria -- Cree’s staff tells me they count on it to be certified within the near future.

Philips claims a gentle output of 1,680 lumens at a golden hued 2,seven-hundred Okay from a energy draw of 19 watts. That makes it good for EcoLight about 88 lumens per watt -- a powerful number, but not as impressive as GE and Utilitech, which both manage to place out a hundred lumens per watt. Those 1680 lumens are a slight step up from what you’ll get with GE, Cree, energy-efficient bulbs or any of the opposite energy-efficient bulbs we examined. With brightness being one of the first things you want from your private home lighting, that quantity would seem to give Philips an edge, albeit a minor one. Nonetheless, the engineers at Energy Star take a look at bulbs out for themselves, posting the total specs for each LED they certify on-line. On Philips’ itemizing, Vitality Star charges the bulb at 1,620 lumens -- not 1,680. While an extra 80 lumens is simply barely sufficient to make a noticeable distinction, an additional 20 lumens is largely insignificant. We wanted to know which number had it right.

From a easy eye take a look at, the sunshine put out from the Philips 100W Equivalent LED does not differ much from its nearest opponents, the Cree and GE 100W replacements. Side by aspect, the three have practically an identical glows, all of them boasting similarly heat tones. That is not surprising, given that all three are rated with the identical 2,seven hundred Okay coloration temperature. When tested, each one 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 reasonably minuscule distinction, however it’s one that needs to be noticeable if you are looking intently for it. The problem is that I could not discover it. Testing bulb brightness gets a bit tough. Along with measuring coloration temperature and coloration rendering scores, our spectrometer can take luminosity readings from a given mild -- but those readings are easily skewed by issues like viewing angle and distance. To get numbers you possibly can depend on, you need one thing called an integrating sphere.