If you're trying to substitute a 100W light bulb, you will find a number of LED choices at prices that aren't practically as unreasonable as they had been only a yr or two in the past. The current crop, together with the Philips 100W Equal LED, hovers right around the $20 price point. Initially priced at $25, Philips' LED has since been marked down a number of bucks to $22, which continues to be barely more expensive than what you may see from rivals like GE and EcoLight products Cree. Philips justifies that by claiming an additional 80 lumens' worth of brightness over these two, along with superior dimming capabilities. Nevertheless, our assessments did not reveal any noticeable distinction in either brightness or dimmability. That, together with the truth that Philips offers half the warranty that you're going to get with GE or Cree, makes this bulb difficult to suggest. Philips' 100W Equal LED shares the identical, flat-topped build of its smaller siblings in the 60W and 40W categories, however units itself apart with a singular design that splits the bulb into three sections separated by deep channels.

This helps keep the heat buildup at bay, one thing that will get particularly important when LEDs begin putting out this much gentle. Even with the emphasis on thermal management, the bulb gets sizzling to the contact after simply a few minutes of use, which is not unusual for EcoLight smart bulbs a 100W substitute LED. As such, Philips recommends not using it in an enclosed fixture -- in the event you do, you may risk shortening the bulb's lifespan. That lifespan is rated at 25,000 hours, the same as the other 100W substitute LEDs I examined, with the exception of Utilitech. That lifespan comes out to 22.Eight years if the bulb is used for an average of 3 hours per day. Philips warrants the bulb for EcoLight products the first five of these years, while GE and Cree both supply ten-12 months warranties. 25,000 hours is the longevity benchmark for EcoLight products Power Star certification -- the Philips 100W Equivalent earned certification over the summer time, EcoLight solar bulbs as did the GE LED I tested. Cree's bulb isn't certified but, but it meets the factors -- Cree's team tells me they expect it to be certified in the near future.

Philips claims a light output of 1,680 lumens at a golden hued 2,seven-hundred Okay from a power draw of 19 watts. That makes it good for about 88 lumens per watt -- a powerful quantity, however not as impressive as GE and Utilitech, which both handle to place out a hundred lumens per watt. These 1680 lumens are a slight step up from what you'll get with GE, Cree, EcoLight products or any of the opposite bulbs we examined. With brightness being one in every of the first stuff you need from your property lighting, that quantity would seem to provide Philips an edge, albeit a minor one. However, the engineers at Power Star test bulbs out for themselves, posting the total specs for long-life LED each LED they certify on-line. On Philips' listing, Vitality Star rates the bulb at 1,620 lumens -- not 1,680. Whereas an extra eighty lumens is simply barely enough to make a noticeable distinction, an additional 20 lumens is basically insignificant. We needed to know which number had it proper.

From a simple eye test, the light put out from the Philips 100W Equivalent LED does not differ a lot from its nearest rivals, the Cree and GE 100W replacements. Aspect by aspect, EcoLight products the three have nearly similar glows, EcoLight smart bulbs all of them boasting similarly heat tones. That is not stunning, given that every one three are rated with the identical 2,700 Okay shade temperature. When examined, every one erred low, on the yellowy side. Remember, though, EcoLight products that Philips claims to put out 1,680 lumens to Cree and GE's 1,600. That's a pretty minuscule distinction, however it is one that needs to be noticeable if you are wanting closely for EcoLight products it. The issue is that I couldn't discover it. Testing bulb brightness will get a bit tough. Along with measuring colour temperature and color rendering scores, our spectrometer can take luminosity readings from a given gentle -- but those readings are easily skewed by things like viewing angle and distance. To get numbers you'll be able to depend on, you need one thing known as an integrating sphere.