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For those who may not have been paying attention,

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the last 20 years in the lighting industry have been an absolutely wild ride.

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Pretty much all thanks to these things -

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the light emitting diode.

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This is an incredibly important technology
and we should thank our lucky stars

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(and of course the countless folks who contributed
to its invention and refinement)

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that we can take advantage of it.

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But it’s also made everything so much more complicated!

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At this point, the very concept of the light bulb... 
is pretty much over.

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Oh, sure, you can still buy light bulbs in
a dazzling array of varieties,

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and a few old-fashioned ones hang around for those special cases.

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But most of ‘em these days are a far cry
from the hot glowy tungsten wires in fragile globes of glass

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us olds grew up with.

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Frankly, modern LED light bulbs aren’t so
much light bulbs

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as they are electronic devices that mimic light bulbs in form and function.

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And the key part of this video is that the
form and function of a light bulb is actually pretty handy.

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But at the same time, it also kinda stinks.

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Looks like we found one of them situational situations, huh?

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Today, I’d like to talk to you today about these things today.

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They’re starting to become quite commonplace,
and they’re only possible thanks to the LED.

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They’re a clever implementation of the technology
and have several distinct advantages

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over the drop-in light bulb replacements you’re familiar with.

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But these particular things are also not really any different at all.

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They have pretty much the same guts as any
other LED bulb,

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but those guts just so happen to connect to a couple of wires sticking out the back.

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This isn’t a light bulb;

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this is the spirit of a light bulb plonked into a cheap light fixture.

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And I have feelings about this.

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Which you’re now about to hear.

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If you’ll indulge me with a little bit of
electric lighting history,

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we can see why this is at once great and awful.

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When you get right down to it, all you really
need to make an electric light

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is a thing which makes light from electricity somehow
and a way to make that thing touch energized wires.

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The Edison screw-socket is an ancient 
(and pretty bad frankly) way to do that,

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and the traditional light bulb

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(which remember is really just a piece of wire which gets real hot when you run current through it)

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was designed to work holistically with the socket.

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It provides both electrical contact and a mechanical interface to mount the bulb.

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The socket provided two key benefits.

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First, it provided a marginally safe, and standardized interface between the energized electrical system and the light bulb,

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and second it did that in such a way that the bulb could be
easily replaced by the user when it failed.

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Early incandescent lamps really did not last long at all,

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and while improvements were made with time,
they never got too far beyond one or two thousands hours of runtime.

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And yes, there are those stories of light bulb
cartels and planned obsolescence which are fun to tell and rile people up,

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but there was a real, actual trade-off you made when you designed an incandescent lamp that lasted longer

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and that was a not-quite-as-hot filament which produces a duller light less efficiently,

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so there was some reason to that rhyme
and it annoys me that nobody ever talks about it!

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I mean, incandescent light bulbs are very simple

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and once the tech was refined became pretty cheap so people would rather spend a little bit more and replace them more frequently

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than have dull light bulbs everywhere.

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But anyway, I digress.

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Ordinary light sockets provide raw mains AC power.

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Take a look at this bare-bones thing and you’ll
see that the terminals for hot and neutral

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go straight to the bulb socket.

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In some cheaper designs the terminals and the lamp contacts

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are literally the same piece of brass.

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Really, the socket is just a rudimentary interface
between the light bulb and the electric grid.

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It just has to get the hot wire touching the
bottom bit and the neutral wire touching the side somewhere.

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And that’s fine for incandescent lamps which
are nothing but resistive electrical loads.

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However, making light that way is just not a good way to do it,

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and every other technology out there requires an intermediary device to handle the electricity

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and drive the light-producing bit.

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That’s not new.

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We’ve had those technologies for a long, long time.

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Fluorescent and discharge lamps require a
ballast and starter to drive them properly,

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which are integrated into the fixture.

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That made the fixtures more expensive,

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however the lamps lasted many times longer than incandescent lights, 
and they were much more energy efficient.

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They had severe performance and light quality
penalties

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which made them less suitable for general use, 
but fluorescent tubes found their way into some places at home.

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Regardless, no matter which of these long-lived
technologies we’re talking about,

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re-lamping was eventually necessary.

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Lamps wear out, it’s just a fact of life.

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And so, even the light fixtures which housed
the most enduring of lamps

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were always designed in such a way that the component with a limited life-span

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- the lamp -

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could easily be replaced.

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The lines started to get blurry, though,
around 25 or so years ago.

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In a desire to bring the efficiency of fluorescent
lighting technology to more places with a simple drop-in device,

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the self-ballasted lamp was born.

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Now, I made a video on a weird, early device
which was more of an adapter than it was a self-contained lamp,

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so I’m not counting that in this discussion.

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Instead, I mean these things.

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I also made a video about my appreciation of
these as an important stepping stone technology.

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They’re not great, and they have problems,

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but hey.

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We all do.

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Side-note, there were/are other self-ballasted
lamps besides just fluorescent

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but I’m just talking about the CFL here because it was
by far the most mainstream.

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These twisty boys are their own itty-bitty
self-contained fluorescent lighting systems

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which just happen to be about the same physical
size and profile as the light bulbs they aimed to replace,

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and which just so happen to receive
their electricity through an Edison screw,

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which conveniently also allows for convenient
mounting of the device

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conveniently inside an ordinary light fixture.

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How convenient.

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It’s like they were designed to be backward
compatible or something.

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You get your line voltage here, your neutral there,

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and wires inside the device attach to the screw’s contact surfaces

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and then bring that electrical energy to a tiny little ballast inside of this part

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which then drives the tube out here and makes the photons happen.

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These became feasible in large part because
of innovation in the electronic ballast,

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both in cost and size.

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Eventually ballasts became cheap enough that it made sense to produce single-use ballasts meant to be disposed of with the lamp when it wore out.

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Of course, those ballasts were so cost-cut
that they often failed prematurely,

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especially in certain circumstances…

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Like I said, these were problematic in various
ways, but we have the LED now!

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Mercury-free, better light quality, more energy efficient, and longer-lasting.

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Usually.

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We’ll get to that.

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However, we still have the same fundamental problem.

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Just like a fluorescent tube, you can’t just hook an LED up to mains voltage and expect light.

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Well, actually you can expect it but it
would be very brief.

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Uh, but anyway LEDs need some sort of device
to regulate the power they receive.

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For some reason we call that a driver and not a ballast, 
the reason’s not important, it’s probably because it outputs DC,

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but in any case we’re in roughly the same boat as before.

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But now, this boat can fly.

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Not only can the driver for LEDs consist of
just a few electronic components on a circuit board,

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but the LEDs themselves are teeny tiny little things.

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We don’t have this big tube thing anymore,
we have these little chips with a dab of phosphor on them

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and they’re freaking neat!

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They can look like this, sometimes they’re a little bigger,

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and we can put them behind lenses to make more focused sources of light,

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or we can put them on little sticks of glass and make old-school lookin’ light bulbs,

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we can even make the sticks less like sticks and more like noodles and get all twisty again,

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the sky’s the limit.

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And, wouldn’t ya know it, we are starting to see really interesting light fixtures for sale these days

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which are taking full advantage of the LED’s amazing versatility.

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And that is what this is.

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Aside from the interesting part.

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This is merely a commodity, builder-grade light emitting device.

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This thing essentially cuts out the middle
man that is the light socket

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and brings AC power straight to a unified driver-and-emitter circuit board.

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That board is then attached to a larger piece
of aluminum with some holes stamped through it for mounting to an electrical box,

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and then a diffusing lens covers up the board (and the holes)

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and makes it look pretty.

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And if you’re in the position of constructing or remodeling a home,

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this is versatile, effective, easy, and cheap.

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And we love those words!

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OK, so a little bit of background on light
fixtures is required here.

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For those that may not know,

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the wiring in your home passes through and ends up in 
electrical boxes inside the walls.

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If you were to examine most light fixtures
you would find that they are attached to the ceiling or wall with a couple of screws.

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Those are in fact attaching it to the electrical
box and not the wall directly.

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The purpose of electrical boxes is to provide
standardized mounting points for electrical devices

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and a protected space for making electrical connections.

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Naturally, inside the electrical box are some wires.

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Usually three: live, neutral and ground,

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though if you’re in a place like Chicagoland the wires have to be run inside of metal conduit even in residential applications

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and the local code often allows using that conduit as the
ground path,

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so you may only find two.

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That’s why the ground lead has been snipped off this unit -

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simply mounting it to the box grounds it.

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At least, in theory.

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The paint on this thing makes me a little nervous

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but it did get rubbed off where it was mounted 
(with just ONE SCREW) to the box.

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Yeah, I know this doesn’t weigh much at all, but c’mon!

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Anyway, the wires inside the box are what
gives power to the fixture,

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and ordinarily what you’d really be doing
when you install a light fixture

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is connecting the leads coming from its bulb socket or sockets to the wires inside the wall

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(please enjoy the inevitable discussion on wire nuts vs. Wago connectors that I’m confident is happening down below)

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and then you secure the fixture to the electrical
box using its mounting screws

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while finagling the excess wire into the box and now you’ve
got a light fixture.

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Just add some light bulbs and you’re done.

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But what if you just slapped one of these puppies on that box?

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Then you’d be done in one step!

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Lamp, fixture, all in one solution!

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And,

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And!

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this thing sotra looks and behaves like the much more expensive recessed can lights which people go gaga over,

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even though it’s just a simple surface mount light.

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Say,

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when building or remodeling we could
just put some dirt cheap ceiling boxes up there

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and stick these things on ‘em!

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Rather than go through the trouble of putting in actual cans.

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What a fantastic solution we have stumbled upon here!

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Except, oh right...

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now you’re stuck with it unless you’re comfortable dealing with electrical wiring.

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Are you ready for some nuance?

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Because there be pros, there be cons.

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Now, I’m actually pretty OK with this particular
class of product

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because in addition to being sleek-looking, cheap, and easy,

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they also have some real advantages compared to the old way of doing things.

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First, let’s talk about efficiency.

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If we were to look at the unfortunate architectural
staple that is the boob light,

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we’d find a fixture which interferes with and thus reduces
the light output of the bulbs inside of it.

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A general-purpose light bulb spreads light in all directions,

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and that means a lot of the light it produces ends up getting absorbed on the top inside surface of the fixture

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before it even has a chance to be further attenuated
by the glass on its way out.

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You can have really efficient lamps in here,

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but they’re always going to perform somewhat poorly because not all of their light actually makes it out to where it’s useful.

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These things, on the other hand, have entirely down-firing diodes.

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Essentially all of the light output from those
diodes makes its way out of the fixture,

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so the 950 lumens these things are rated for will
seem much brighter than a boob light

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with a single 950 lumen bulb in it.

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And of course that means you need less energy
to get the same actual light output,

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and that’s always good.

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To be fair, there are plenty of LED bulbs
you can buy that work just like this.

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Most diffused flood lights, for instance,

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are pretty much this exact device, just packaged a little differently.

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But these are designed for the most part to work in recessed
cans or spotlight fixtures

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which you may not have or want.

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The other significant advantage these have
which makes their design less of a...

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crime is that they can also be more reliable than a
typical LED bulb because,

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if designed right, it can more effectively deal with heat.

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Premature failures of LED light bulbs are
unfortunately somewhat common,

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and in a great deal of cases those failures occur because
the lamp couldn’t keep itself cool.

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Heat stresses electronic components, 
particularly certain capacitors,

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and even when that’s not an issue thermal cycling 
as the lamp heats up and cools off with use

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can lead to fractures in solder joints on the circuit board 
if those thermal swings are too extreme.

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And that’ll lead to all sorts of problems.

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Rather unfortunately, lots of cheaper LED
light bulbs have barely adequate cooling.

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00:14:26,620 --> 00:14:29,430
I mean, just look at a bulb like this.

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While many of them utilize materials with
decent heat conductivity,

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this is the only surface it can radiate from 
(the plastic diffuser is just covering an air pocket).

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00:14:39,110 --> 00:14:45,190
That’s not a lot of surface area, and so
even in open air these units get pretty hot.

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00:14:45,190 --> 00:14:50,370
And you make things even worse when you stick
‘em in enclosed fixtures which trap in that heat.

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Some clever lamp designs have temperature
sensors on the driver board

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and will reduce their light output slightly to prevent exceeding
a certain design temperature,

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but that’s almost never marketed as a feature 
so it might as well not exist.

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00:15:03,334 --> 00:15:09,635
Devices like these, being free from the massive
design constraints that crop up when emulating a light bulb,

221
00:15:09,635 --> 00:15:13,073
can rather easily be optimized for a long service life.

222
00:15:13,354 --> 00:15:17,345
Of course, that doesn’t always happen 
because we can’t have nice things,

223
00:15:17,345 --> 00:15:21,914
but this particular model seems to have done a pretty good job
in my estimation.

224
00:15:21,914 --> 00:15:26,432
The circuit board with all the parts that
get hot is made of thermally conductive material

225
00:15:26,432 --> 00:15:29,354
and is bonded to a large aluminum housing.

226
00:15:29,354 --> 00:15:34,201
That spreads the heat produced by those components
away from the board, keeping it relatively cool,

227
00:15:34,201 --> 00:15:40,620
and all this surface area allows that
heat to dissipate into the air before anything gets too hot.

228
00:15:40,620 --> 00:15:44,207
And of course, this won’t be enclosed inside
a light fixture because…

229
00:15:44,207 --> 00:15:45,957
it is the fixture!

230
00:15:45,957 --> 00:15:50,777
Taking a look at it with a thermal camera
reveals that yeah, it’s just not getting that warm

231
00:15:50,777 --> 00:15:53,139
even after being lit for a half-hour.

232
00:15:53,139 --> 00:15:58,005
The light saucer is dissipating about the
same quantity of heat as this LED bulb,

233
00:15:58,005 --> 00:16:03,001
but with much more surface area to go around,
nothing manages to get that hot.

234
00:16:03,001 --> 00:16:08,400
Again, some designs are gonna do better than
others, but for the record I think this one is quite good.

235
00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:11,533
I especially like how the electrolytic smoothing capacitor,

236
00:16:11,533 --> 00:16:15,814
arguably the single most prone component to failure from heat damage with time,

237
00:16:15,814 --> 00:16:21,064
was attached to long leads 
so it could be mounted away from the circuit board entirely.

238
00:16:21,064 --> 00:16:22,114
Smart thinking.

239
00:16:22,480 --> 00:16:29,330
I imagine that this thing outperforms nearly
every LED drop-in bulb when it comes to component cooling.

240
00:16:29,330 --> 00:16:34,210
And lastly, I mean you gotta admit these things are
wonderfully versatile.

241
00:16:34,210 --> 00:16:39,660
You can stick ‘em pretty much anywhere,
and have a sleek, effective, and efficient light.

242
00:16:39,660 --> 00:16:42,442
If you have a light fixture somewhere that
just isn’t cutting it,

243
00:16:42,442 --> 00:16:46,859
and you can’t put bright bulbs in it because they keep cooking themselves to an early grave,

244
00:16:46,859 --> 00:16:51,010
products like this one might be a great solution for you.

245
00:16:51,010 --> 00:16:55,334
They also satisfy certain code requirements,
for instance in closets.

246
00:16:55,334 --> 00:16:58,361
These days simple bare-bulb fixtures aren’t allowed

247
00:16:58,361 --> 00:17:03,750
because it’s too easy to break the bulb and potentially cause electrical or fire hazards.

248
00:17:03,750 --> 00:17:08,205
So it’s no surprise that these are popping up
everywhere in new construction,

249
00:17:08,205 --> 00:17:11,240
and you might be looking for something similar when remodeling.

250
00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:17,601
And, good news, models with pull-chains exist
for closets where the box is unswitched.

251
00:17:17,601 --> 00:17:20,885
But despite how much I kinda admire this idea,

252
00:17:20,885 --> 00:17:23,615
I’m probably never going to buy one of these.

253
00:17:23,615 --> 00:17:27,101
In fact, I’ve taken them down from my new home because,

254
00:17:27,101 --> 00:17:30,906
unlike some of you weirdos who want their home to feel like a hospital for some reason,

255
00:17:30,906 --> 00:17:33,688
I much prefer cozy, warm lighting

256
00:17:33,688 --> 00:17:39,509
and not just because I live in a cold place and evidence seems to suggest that's a pretty good predictor of color temperature preference

257
00:17:39,509 --> 00:17:41,398
but because I’m right.

258
00:17:41,398 --> 00:17:45,001
And these are balanced at 3000 kelvin degrees.

259
00:17:45,001 --> 00:17:52,348
Now, that’s pretty warm, but you see I like
to go with the true incandescent look of 2700 kelvin,

260
00:17:52,348 --> 00:17:57,276
and these two lights were both in places where they turned on with another light fixture,

261
00:17:57,276 --> 00:18:00,944
and if there’s one thing I like less than cool white color temps,

262
00:18:00,944 --> 00:18:04,321
it’s clashing color temps, so these had to go.

263
00:18:04,321 --> 00:18:08,214
And the fact that I needed entirely new light *fixtures*

264
00:18:08,214 --> 00:18:12,592
and to be comfortable replacing them just to fix that problem...

265
00:18:12,592 --> 00:18:14,502
is pretty sad.

266
00:18:14,502 --> 00:18:22,491
Now I should point out that there are a number of products like this that are available with selectable or sometimes even tunable color temperatures.

267
00:18:22,491 --> 00:18:30,148
That’s nice, but you’re still locked into
however good or bad the actual LEDs might be in those devices.

268
00:18:30,148 --> 00:18:32,124
The diodes in here are pretty good.

269
00:18:32,124 --> 00:18:37,096
I've left of number of these in place because,
where they aren’t clashing with some other lighting,

270
00:18:37,096 --> 00:18:40,546
I find them totally fine - surprisingly good, actually.

271
00:18:40,546 --> 00:18:42,333
I have no issues with them at all.

272
00:18:42,333 --> 00:18:48,382
But if they had, for instance, a really bad
color-cast or had a poor color-rendering index,

273
00:18:48,382 --> 00:18:52,096
well there’d be nothing I could do outside
of taking the things down.

274
00:18:52,096 --> 00:18:54,115
And what happens when it fails?

275
00:18:54,115 --> 00:18:58,651
That’s gonna happen eventually, and it may
happen in a rather unpleasant way.

276
00:18:58,651 --> 00:19:01,781
You’ve seen dying LED lighting, I’m sure,

277
00:19:01,781 --> 00:19:07,727
and rather unfortunately this often means flashing, pulsing, or even rapid strobing.

278
00:19:07,727 --> 00:19:11,014
To be clear, that’s largely a fixable problem.

279
00:19:11,014 --> 00:19:16,650
The driver, if it’s smart enough, could
notice when that's happening and shut itself down.

280
00:19:16,650 --> 00:19:21,200
But smart designs cost money and so are frustratingly rare.

281
00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:25,789
Frankly, for the sake of folks who can be
significantly affected by such flashing lights,

282
00:19:25,789 --> 00:19:29,901
I feel like some regulatory action might be
warranted on that front.

283
00:19:29,901 --> 00:19:33,325
But regardless of how these meet their eventual demise,

284
00:19:33,325 --> 00:19:38,710
when they go you now have a problem which can’t be solved with a light bulb.

285
00:19:38,710 --> 00:19:41,070
Now you need electrical work!

286
00:19:41,070 --> 00:19:45,490
It’s simple work, yeah, and someone like
me will be confident doing it.

287
00:19:45,490 --> 00:19:51,509
But it’s not correct to assume everyone
is, nor should we assume people will want to learn.

288
00:19:51,509 --> 00:19:56,330
They shouldn’t have to, that is a completely
unreasonable expectation.

289
00:19:56,330 --> 00:20:00,628
And, uh, some folks might try who, let’s
be frank...

290
00:20:00,628 --> 00:20:03,509
shouldn’t which presents some risk of danger.

291
00:20:03,509 --> 00:20:07,809
Plus, let’s not forget the swaths of renters
who couldn’t do it even if they wanted to

292
00:20:07,809 --> 00:20:09,601
and knew what they were doing.

293
00:20:09,601 --> 00:20:14,109
Even if we assume a best case scenario and
you are totally confident

294
00:20:14,109 --> 00:20:16,838
and competent around electrical wiring,

295
00:20:16,838 --> 00:20:21,954
let’s say you bought a number of these things, put them in a nice arrangement inside your remodeled kitchen,

296
00:20:21,954 --> 00:20:25,247
and 5 years down the line one of them fails.

297
00:20:25,247 --> 00:20:28,693
Now the model you installed isn’t available anymore.

298
00:20:28,946 --> 00:20:32,369
What now? Do you buy an entirely new set?

299
00:20:32,369 --> 00:20:35,443
Or do you live with one of them not matching the rest?

300
00:20:35,443 --> 00:20:40,769
Best case scenario you bought some spares
five years ago, but the ones that remain in service

301
00:20:40,769 --> 00:20:44,412
have shifted their color a bit or worn in
some other way,

302
00:20:44,412 --> 00:20:48,775
and the spare you have annoyingly is not quite like the others.

303
00:20:48,775 --> 00:20:52,549
That’s not gonna bother some folks but it
definitely would bother me.

304
00:20:52,549 --> 00:20:55,779
Still, I appreciate these things for what they are.

305
00:20:55,779 --> 00:21:00,328
A very good, incredibly flexible and inexpensive solution;

306
00:21:00,328 --> 00:21:03,360
models similar to this cost about $10 each.

307
00:21:03,360 --> 00:21:06,799
That’s very cheap for such a sleek looking light.

308
00:21:06,799 --> 00:21:09,679
And arguably these are a better use of resources

309
00:21:09,679 --> 00:21:16,699
than the same electronics packed into a light bulb which can’t keep itself cool and dies way too early.

310
00:21:16,699 --> 00:21:22,401
But the cost of the problems it solves is
paid for by the new ones it creates.

311
00:21:22,401 --> 00:21:28,739
And unfortunately, this concept is creeping
into more and more light fixtures.

312
00:21:28,739 --> 00:21:31,237
Some of them, like I mentioned way back in the beginning,

313
00:21:31,237 --> 00:21:37,845
are genuinely quite interesting designs
which are only possible thanks to the freedom of the LED.

314
00:21:37,845 --> 00:21:43,080
But a lot of them are just rehashes of old
concepts but made disposable.

315
00:21:43,446 --> 00:21:44,799
Like this thing.

316
00:21:44,799 --> 00:21:47,220
This is just another boob light but worse!

317
00:21:47,220 --> 00:21:52,140
It’s got selectable color temperatures, yeah, 
but it doesn’t go all the way down to where I want it

318
00:21:52,140 --> 00:21:56,140
and its CRI is quite poopy.

319
00:21:56,140 --> 00:22:01,350
And you know each of these has a custom driver
board so serviceability is probably zero.

320
00:22:01,350 --> 00:22:06,450
Seriously, don’t even entertain fixtures like these, get it out of your head.

321
00:22:06,450 --> 00:22:09,720
If you want this look, find something with light sockets.

322
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:12,358
Then buy whatever bulbs you want.

323
00:22:12,358 --> 00:22:15,238
Every time you install one of these light fixtures,

324
00:22:15,238 --> 00:22:17,255
or even something like this,

325
00:22:17,255 --> 00:22:21,359
you’re locking yourself or someone else out of future choice.

326
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:24,734
Maybe it’s the wrong color temperature for that person’s preference.

327
00:22:24,734 --> 00:22:26,631
Or your future preference.

328
00:22:26,631 --> 00:22:32,790
Maybe you’d like to put in a smart bulb
but now you can’t because this thing has nowhere to put a bulb.

329
00:22:32,790 --> 00:22:38,393
Or even simpler, as technology progresses
LEDs get more efficient and have better light quality,

330
00:22:38,393 --> 00:22:44,970
and this might be pretty great right now, but it’d be unwise 
to bet on it being the gold standard in 10 years.

331
00:22:44,970 --> 00:22:47,217
Or even just five.

332
00:22:47,217 --> 00:22:50,027
User-serviceability is a pretty good thing,

333
00:22:50,027 --> 00:22:54,528
and we nailed that concept over a century ago with the light socket.

334
00:22:54,528 --> 00:22:59,141
And these days not only is it giving us the ability to replace a dead light bulb,

335
00:22:59,141 --> 00:23:02,542
but it's giving us options to customize our lighting.

336
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:08,274
Maybe it’s best to hang onto it, for just a little while longer.

337
00:23:08,801 --> 00:23:10,741
I’d like to end with a bit of advice.

338
00:23:10,741 --> 00:23:17,966
If you experience a lot of premature LED bulb
failures you might want to give the filament-style bulbs a try.

339
00:23:17,966 --> 00:23:21,039
They come in frosted varieties now if you’d
prefer that look,

340
00:23:21,039 --> 00:23:25,370
just look for “traditional glass style” or some other marketing language like that,

341
00:23:25,370 --> 00:23:32,504
and it’s my personal assessment that these tend to have more effective cooling thanks to two key design differences:

342
00:23:32,504 --> 00:23:35,649
First, the driver ends up separated from the diodes

343
00:23:35,649 --> 00:23:39,738
so the heat those two components make isn’t compounded together.

344
00:23:39,738 --> 00:23:42,401
That’s good as neither gets as hot.

345
00:23:42,401 --> 00:23:49,424
But also, since the driver is inside the metal
screw-base which is in physical contact with the light socket,

346
00:23:49,424 --> 00:23:53,726
a lot of the heat the driver produces ends up getting sunk there,

347
00:23:53,726 --> 00:23:57,754
where the surface area of the socket then helps
to dissipate that heat.

348
00:23:57,754 --> 00:24:00,757
Bonus points if your fixture has a porcelain socket

349
00:24:00,757 --> 00:24:04,987
since there’s a lot of thermal mass to slow the warm-up and cool-down processes,

350
00:24:04,987 --> 00:24:07,408
reducing thermal cycling stress.

351
00:24:07,408 --> 00:24:12,064
I have had great luck with this bulb style
from various manufacturers,

352
00:24:12,064 --> 00:24:13,987
even dimmable versions.

353
00:24:13,987 --> 00:24:17,228
While I had some premature failures, I remember only two,

354
00:24:17,228 --> 00:24:24,281
and they both happened within a month of installation, so they were almost certainly just due to some manufacturing defect.

355
00:24:24,281 --> 00:24:25,751
As far as the rest?

356
00:24:25,751 --> 00:24:32,504
I installed… 21 of them in various styles back in the fall of 2016,

357
00:24:32,504 --> 00:24:37,259
several of which were run for many hours a day at various dimmer settings.

358
00:24:37,259 --> 00:24:42,598
And they all were working flawlessly through the spring of 2021 when I moved out.

359
00:24:42,598 --> 00:24:47,643
Now, none of those were in enclosed fixtures,
so they did have that going for them,

360
00:24:47,643 --> 00:24:50,123
but I figured I would share that with you.

361
00:24:50,123 --> 00:24:53,965
Four and a half years without changing a light bulb is pretty great.

362
00:24:53,965 --> 00:24:56,848
Though, I did take them down once to dust them…

363
00:24:56,848 --> 00:25:02,267
Frankly I’ve had great luck with LED bulbs in general for the past 6 or 7 years,

364
00:25:02,267 --> 00:25:07,938
and every time I’ve had a premature failure —
regardless of the bulb style or manufacturer

365
00:25:07,938 --> 00:25:10,196
— it’s happened super early.

366
00:25:10,196 --> 00:25:14,377
My experience is so long as the bulb makes
it past a month or two,

367
00:25:14,377 --> 00:25:16,614
it’s probably in it for the long haul.

368
00:25:16,614 --> 00:25:23,351
I really don’t know what’s happening to all the folks who claim they can’t even get an LED bulb to last as long as an incandescent.

369
00:25:23,351 --> 00:25:25,548
I think you’re just cursed or something.

370
00:25:25,548 --> 00:25:31,062
OK, I’m gonna cut in here because I decided
to put one of these LED filament style bulbs

371
00:25:31,062 --> 00:25:35,825
in front of the thermal camera to get a sense
of how it dissipates its heat.

372
00:25:35,825 --> 00:25:40,456
And this is very interesting, this confirms something that I had read at one point

373
00:25:40,456 --> 00:25:44,018
but since this was at the very end of the video
I didn’t bother fact-checking it,

374
00:25:44,018 --> 00:25:49,300
which was that these are actually filled with a
gas which is pretty thermally conductive.

375
00:25:49,300 --> 00:25:56,862
So the heat that’s being produced by the LED, uh, emitters on the sticks of glass is actually convecting inside the glass

376
00:25:56,862 --> 00:25:59,013
and getting to the outside surface.

377
00:25:59,013 --> 00:26:03,195
Now, the number that the camera is showing
is almost certainly inaccurate

378
00:26:03,195 --> 00:26:09,598
because glass is a bad surface for an infrared camera to
detect heat from,

379
00:26:09,598 --> 00:26:14,376
however clearly it’s getting warmer and, ya know, I can just feel it with my hands.

380
00:26:14,376 --> 00:26:22,580
The glass is actually pretty warm, it’s about as warm as the surface
 of the, uh, surface mount light fixture.

381
00:26:22,580 --> 00:26:27,350
The other thing is we can see that clearly
the socket is sinking some of its heat.

382
00:26:27,350 --> 00:26:31,279
Uh, this is a plastic so it’s gonna be more
accurate as far as the numbers,

383
00:26:31,279 --> 00:26:33,950
let me see what it reports…

384
00:26:33,950 --> 00:26:36,659
about 32 degrees Celsius at the top there.

385
00:26:36,659 --> 00:26:41,029
And, uh, yeah it’s warm but not very warm.

386
00:26:41,029 --> 00:26:44,907
Uh, and if we unscrew the bulb…

387
00:26:44,907 --> 00:26:49,429
again the metal surface, because it’s shiny, isn’t a good indicator but we can see

388
00:26:49,429 --> 00:26:54,690
the plastic ring right around at the bottom and that is plenty warm.

389
00:26:54,690 --> 00:26:58,659
So, the… this is the lava lamp behind there
that you’re seeing.

390
00:26:58,659 --> 00:27:06,019
So anyway, I’m pretty confident in saying
that actually this design is pretty great

391
00:27:06,019 --> 00:27:08,473
when it comes to its thermal performance,

392
00:27:08,473 --> 00:27:13,559
and so again if you keep having issues with LED bulbs that are failing quite frequently,

393
00:27:13,559 --> 00:27:15,457
you might want to try these.

394
00:27:15,457 --> 00:27:19,542
Particularly in those fixtures that might be problematic for you.

395
00:27:19,542 --> 00:27:24,306
Oh, and if you have can lights or some sort of spot light situation going on,

396
00:27:24,306 --> 00:27:30,126
I would highly suggest you look for an LED bulb which emulates
PAR lamps.

397
00:27:30,126 --> 00:27:36,757
Putting in a frosted lamp is fine but the
difference between a diffuse light and a directed light

398
00:27:36,757 --> 00:27:40,059
can make a dramatic impact on a space.

399
00:27:40,059 --> 00:27:44,183
It’s pretty popular to put these LED adapter
thingies into can lights,

400
00:27:44,183 --> 00:27:48,861
and they can be a great refresher especially if your cans have old trim rings,

401
00:27:48,861 --> 00:27:51,356
but they’re usually frosted.

402
00:27:51,356 --> 00:27:56,528
You really oughta try something like this if you can, it makes a surprising difference.

403
00:27:56,528 --> 00:27:59,208
This doesn't really have anything to do with
lamp lifespan,

404
00:27:59,208 --> 00:28:07,835
but I recently got some high CRI floods at 3000K and I gotta tell ya they look exactly like halogen lamps to me.

405
00:28:07,835 --> 00:28:15,417
And they also demonstrated quite well that
color temp and CRI figures don’t necessarily mean a whole lot.

406
00:28:15,924 --> 00:28:22,426
This is also 3000K, but it clashed badly with the 2700K lighting in the room.

407
00:28:22,426 --> 00:28:28,507
Yet the PAR 38 bulbs I put in the kitchen
don’t at all despite being 3000K.

408
00:28:28,507 --> 00:28:30,305
At least, they don’t to my eyes.

409
00:28:30,305 --> 00:28:33,716
Color rendering and perception is really complicated.

410
00:28:34,223 --> 00:28:36,000
Have you heard about brown?

411
00:28:36,852 --> 00:28:39,410
♫ serviceably smooth jazz ♫

412
00:28:40,634 --> 00:28:46,087
But it’s also made everything SO MUCH MORE COMPLICATED-AH

413
00:28:46,087 --> 00:28:48,961
They’re only possible thanks to the LED.

414
00:28:48,961 --> 00:28:51,752
They’re a clever implementation…

415
00:28:51,752 --> 00:28:53,726
is that right?

416
00:28:53,726 --> 00:28:54,871
I guess it is!

417
00:28:54,871 --> 00:28:59,748
They're a clever implementation of the technology
and have several distinct…

418
00:29:00,592 --> 00:29:01,592
I wasn’t...

419
00:29:01,592 --> 00:29:03,721
You probably couldn't see that but now I’m worried that you could.

420
00:29:03,721 --> 00:29:06,632
Early.. *coughs*

421
00:29:06,632 --> 00:29:07,869
Bleughuh

422
00:29:07,869 --> 00:29:15,785
But, there is a real, actual trade-off you made when you designed an incandescent lamp to last longer and…

423
00:29:15,785 --> 00:29:16,837
oh, there’s a...

424
00:29:16,837 --> 00:29:19,203
There’s a tense problem in the sentence.

425
00:29:19,203 --> 00:29:20,478
Did you catch it?

426
00:29:20,478 --> 00:29:21,462
I did.

427
00:29:21,462 --> 00:29:22,700
That’s why I’m starting over.

428
00:29:22,700 --> 00:29:24,671
I don’t like how that sentence started.

429
00:29:24,671 --> 00:29:27,864
Let's just ignore how weird it is and keep going.

430
00:29:27,864 --> 00:29:32,113
There were slash are other self-ballasted lamps because…

431
00:29:32,113 --> 00:29:33,794
whoops!

432
00:29:33,794 --> 00:29:35,142
Besides!

433
00:29:35,142 --> 00:29:37,144
Yeah I know it doesn’t weight much at all
but c’mon

434
00:29:37,144 --> 00:29:39,371
*clunk* anyway... [laughs]

435
00:29:39,371 --> 00:29:45,293
They’re designed to work in recessed cans or spotlight fixtures which you may or not have want need what now?

436
00:29:46,869 --> 00:29:48,889
Sorry for being away for so long.

437
00:29:48,889 --> 00:29:50,553
I was moving.

438
00:29:50,553 --> 00:29:54,734
Which was great because, as you can see from this video, it has presented the opportunity for CONTENT.

439
00:29:54,734 --> 00:29:58,498
Anyway, yeah, I don't hate the idea, exactly, but I find it quite troubling.

440
00:29:58,498 --> 00:30:00,606
Do what you want, though, I won't stop you.

441
00:30:00,606 --> 00:30:02,333
YOU CAN'T CUT BACK ON USER-SERVICABILITY! 
YOU WILL REGRET THIS!