I picked up a Cree 60W Equivalent LED bulb at Home Depot this morning for $8 (MA utilities are subsidizing them about $4), gotta say very impressed with them compared to any CFL I've used. Instant on, and good color.
The VT utilities are being much more generous, and the same bulb only cost $5 there...

Is it weird to be excited about a light bulb?

Not at all. I really like those bulbs myself, and have about 5 of them in my home.

I still think the color could be better, but IMO it's good enough. There's one room on my house that only has these bulbs, and the color temp is fine.

Best of all, the Cree bulbs are dimmable, so they work with [most] of my home automation system. They'll work with any of my lamp modules, but my light switches won't work with them unless the switch ties into the neutral line (I have cheaper ZWave switches).

Which version of the bulb did you get? I remember picking up a bulb with a different color label, and ended up hating the color of that one (much too blue and cold). But now I can't remember which color is which.

I'd also like to pick up their bulbs for recessed lights. It could get pretty expensive to replace all of those in my home, but I'm curious how well they'd do, considering how much more exposed they are than most lamp bulbs.

It has taken a long, long time for 'white' LED color fidelity to creep from terrible to merely poor to almost acceptable to now almost good enough.

CRI values and 'Kelvin' color temperatures are still quite variable across different products and manufacturer/brands.

I look forward to the day when the last CFL bulb is retired from my house and white LED becomes the norm.

I recently installed around 100 feet of self-adhesive LED flexible strip lighting under kitchen cabinets and inside several closets. The 'warm white' color fidelity is good enough that I am overall quite happy with the light quality.

They are only subsidizing the Soft White (2700k), the Daylight White (5000k) bulbs of the same "wattage" are $14. The VT stores also have the BR30 Flood Light Bulb for $19.97 ($10 subsidy), and we have 5 of them in the kitchen with cold white CFLs, but as we are currently renting it is hard to justify replacing them. At least with the regular light bulbs I know we can use them when we move.

I was only planning on picking up one to see how they were, I'd heard others speak well of them. Now I have a friend from VT picking up $100 worth of them, some 40w, some 60w.

K447: Where did you get the LED flexible strip lighting?

Lee Valley

I mostly used the 120 LED per meter tape, for which the 8 foot 'kit' was somewhat cost effective.

I suspect I could have found similar product elsewhere for less cost but the calibre of the product itself and the Lee Valley support has value to me.

I have also purchased LED products directly from China and Hong Kong and the documentation and actual LED light quality (CRI and color temperature) do vary. It can be difficult to determine how closely the actual product will conform to the web site descriptions.

I may have a use for this LED side emitting tape in specific locations. Will the color temperature match my existing LED tape lighting? Hard to say...

I'm at home depot right now, and apparently they now have three varieties: daylight, warm white, and soft white. I think the bulbs I preferred were the soft white variety...

Thanks K447- hopefully I remember this when I need it.

With LED bulbs, don't pay attention to the wording. One vendor's "warm white" and another's might be quite different. The three numbers that matter are color temperature, color quality, and lumens.

Yee olde halogen bulbs are 2700K and 100CRI. More on lumens in a moment.

The higher the color temperature, the more blue the bulb. 2700K is obviously desirable but costs more than 3000K. Similarly, the lower the CRI, the more jagged the color spectrum of the light. This manifests itself in textiles appearing weird colors, since the color dyes are typically selected for halogen or daylight conditions. A CRI of 80 or more seems to be acceptable. Very expensive LED bulbs are in the mid 90's.

Lumens turns out to be annoyingly complex, and phrases like "60W-equivalent" are often stunningly wrong. A good site to browse / get lost / get enlightened is LED Benchmark. They measure all kinds of other interesting things, like flicker, and they give you comparisons to measurements from old-school halogen bulbs as well. Highly recommended.

EDIT: fixed busted URL for LED Benchmark.

Dan, I wasn't comparing the terminology of different companies, I was naming the three labels from Cree.

I wouldn't go with labels or even numbers. I buy a bulb and see what it's like. The great thing about the Cree bulbs is that they're finally cheap enough to buy just to test them (although Home Depot has a great return policy).

Dan, great website, loads of info.

Unfortunately my friend won't be able to set me up with some bulbs from HD in VT, so I'll just have to settle with a few at time at $8 a pop.

I will say that the cheap Cree A19 (standard Edison socket) bulbs that you can get at Home Depot are remarkably high quality. Perhaps more importantly, they look normal. I bought a bunch of the earlier Philips LED bulbs, which have great light quality but look like something from an alien starship. Sometimes, you'd rather not have your bulbs calling attention to themselves.

That's a very important point. With some of these bulbs, you simply can't put them in certain lamps because they won't even broadcast the light in the proper directions. The Cree bulbs cast light in pretty much every direction normal bulbs do.

One downside I have with the Cree bulbs, though, is the weird rubbery coating. It's not that I dislike it, it's just that it seems to grab onto every dust particle in the air

I don't seem to be able to find the operating conditions for these bulbs, specifically the ambient air temperature requirements.

Will they work at -40C, eg. in Canada?

And how hot will they tolerate without dramatically reduced lifespan, eg. inside an enclosed "jam jar" style of fixture?

Lots of docs on their site http://www.cree.com/Lighting/Document-Library but in a quick check I didn't find what you are seeking. You could try asking them http://www.cree.com/News-and-Events/Social-Media

I just installed a Cree flood light (BR30) -- the packaging states "Suitable for use in operating environments ranging between -25C and +45C. Lifetime may be reduced if used in air tight enclosures or in insulated ceiling air tight (ICAT) recessed down light enclosures." Other bulbs may have different ratings...


Other bulbs I saw when I picked this up, specifically said on their packaging "not for use in enclosed fixtures" -- not just specifically the ICAT enclosures mentioned on the Cree, so my gut feeling is they'll be fine.

I've slowly been replacing CFLs and incandescent bulbs, as they burn out, with the Cree bulbs. So far, so good, including the ones in recessed fixtures. But it's only been several months, at most -- ask me again in a few years.

Doh! I never though to check the packaging
For the A19 bulb it is the same -25C and +45C operating range. That doesn't mean they won't work at -40C, just that you are operating outside of the intended range.

...and at current prices, it's not the end of the world if it doesn't work out.

I picked up a pair of these Cree 60W bulbs today -- one "daylight" and one "soft/warm white". Amazing bulbs. Very good light quality from both of them. We'll see how well the "daylight" bulb works in our driveway lamp (very very cold) this winter.

Glad to hear it! Yeah, they're great bulbs.

I've become even more confused by the color labels in the store, though (marketing-wise). Yesterday I walked in and saw the bulbs in one of the end caps (they've really been displaying these things prominently for months now), and they had a few bulbs in lamps. One was the temp I like, the next was the harsh blue light that doesn't appeal to me, and the third was a recessed bulb and again had the softer (yellower) temp I like.

In the rack, they were selling several varieties of this bulb, with various "equivalent wattages" and also various color names. What confused me was that the "60W" bulbs came in two varieties: "soft white" and "warm white." The problem is that these descriptors are not labeled on the bulbs themselves, so if a customer doesn't remember what they called that bulb the last time (like I don't), there's no way whatsoever to know if you're replacing the same color bulb.

The two standard bulbs in the lamps differed in one way: they had their color temperature labeled on the tip of the bulb. But that didn't help, as both their "warm white" and "soft white" were listed as the same color temperature on the back of their packaging.

They need to simplify their message and properly label their products, or consumers are going to get frustrated. This is such an easy thing to get right and that makes it even more annoying.

Historically the Soft incandescent bulbs had a more diffused light, while the not-so-soft bulbs had a more visible filament and harsher light quality with more direct glare from the bulb.

The white coating on the glass that provided the softer look also tended to absorb some of the light so a soft bulb would put out fewer lumens than a non-soft bulb from the same manufacturer of the same wattage.

Perhaps in the LED world this still means a softer overall appearance to the illuminated bulb, not a reference to the color temperature or CRI index.

Outside I still prefer the warm white color over the daylight bulbs. At night I find the daylight color to be quite cold looking and rather blue. The warm white color seems more welcoming at night, without looking too yellow.

These look great, shame I con't find a European supplier yet

Cheers

Cris

Try IC Lighting Limited or Rehmat Lighting Limited, both of them are Cree distributes in the UK. Source: http://www.cree.com/lighting/where-to-buy bottom left corner.
Of course what they have for the international market might be limited: http://www.cree.com/Lighting/Products/International?Input+Voltage=220-240V

Surely someone is making LED bulbs for the European market?

All the European models I have seen so far have had limited light projection angles, unlike the Cree ones being talked about here.

Cheers

Cris

I have a few LED GLS lamps here.

The Megaman 148541 has a very uniform wide bright pleasant light. 1055 Lumens, you're looking at roughly a 75W+ incandescent equivalent, so very useful.

I also have the Aurora AU-GLSB2210 Dimmable lamp. Again, quite a uniform light from the top. Dimming is not smooth, works on a step basis but with the correct dimmer it is still pretty decent. 500 Lumens, its only really about a 40W incandescent equivalent - but still, ideal for table lamps, outdoor lanterns and the like. It is good value for money too, but when you do the USD-GBP conversion it is still twice the price of a $10 CREE USA lamp!

Interesting. This seems to fir the bill for me then…

http://www.ledstop.co.uk/led-light-bulbs...s-lamp-60w.html

Fair price. Output is quoted at 600 lumens, the bulbs they are replacing are only 450, so a little upgrade!

I plan to use them in my outdoor lighting that runs all night around the house. Can't see any temp specs, but I think they should be ok?

Cheers

Cris

We use these indoors, nice lamp, quite warm coloured but we've had a couple fail already (12 months use)

Are you sure they are the same lamp Tahir? The Megaman Economy range was announced in September and available since October. I am interested to know specifically which lamp you have that has failed.

Cris, yes they should be fine for outdoors year-round in the UK. In fact, I have supplied the Aurora lamp to a kebab manufacturing guy who runs them 24/7 inside his massive industrial freezers. His have been working just fine for a long while now and he is pretty happy with them.

OK, maybe not then. We moved into the new house 17/12/12 so the lamps must have been bought in October 2012 I guess. I still have some spares, I'll try and remember to check when I get in.

According to the box it's a Dimmable LED Classic 8W/470 Lumens/2800k ref LG1708dv2

Cree has added a 100W equivalent, that consumes 18W. Not as energy efficient as the 40w or 60w equivalents, and slightly taller so it won't fit in some fixtures.
edit: Home Depot is listing these for $20, no utility discount for them yet.

They've also got more stuff in the pipeline, with 303 Lumens-Per-Watt in development, so we should see even more efficient lighting in the future.