The empty promise of the LED bulb’s lifetime

We are told that LED-based lighting will provide a very long service life per bulb, but here comes “Sportin’ Life” again (from Porgy and Bess) to put the lie to that claim. (It ain’t necessarily so.)

These four LED lamps each went dark after only a few months of service despite their packages’ promise (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Four LED bulbs that failed after a few months despite their service life being over 20 years.

Similarly, one of the five LED lamps in this ceiling fixture also went dark after only a few months of service (Figure 2).

Figure 2 One in five LED bulbs in this ceiling lamp was rendered nonfunctional only after a few months.

In my eighty years in this world, I have only twice seen a new incandescent lamp fail so soon after being put into service. One lamp had a service life of thirty minutes and the other one died almost instantly.

I tried to cut open one of the four failed conical LED lamps to see what specifically had gone wrong, but I couldn’t manage to penetrate the shroud. Those plastic bulb enclosures were made of really tough stuff. Failing in that effort, I simply threw the four of them out.

Nevertheless, four for four strikes me as a pretty shabby history. I replaced each of the four with products from a different manufacturer, and so far, since pre-pandemic times, those LED bulbs are still working.

It can be done.

John Dunn is an electronics consultant and a graduate of The Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (BSEE) and of New York University (MSEE).

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