In lightbulb lab, LEDs have been on 8,000 hours and counting

Consumer Reports News: May 31, 2012 03:38 PM

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Lightbulbs

To help you save energy, we leave our lightbulbs on. And two of our top-rated light-emitting diodes have been cycling on and off for the past eight months. The 60-watt replacement Philips AmbientLED 12.5W 12E26A60, $25, claims to last for 25,000 hours, and Home Depot's EcoSmart LED Downlight 10.5W 65W E26 ECO-575L, $35, claims to last for 35,000 hours. So we keep testing.

After 8,000 hours both are still burning brightly. In fact, 95 percent of all the LEDs we've tested, some 95 bulbs in all, are still going strong.

Lots of lumens.
The Philips is almost as bright now as it was at 3,000 hours and is brighter than its claimed 800 lumens. (Brightness is measured in lumens; watts indicate energy use.) The EcoSmart is only 5 lumens below its claim of 575 lumens. Both still emit a warm yellow light, similar to an incandescent, and still show colors as accurately as they did when we started testing. At 8,000 hours, they've lasted about eight times as long as a standard incandescent bulb and are much more energy efficient, using about 75 percent less energy. That's a savings of up to $27 compared with buying and using standard incandescents for the same amount of time.

The bulbs are still expensive, though their prices have dropped by $15 to $25 per bulb since we first reported on them last year. Manufacturers and retailers expect prices to continue to go down. Some readers may remember that we also turned on two Cree CR6 R30 LED floodlights more than 18 months ago. They have been continuously burning for more than 13,000 hours, with little or no change in brightness or light color. We'll continue our LED testing and report on their brightness and color. We've also started testing some new LEDs, including some 75-watt equivalents.

—Kimberly Janeway