You don't often notice a light bulb until it goes out and any disassembly on your part was likely violent and accidental, but there is some interesting tech in LED bulbs. Hackaday were interested in what happened to shorten the lifespan of these type of bulbs which were originally marketed to last much longer than current models; indeed much longer than the actual bulbs ever managed to do. They took a look at what is inside current generations of bulbs to see what differences exist between a bulb marketed for 15,000 hours versus one claiming 25,000 hours.
Along the way you will learn about the light bulb cartel which artificially limited the lifespan of incandescent bulbs and the famous Centennial Bulb which has been continuously burning for well over 1,000,000 hours.
"So, what happened to those 100,000 hour residential LED bulbs? Were the initial estimates just over-optimistic? Was it all marketing hype? Or, did we not know enough about LED aging to predict the true useful life of a bulb?"
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- The quantum internet comes closer @ Physics World
- NVIDIA’s A.I. Thinks It Knows What Games Are Supposed Look Like @ Hackaday
- Asus' GPU overclocking tool serves up Nvidia RTX adverts in games @ The Inquirer
- AT&T’s misleading “5G E” indicator comes to 4G iPhones in iOS 12.2 beta @ Ars Technica
- Huawei in FBI sting at CES after allegedly reverse engineering another product @ The Inquirer
- Boffin suggests Trappist monk approach for Spectre-Meltdown-grade processor flaws, other security holes: Don't say anything public – zip it @ The Register
- Samsung cancels partnership with counterfeit Supreme brand @ Ars Technica
- Good news! Only half of Internet of Crap apps fumble encryption @ The Register
I think the LED bulbs I am
I think the LED bulbs I am using now claim to last for 22 years at normal daily usage. I don’t remember what the hours rating was though, which means that it is great marketing to put 22 years on the box. Out of the eight originally 40 watt bulbs in my bathroom, all of them except one have been replaced with LED. I still have one incandescent bulb that is still going after 10 years. It is only a 1500 hour bulb, so it has gone many times that somehow. Perhaps a little out of spec and didn’t fail when the manufacturer meant it to fail.