- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Incandescent light bulbs are officially banned in the U.S.::America’s ban on incandescent light bulbs, 16 years in the making, is finally a reality. Well, mostly.
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Nobody’s talking about the real casualty of this shift. What’s going to happen to all the jokes about “how many (insert category of person here) does it take to change a light bulb?” now that people don’t have to regularly change light bulbs anymore?
No single LED lightbulb I’ve ever purchased lasts as long as they claim. infact, many have been outlasted by existing incandescent bulbs in my house. your joke fodder is safe.
I don’t know what kind of shit LEDs you’ve been buying but I’ve yet to ever have to replace one. Been using them for many years already.
Same experience here. Every single LED lightbulb i’ve bought, since the time I started using them, has outlasted basically everything else I’ve purchased before. It draws less energy and doesn’t produce basically any heat too, which is excellent
You have to give the industry some time to circle the wagons and enshittify led bulbs so that they only last 10,000 hours
You’re going to want to replace them when they stop getting security updates…
I’ve had one or two LED bulbs die, which is why I switched to buying “energy star” rated bulbs. As part of the accreditation process, they need to certify the lifespan
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That’s really dependent on local regulation, and wether or not you bought products licensed to be sold where you live or random imports from AliExpress.
My smart LED lights were bought in 2017, they are still working perfectly and have zero signs of issues - same brightness, same connection strength, same white point. The only exception was precisely the cheapo desk lamp one I bought from an online reseller, that one lasted a year and the control board fried itself.
I buy all my stuff at Target, Walmart, or Home Depot. I have to replace my LED bulbs just as much if not more than I ever had to with Incandescents. In my last house I had incandescents that lasted the entire 8 years I was there, while I replaced other leds multiple times.
By the choice of stores, I’m guessing American?
That’s why I said “local regulations” matter. In countries where govermental bodies aren’t afraid of limiting how companies can screw over customers, bulbs last longer.
I can tell you from having looked into becoming an importer of those things maybe a decade ago that the very EU rules for the CE mark (a requirement for them to be allowed to be imported for sale into the EU) cover things like failure rates (max 5% in the first year), minimum hours without failure (10,000 and models must actually be tested on it in order to be certified), loss of brightness with age, minimum CRI and so on.
So yeah, buy them from chinese sellers on Amazon or Aliexpress and you’re importing them yourself for personal use in which case no such rules need apply (if doing that I recommend purchasing only from those sellers that mention their product has a CE mark).
In the US, were “consumer right” tend to be this wierd thing that only wimpy eutopean worry about, I suspect there are nowhere the same level of rules (probably the bare minimum for mains wired devices which is pretty much “won’t just randomly kill users”), which would mean the stuff carried by the local sellers is China-quality-at-American-prices, so basically the Aliexpress quality but with extra cost to pay the fat bonus of the CEO of the large retail surface.
PS: As a side note to anybody interested in using the CE mark as the minimum standard for their own LED light bulb purchases, look at the packaging: there are very specific rules for the packaging itself, so for example it has to list the brightness (in lumen) with more proeminence than the wattage and also has the energy rating (including a standard design with a graph of horizontal bars) so these things are pretty easy to spot from the packaging of the light bulb.
Just fucking yesterday out of 12 Nisko high CRI bulbs around the house one just stopped working. All of them are mere one year old.
And those high cri ones are the most expensive ones. Lets see how much time the others survive… ill keep you posted.
My mom buys these cheap LED bulbs from Amazon and about half burn out quickly (probably 10% are DOA).
We have 100% LEDs throughout our fifth wheel (about 30 of them), and they are all still going strong (all installed in 2015, and used daily since then).
I think there’s a serious difference in quality available and it certainly shows.
Honestly as somebody who’s been watching big clive’s channel I would never recommend anybody to buy those cheap LEDs from Amazon because there’s a non-insignificant risk that they may burn your house down.
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I have a bunch I bought in 2016 that are still going strong. Only stopped using them because we wanted cooler lighting and they’re all pretty warm. We’ve had like 4 or 5 out of the original 50 or so that stopped working though.
I don’t remember the last time I changed a light bulb at home
I’ve also had very different results, depending on brand. Definitely avoid the cheap stuff
Now I have the opposite problem: brands and styles change too much. What do you do when one bulb of a multi-bulb fixture burns out, but they’ve all outlasted the brand or style? I do already have a drawer full of LED bulbs that I replaced so the fixture would match, and can’t always find a fixture with fewer bulbs
Don’t worry, many have shitty drivers that will fail and poor cooling that will kill the diodes.
The first time I bought a CFL bulb that was supposed to last 10 years (or whatever the claim was), I turned the lamp on exactly 2 times and it blew. I was pissed, I spend like $15 on that thing. I bought an incandescent bulb to replace it for about $1, which lasted for years and years.
The LED ones seem to be better, but I just talk to a co-worker who spent a bunch of time dealing with LED bulb issues. She thought it was the electricity in her house, because they were dim. Turns out replacing the bulbs fixed it.
As someone living in the EU where incandescent bulbs have been banned for over a decade, I can assure you that changing lightbulbs is still a thing. Not as frequently, but it happens, especially if you buy cheaper brands LED bulbs. They definitely does not have the longevity that they advertise.
The U.S. is pretty late with this, compared to the European Union. Only a few special bulbs are still sold here. Apart from that, the only allowed lighting technology is LED.
This applies to all the things, unfortunately. It must be nice to have a functional union. Even though I’m sure it’s not perfect, progress is made at a decent pace. Our country is hijacked by a cruel/angry/illiterate cult every 1-2 elections, it’s not ideal.
Well… only 11 yrs after EU… That’s not so bad.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_08_1909
Wrap it up boys, we’ve solved climate change.
The EU introduced a limitation to how much power electric devices can consume in off or standby mode.
0.5 watt normally, 1 watt if they have a status display and 2-8 watts if they’re connected to a network.
On a yearly basis this saves as much electricity as one of the member states (Romania) used in a year.
My point is that small things add up to huge numbers.
LED bulbs aren’t really even a small thing.
going from a 100W bulb to a 15W bulb, or a 60W bulb to a 2.5W bulb (that’s the actual conversion for the bulbs i’ve actually bought on amazon and am currently using, not hypothetical guesses) across 20-30 bulbs in a single house is a real actual big difference in energy savings.
Exactly. From this particular article/policy:
Similarly, it projects that the rules could cut carbon emissions by 222 million metric tons over the next 30 years.
What is not banned?
Surprisingly, there is a whole slew of exempt special-purpose bulbs that will continue to be manufactured, according to the Energy Department. Here’s what manufacturers can still build and stores can continue selling:
- Appliance lamps, including fridge and oven lights
- Black lights
- Bug lamps
- Colored lamps
- Infrared lamps
- Left-handed thread lamps
- Plant lights
- Floodlights
- Reflector lamps
- Showcase lamps
- Traffic signals
- Some other specialty lights, including marine lamps and some odd-sized bulbs
I mean, good for the effort, but that’s still a lot of exceptions.
This article is dogshit, and those are not the current exemptions. DOE revised the definition of a general service lamp on 2022 to include the majority of reflectors. The rest have miniscule sales and have technical limitations that make LED replacements difficult. It’s not a lot of exemptions. When was the last time you bought a left hand thread or a colored incandescent lamp?
I’m curious, could you tell me some use for left-hand thread lamps? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one
Seems like it’s a theft deterrent since they won’t work in “normal” sockets?
You need a history expert for this one. I want to say theft deterrent, and possibly different voltages for niche applications. Also Need Flanders Leftorium.
I don’t get the exception for colored incandescent. LEDs come in whatever color you want, or get a smart bulb to change it at will
Black lights
Nice.
They’re lights that emit in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum for the purpose of making fluorescent materials light up. To the human eye they don’t look quite black, but more like a darkish purple.
But yeah, I too always found the name deliciously ironic.
Several of these exceptions are unexpected. Oven light, sure: LEDs can’t survive the heat. That makes sense. Plant lights because you probably need full spectrum. And traffic signals because they’re odd shape and fixtures probably last decades, but the rest?
Bug lights? A regular LED attracts fewer bugs than an incandescent bug light …. Unless they mean an attractant like fora bug zapper
Flood lights? Reflector lights? Fridge lights? Colored lights? Why aren’t these all LED?
Plants don’t need much, if any, green light (they reflect it). LEDs can be made to be full spectrum. I can think of no reason why anyone would want incandescent lights for plants. Even before cheap high power LEDs were a thing, people usually used high pressure sodium lights.
OPs list is wrong, that’s why. DOE revised the definition of a general service lamp in 2022 to include the vast majority of reflector lamps. Bug/appliance/left hand thread/etc are all sold im tiny numbers and therefore exempt.
I was just quoting the article. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that the writer knew what they were talking about, which I guess was wrong of me.
That’s totally fair. I happen to know a lot about this topic and didn’t read the article at first, and I also meant OP as in whoever posted the article, not you. I could have been more helpful here, sorry.
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Wondering if incandescents can still be sold as heat bulbs because that’s what they are
Yes they can. Also your fridge and oven will still have incandescent bulbs because more efficient lights aren’t great at operating in extreme temperatures.
manufacturers can still build and stores can continue selling:
Appliance lamps, including fridge and oven lights Black lights Bug lamps Colored lamps Infrared lamps Left-handed thread lamps Plant lights Floodlights Reflector lamps Showcase lamps Traffic signals Some other specialty lights, including marine lamps and some odd-sized bulbsWe have an LED light bar in our deep freezer and also our mini fridge. LEDs seem to work absolutely fine in the cold actually.
We call them “space heaters”…
how long until there’s a right wing black market for incandescent bulbs like gas stoves prob…
My right wing dad already stocked up
“F*ck efficiency!”
Actually very on brand. hmm…
can we ban standard time and permanently switch to DST now too?
i thought we did?
oh fuck me we didn’t
Ha, do you live in Arizona?
Cure rage in certain circles
Can’t wait for this to be the hot button issue in certain presidential campaigns this cycle.
Why are Republicans mad about it?!
When are they aren’t mad? LOL they can die mad for all I care.
Because imagining that someone might have a legitimate reason to want a product or service that a regulator might not have thought of is currently a “Republican” trait in the US.
And what is that legitimate reason here?
Does anybody use incandescent light bulbs as radiators? Because it’s the only alternative use I can think of.
In the European Union we banned them 10 years ago and people just continued their lives. I wish people were as mad when books get banned, but sadly it’s not the case
Does anybody use incandescent light bulbs as radiators?
Yes. I’ve done it personally a couple times.
Because it’s the only alternative use I can think of.
The thing about alternative uses is that they’re still real even if you can’t think of them.
Broad bans are a bad policy tool in general. Even if you believe in the progressive ideal of expert regulators making broad societal policies, a simple thought experiment shows the problem: What would it take to do the study to accurately determine all the negative effects of a ban? Not guessing, not wishful thinking, but really collecting and analyzing the information.
I wish people were as mad when books get banned, but sadly it’s not the case
When was the last time the US federal government banned a book?
Thank you. What is the usage of using them as a radiator? Am I wrong or does it seem quite inefficient?
Regarding your last question: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–2023_book_banning_in_the_United_States
The link seems broken even if I copy-paste it? Wtf. It’s a Wikipedia article titled " 2021–2023 book banning in the United States"
Once you’re doing resistive heating any resistive element is just as efficient as any other. Incandescent light bulbs have three advantages: They are cheap, easy to work with, and it’s really obvious when one is turned on.
As for your link, it’s talking about arguments about which books should be made available at school and local libraries. In no sense is that even related to the federal government banning books.
Well I’ve never said the US federal government is banning books, but I wish people were as mad when their local schools and libraries do that :-)
Tradition
Because they were born.
because they think we should be burning whale oil
I wish the LEDs weren’t such crap. They don’t even last as long as a 60W incandescent a lot of times. The old CFLs last years, I have a few over ten years old.
I don’t know what kind of crap LED light bulbs you get in the US but here in Europe to to get a CE mark (required to be able to import them into the EU) a model has to have less than 5% failure rate within (if I remember it correctly) the first year, last 10,000h at least (and have been tested for it, which is quite funny because the test requires having the thing always on for months), turn on within a second, lose (due to burn-in) less than a few percent (forgot the number) brightness within the first 6 months and a bunch of other requirements including stuff like color fidelity.
About a decade ago I actually looked into starting a business importing those things from China and still tody have several samples from back then still working fine (and that’s also why I know the CE mark requirements for LED light bulbs).
More in general I’ve been using LED lamps for even longer and even back in the day when they were more expensive those things paid for themselves in lower power costs, and often do so quite fast (a couple of months) when used to replace incandescents, plus the rate of failures is now pretty low.
(When I first replaced all my lightbulbs with LEDs, way back when they weren’t even as efficient as now, the fall in the electricity bill was very noticeable)
Oh, and the price of those things at the factory has been less than $1 for ages, so stores trying to sell those for more than $2 have huge markups and you’re better of avoiding those places and getting them from hardware stores and similar (or just buy online).
I haven’t had a filament LED fail on me yet. The cheapest LEDs you can find aren’t worth it; best to get a name brand.
I’ve been running pure led for 10 years. The only failures I’ve had were in heat prone fixtures not designed for leds
We need more systems where we can just replace the power supplies on these bulbs.
Mostly capacitor plague or heat. I’ve only lost 2 / 50 in Open fixtures with good airflow over the last three years.
I have one outdoor that pops every spring the fixture is damn near sealed and in direct sunlight, but the HOA demands the fixture.
There are other uses of incandescent bulb beyond lighting. We use them to heat small enclosures in the winter and we have light to work in the space if that needss to happen. To use heat tape or space heaters is far more likely to catch fire.
And for those uses they aren’t getting phased out:
Surprisingly, there is a whole slew of exempt special-purpose bulbs that will continue to be manufactured, according to the Energy Department. Here’s what manufacturers can still build and stores can continue selling:
Appliance lamps, including fridge and oven lights
Black lights
Bug lamps
Colored lamps
Infrared lamps
Left-handed thread lamps
Plant lights
Floodlights
Reflector lamps
Showcase lamps
Traffic signals
Some other specialty lights, including marine lamps and some odd-sized bulbs
And my lava lamps require the heat they put off.
You can’t be groovy with LEDs
Isn’t that the worse way for your outcome? Isn’t there a more efficient method that reliably heats without light ?
Well 98% of the energy used by an incandescent bulb is given off as Infrared light that you would sense as heat.
Isn’t that a pretty flawed design flaw then. Why not use a heater as a heater rather than a light bulb ? Or like a heat lamp ?
Sometimes you will just introduce more safety issues if you try to overengineer things. In a lot of cases you have to assume that not everything that you want will be easily available and cheap, available and safe will beat some plastic thing ordered from ali express by Walmart.
No not in the contest of a heater. Think that’s just being silly now. Something we’ve required since the dawn of humanity.
Makes sense. Nonetheless, reminds me of modern washing machines. Yeah they make sense and save water but it stinks that it’s a compromise and it takes twice as long to wash. With Led bulbs it’s always a say a prayer situation to see if a particular bulb works with a particular dimmer and isn’t a flickering mess.
electric companies started subsidizing LEDs 10 years ago at box stores. electricity use went down and the bills went up as usual. all the while still burning coal. 🤔 incentives? probably part of the same mandates taxes get spent on
Once they got the white light spectrum figured out I was fine with switching to leds. Less power, don’t get hot, last longer.
