LED lightbulbs - tell me the worst

[CrimeaRiver]

Cost aside, tell me how bad these really are. I know you can get soft, warm colours these days, but is that anywhere close to the warm light of incandescent bulbs?

Do they really last for years and years?

Is the light easy to live with (ie doesn't take 20 minutes to reach maximum strength, doesn't bring on migraines, doesn't heat as well as light)?

Thinking of switching over throughout the house, don't want to make an expensive mistake.

Thanks!

I love mine. Literally.

I used led hut because you get cashback off topcashback & there's usually a 20-30% discount code on the Internet somewhere.

They light up instantly.

LEDs come bright immediately.

The worst feature is that they are not (yet) generally available with as much power as a 100 watt incandescent (filament) bulb. For that you need about a 22 watt LED or CFL. They are OK for low power lamps.

A 5watt LED as widely sold has about as much power as a 20 or 25 watt incandescent lamp (i.e. less than you would want in a bedside lamp).

Thanks.

I've seen 8.5watt (around 60 watt equivalent) readily available in my local hardware shop. These are for recessed lighting, mind, not looked for table lamps.

My issue is that the light always seems too white. I want warm, yellow light. Do your bulbs give off white light?

Look for "warm white" labelled 2700 Kelvin.

Also look at the light output in Lumens which measures the brightness. 60 watt equivalent might be rather optimistic from 8.5watt.

I would hesitate to spend much money on LEDs just yet. It will not be a long-term investment because in a year they will be cheaper and brighter.

CFLs are better value.

I haven't changed the whole house - just occassional lights where bulbs had gone, and also the spots in the kitchen which were incredibly power-hungry. We bought warm white, which is less stark than the standard white. They switch on quickly (no warm up delay). I tried LED Hut, but found the service poor and bulbs frequently turned up not working. I keep an eye on prices in homebase, and (surprisingly) waitrose, which often drop to LED Hut-level prices, but without the drama. I agree with PigletJohn that they will get better and cheaper soon, so have not made a whole-house switchover yet. I do hate CFLs though.

I love CFLs!

I get the ones with an opal globe, they look better.

In hall, landing, porch, dining room the warm up delay doesn't matter, and anyway is much shorter with the latest ones than with the early models.

They are awful. We had out old 1990s style spotlights changed when we redid our kitchen. The old bulbs were warm and bright. The new LEDs, despite being expensive ones and apparently bright and "warm white" rather than "cool white" give a completely different type of light. To get the brightness we had previously we'd need three times as many bulbs which has surely got to negate the environmental benefit somewhat.

I wouldn't put them in again.

Also watch out they come in different shapes and sizes. The first lot we bought were too deep for the fitting.

We're on our third lot as I can live without my kitchen having the atmosphere of a morgue.
The first two got great reviews but really weren't the warm white they were billed as.

The final set we bought just one to begin with and it seemed ok. I'd say they are 90% as good as the halogen they replace.
I'm not sure what they are though. I'd wait six to twelve months or so for decent ones to be more common.

You can buy ones you can set to any colour. We have LiFX, but there's also hue and limitlessled (limitless are much less silly money).

We got rid of our alarm clock and now have sunrise instead. Honestly, they are really amazing. I have "passing clouds" on in here right now and it's simulating daylight with brief golden gleams as the "sun" comes out. Later the lights will dip from gold into red and then fade down over an hour as we go to bed. I love them!

I've not had any problems with mine . Using the led bulbs & a halogen ovens halved my electric bill.

Tanacot Sod going to Disneyland I am spending my holiday money on posh lighting They sound so much fun and much better than just a 'big light' in the middle of the room

We bought a few after halogens kept going. Warm white is nowhere near warm enough. We're sticking with halogens for now and will try again in a year or so. Hopefully tumbling prices will bring better ones within reach.

We replaced all of our halogens with them a couple of years ago. Builder supplied them, they're fantastic. We have warm white in kitchen, family room, downstairs loo and bedroom and cool white in Utility. Utility does look like an operating theatre but that's great. All still going strong.

They are honestly the single best way we've improved the atmosphere/environment of our house. We actually got them cause they're accessible: DH can't turn on light switches but these ones you can turn on with anything - voice control, iPhone, if-logic. But they do all this other stuff too!

It's great for me actually as I work from home and part of my job requires colour grading (VFX). I have my monitor calibrated to specific hue/lux settings on the lights and I can get a much better, more consistent grade. Er, which is a BIT niche, I accept.

We are slowly converting all our bulbs to LEDs. They are expensive, but brighter and quicker than most energy saving lightbulbs. I can't stand blue light but the ones we have are all warm.

I bought my LEDs for the kitchen from a light bulb shop. The various colours were all lit on display so you could try them out/see what you were getting.

I had had LEDs before and hated the light that came off them, but I'm very happy with the new ones (£4.50 each) and even if there are better ones in the next 12 months or so, I would have replaced halogen bulbs 3 times at £1 each and spent more on electricity...

£4.50 is much more reasonable, though I suppose they each are fairly low power, so you have a number of them.

They are 7w I think, but we do have 13 of them in the kitchen. I can't actually look up at the ceiling now!

That's interesting, Elvish, lots of low wattage bulbs rather than fewer high wattage ones.

I live abroad, and LEDs are considerably dearer than GBP 4.50 a pop (sorry, no pound sign on my keyboard). I'm considering going for fewer higher wattage ones. Will look into what, if any, difference that might make.

Having done a fair bit of research now, I'm veering towards Philips as they have a version which gives of a very soft, warm light. Prior to that Cree had been at the top of my list, they have the longest warranty and best consumer reviews. But their warmest light is still blue and really quite harsh. I'm afraid my skin just isn't up to that level of exposure