If you are trying to exchange a 100W mild bulb, you'll find a number of LED choices at prices that aren't nearly as unreasonable as they were only a 12 months or two in the past. The present crop, including the Philips 100W Equivalent LED, hovers right around the $20 value level. Initially priced at $25, Philips' LED has since been marked down just a few bucks to $22, which is still slightly costlier than what you'll see from competitors like GE and Cree. Philips justifies that by claiming an extra eighty lumens' worth of brightness over these two, together with superior dimming capabilities. Nevertheless, EcoLight solutions our assessments didn't reveal any noticeable distinction in both brightness or dimmability. That, together with the fact that Philips provides half the warranty that you're going to get with GE or Cree, dimmable LED bulbs makes this bulb difficult to recommend. Philips' 100W Equivalent LED shares the identical, flat-topped build of its smaller siblings in the 60W and 40W classes, however units itself apart with a unique design that splits the bulb into three sections separated by deep channels.

This helps keep the heat buildup at bay, one thing that gets particularly vital when LEDs start placing out this a lot mild. Even with the emphasis on thermal management, the bulb will get scorching to the touch after simply a couple of minutes of use, which is not unusual for a 100W replacement LED. As such, Philips recommends not utilizing it in an enclosed fixture -- when you do, you may danger shortening the bulb's lifespan. That lifespan is rated at 25,000 hours, the identical as the opposite 100W alternative LEDs I tested, with the exception of Utilitech. That lifespan comes out to 22.8 years if the bulb is used for a median of 3 hours per day. Philips warrants the bulb for the primary 5 of those years, whereas GE and EcoLight outdoor Cree both offer ten-yr warranties. 25,000 hours is the longevity benchmark for Vitality Star certification -- the Philips 100W Equal earned certification over the summer time, as did the GE LED I examined. Cree's bulb is not certified but, but it meets the criteria -- Cree's group tells me they expect it to be certified within the close to future.

Philips claims a mild output of 1,680 lumens at a golden hued 2,700 Okay from a power draw of 19 watts. That makes it good for about 88 lumens per watt -- an impressive number, but not as impressive as GE and EcoLight outdoor Utilitech, which each handle to place out one hundred lumens per watt. These 1680 lumens are a slight step up from what you may get with GE, Cree, or EcoLight outdoor any of the other bulbs we examined. With brightness being one of the first things you want from your private home lighting, that quantity would seem to provide Philips an edge, albeit a minor one. Nonetheless, the engineers at Vitality Star check bulbs out for themselves, posting the full specs for each LED they certify online. On Philips' itemizing, Power Star charges the bulb at 1,620 lumens -- not 1,680. While an additional eighty lumens is simply barely enough to make a noticeable difference, an extra 20 lumens is largely insignificant. We needed to know which quantity had it proper.

From a simple eye check, the light put out from the Philips 100W Equal LED doesn't differ a lot from its nearest competitors, the Cree and GE 100W replacements. Side by side, the three have practically identical glows, all of them boasting equally warm tones. That is not surprising, given that all three are rated with the same 2,700 K coloration temperature. When tested, every one erred low, on the yellowy aspect. Remember, although, that Philips claims to put out 1,680 lumens to Cree and GE's 1,600. That is a pretty minuscule distinction, however it's one which ought to be noticeable if you are trying intently for it. The problem is that I couldn't discover it. Testing bulb brightness gets a bit tricky. In addition to measuring colour temperature and colour rendering scores, our spectrometer can take luminosity readings from a given light -- but those readings are simply skewed by issues like viewing angle and distance. To get numbers you possibly can depend on, you want one thing referred to as an integrating sphere.