How come LED Light Bulbs only last for about 2-3 Years?

I’ve bought and replaced a lot of light bulbs, and I noticed that all of them said “up to 20,000 hours” which would be about 5 years given 12 hours of daily use (which we definitely don’t).

  • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    30·
    2 months ago

    I have dozens of Philips Hue bulbs 6-10 years old and I honestly don’t think one of them has died. I’m sure they have lost some luminance over time, but they still get the job done no problem. I rarely run them at 100% anyway.

    But yeah I have also had some cheaper LED bulbs die within a few years.

    • quixotic120@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      2 months ago

      Just fyi for anyone who would care about this: while hue bulbs are built well they are moving towards a model that requires you to put them on “the cloud”, even though they were sold for years and years without that requirement. The update will be mandatory whether you want it or not as part of Philips security being integrated into the app. It’s unclear what will happen if you don’t create an account and sign in at that point

      So if you’re like me and put all your iot shit on an isolated vlan without internet access they may not be the best option for you. Or if you just don’t want to support a company that wildly changes the tos years after purchasing their (expensive) product. I don’t want my home shit on the internet, I don’t trust Philips to put enough cash or effort into securing their servers, etc.

      The bulbs do work with zigbee though and that seems to be a viable alternative to using their hub/app although I haven’t tested it fully. This also means if you’re using them via HomeKit you’ll need some kind of bridge like home assistant

      • lone_faerieEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        I’ve been using Philips Hue bulbs with Zigbee in Home Assistant for years without issue.

    • hperrin@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 months ago

      I bought three of the gen 1 Philips Hue when they first came out and all three died within two years. I hope they’re better now, but I’ll never buy Philips Hue again.

      And in case you ask, they weren’t enclosed, they were in IKEA floor lamps. They were at 100% all the time, but I feel like if they can’t survive that, they shouldn’t be able to do it.