“That said... I love LED light bulbs.”
I have to agree. I resisted a LONG time and put in a huge stash of incandescent bulbs. But LEDs improved much faster than I thought they would and the color of the light is very good, just like an incandescent. They don’t flicker. They can be dimmed and controlled by my house automation.
The great thing is we can go away for extended periods and know the bulbs won’t burn out while we are gone. I’ve got a lot of Z-Wave dimmer/switches and modules controlling ceiling lights and table lamps to make the house look lived-in while we are away. We used to come home from extended trips and find several incandescent bulbs burned out (including the porch lights). The life of LEDs fixed that problem.
Flicker is often the result of a fluorescent conversion that did not remove the ballast.
” color of the light is very good, just like an incandescent.”
LEDs produce light at discrete frequencies. A white bulb has a red, green and blue LED that is white-looking.
But incandescents produce a continuous spectrum of light that I agree is more pleasing.
But in the LED flat screen TVs, each pixel has a red, green and blue LED and these TVs produce pictures that no one criticizes for their absence of richness of color.
So I don’t know what to conclude in comparing incandescents with LEDs.
Not all incandescents when dimmed act the same. Dimming can shorten some incandescents life. Dimming LEDs always extends their life.
LEDs can only extend their useful life with heat mitigation
An led run at 100% current will melt itself off its solder pad if the heat is not dissipated.
What engineers due instead often or in combination, is to design in a scale back method where the pwm signal driving the led string is reduced, cutting the current to the led, which dims the light output.
Finally, if you want nice warm white led light, buy 2700K bulbs with a CRI of 90 if you can find them.
I love my LED bulbs but consumers should have a choice.
I ordered the last 100 watt bulbs for a toy cookie baker my kid has. Can’t use LED bulbs in that!
I have a 16’ high cathedral ceiling with a fan/light that uses 4 bulbs. It’s the main light for the room and are on 12 hours a day. I use to have to use a ladder to replace those bulbs every 6 months. I replaced those bulbs with LED bulbs over 10 years ago… they are still working.
I love my LEDs. I’ve replaced every light in my house with LED, including form factor LED replacements for 48” fluorescent tubes ( you have to bypass the ballast). I got a few lemons early on over the years that failed in short order, but since then, I haven’t changed a bulb in 5+ years.