Read here to read about the LED's life span...

Nobody really knows about LEDs yet. I personally don't like them, CFLs  are better. What kind of CFL was in that PIC?

A lot can be laid at the poor design that most are made from. I have seen many where the designers rely on the power supply ( LED torches) having a high internal resistance for current regulation, or running multiple LED chips in parallel, as opposed to in series, which results in one being a current hog and failing from overheating.

Other designs have inadequate heatsinking of the chips, and also run them at too high a current to get high light output, well beyond the recommended limits. To get high output you should run them with high current pulses, with a low mean current, to keep within the thermal limits and bonding wire limits. This high current should be well regulated, and also track the die temperature. Most do not do this, and the dies overheat and fail.

LED chips also vary in brightness from batch to batch, even the same slice will have 20% or more variation across it, and most are selected during manufacturing into bins, according to brightness at a low current. The selection process costs money, and most of the lower end units are sold cheaply, thus being the one's you buy in cheap LED products, whilst the top performing units are sold for a premium.

Thus you get low efficiency units run at high current, which degrades them rapidly.

I've seen lots of LEDs start dimming out after 6 months or so, even the ones used in refrigated dispalys at Wal-Mart and Fresh and Easy stores. Only a miracle will solve these problems with LEDs.

I purchased a Feit Electric LED night light about six months ago, and a couple of weeks ago it just STOPPED WORKING!   And according to the marketing on the package, it was supposed to last 35 years.  YEEEEAAAH RIIIIGGHHHTT!

The usual failures of the LED fixtures or lamps aren't the LED themselves. It's usually solder tha go bad over the years. I have a traffic light that have a pair of series of LEDs that are dim or out. I moved each LEDs, surely they flickered when I moved the diode with the bad solder. Will resolder it later tonight or tomorrow.

LEDs have a long way to come! Wait, 35 years? Thats crazy!

I have an Osram DOT-It which I have been using as a flashlight for several years - and during this time has suffered much 'punishment' including: heavy use, being dropped, sat on, drowned and more

The lens and sides of the fixture are heavily scratched and dented, and a combination of failure of the battery contact soldering and switch mechanism causes the light to flash like a failing CFL.

Despite all of this the LED's are as good as new, it's just that the fixture has fallen apart around them!

Get used to them, though.  The ecomonic stimulus bill has tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars allocated to LED streetlighting replacements across the nation.  Lots of other energy projects (i.e.  traffic signal LED replacement, lighting retrofits, utility incentives and rebates) are a part of this package.  It looks to be a very good time to be in the lighting business.

The city of San Jose, CA decided to replace all of its 62,000 HPS and LPS street lights with LEDs. The conversion will be gradual, starting this year and completing by the year 2022. Other changes on the horizon will be the possible ban on T-12 fluorescent lamps and halogen PARs. So big changes are definitely coming.

Scary, very scary. First, all the florescent lamps in my home are T12's running on Advance 20, 40, and 60 watt Rapid Start ballasts. Second, i wonder if they would ban MV bulbs too. Third, LED's for street lighting is awful, because HIDs wont be used anymore. Thats a part of American history being thrown away for no reason. Even HPS lamps! The times we now live in are scary. But you can only take it day by day and fully rely on God. 

Dave: No way, a ban for T12s!? Ridiculous! 

LED traffic signals in Britain seem noticeably more prone to failure than conventional halogen lamped traffic signals.

The LED lifetime is mainly given by their operating temperature. And this is something, that might be satisfactory solved only in luminaire designed from scratch as LED luminaire (you need a large heatsink). On those LED retrofits seen around the problem cannot be solved at all due to small space available, so even tiny 3W models are operating at temperatures yielding less then 5000hours life. Further ballasts in these retrofits is usually simple series capacitor (as a reactance) and bridge rectifier, so all spikes present at mains voltage yield large current spikes into LED chips, reducing their life further.

Pittsburgh wants to replace all 40,000 of their streetlights with LEDs starting this year.