I dont hate LED itself (if they are used as indicator lamps, they are great)

Its this forcefull push towards, lets use LEDs everywhere, even where they were not designed to be used I hate

If u want to use LED on mains voltage u need to step the voltage down to something that LED can handle and to do that u use SMPS, which if badly designed (most of the time it sadly is, cuz people like to cut cost) creates noise on the radio: https://youtu.be/iyUNKVi-iDw

Cuz LEDs are low voltage devices they dont like big voltage fluctuations

You can dim LED with voltage, but u need to lower voltage in smaller increments: https://youtu.be/Fv0j5fnzL2c if u dont, LED flickers

U can also dim LED with PWM, but this way u create noise on the radio again (and cause flicker if ur camera is not properly synced to the frequency, and some people are sensitive to that flicker)

I hate the non servicable fixtures, which promise to last a life time but because they never do, when they break its game over, they also a lot of times cheap on LED driver, causing noise on the radio

I hate that cities are changing colors on their lights from nice warm orange yellowish to cold blue (we already had that when we used Mercury Vapor bulbs, and we changed it to orange, and nowadays we are going back to cold blueish white, even if monocrome leds exist)

I hate when people stuff leds inside equipment that was not designed to take them, because often times, the color will not match

I wouldnt care for LEDS if I would have a choice to use whatever light source I prefer, but because of LEDs I dont have that choice

Riding through a night city my thought was that I absolutely hate those cheapo LED floodlights popped everywhere. Construction sites, parkings, you know. Glare bombs with zero optical control, just a board with a matrix of LEDs. And terminally boring 6500K with zero CRI.

That glare bomb thing honestly started to appear some years ago before LEDs with dirt cheap MH floodlights, but those were still not that bad, cause with MH lamp you still need some reflector plate and so have even some minor light control and cutoff retained. With LEDs such unscrupulous cheap manufactures easily found they can get away with just a flat board stuffed with LEDs radiating at full 180 degrees, saving even on $0.5 acrylic lens plate.

That's a thing that actually should be banned outright for everyone's good I thought. Instead of poor little discharge and incandescent lamps ;-)

I don't hate LED as a technology, I think it is good that we have made advancements, and LED definetely has good usage applications. well-made LED lamps that have good light control (and high CRI!) can be good for certain things. However, I do have some personal opinions which I think are worth sharing, and I also do not like this forcefull push that our governments are doing to make LED become mainstream absolutely everywhere.

Banning HID and Fluorescent is not the way to go, infact, I really hate that they are trying so hard to push LED everywhere. There are lots of applications where it is not worth it cost wise to replace everything with LED, for example in a smaller workshop that doesn't have a huge budget, or perhaps where the lights are not powered on for enough hours a day for energy usage to be of concern either, or places where specialty light colours or Very high CRI is needed. In many cases, I have found that the old fixtures are just as energy efficient if not better than the new LED ones too. For example, I have found that T8 and T5 fluorescent lamps are often very efficient and hard to beat, especially with HF ballasts. And their serviceablity also makes them hard to beat, more on that later... (Perhaps, what little you save in energy if you were to install a LED fixture... You would loose having to replace a failed LED fixture that cannot be repaired or re-bulbed easily in the future!) Same with HPS and MH, they often surpass LED in terms of efficiency, especially together with electronic drivers too.

Personally, the thing I worry about with LED a lot, is how long they are really going to last. Many LED lamps and fixtures are not living up to their lifetime promises... I have seen (and replaced) many that have failed after just 3-4 years, not even powered on all day every day. That is quite poor. Especially when there are fluorescent tubes and other lights out there that easily last 20 years... Aura's fluorescent tubes for example, they are just absolutely amazing. 200K hours is actually not at all impossible with them, infact I have seen it on several occasions!

another thing that I personally have strong opinions about regarding LED, is that oftentimes you cannot repair a failed LED fixture. They seldom sell replacement LED modules or drivers, and warranty times are short. So when one fails, you have to replace the whole fixture, which can mean downtime, lots of extra cost due to need to hire an electrician, sky-lift, etc. I also do not like the E-waste that all of these LED lamps are going to produce when they all have to be replaced instead of repaired. What will happen to all the dead LED lamps? will they go right to a dump somewhere in a poor country and get burned by poor children to salvage metals...? Are LED fixtures really that much better for the environment then, is my question...? Mercury is bad too obviously, but... Fluorescent tubes for example contain so incredibly little. and we have perfected a method to recycle and re-make new tubes without any mercury spill. So is mercury content in lamps really a problem then? Not if you ask me. We certainly wouldn't need to go mining for more mercury to keep our lamps alive, even if we all still used hG containing lamps. just re-cycling it is enough. I'm reasonably sure that making LED lamps require more mining for materials.

We have perfected the art of fluorescent tube recycling, one EOL tube going in, can be re-made into almost one entire new tube coming out (almost, you probably need to give it new kathode material ), but still, pretty damn impressive. Pretty much NO waste. I do not think we can say the same about LED fixtures when they start to fail eventually...


There you go, there are some of my personal opinions. My coworkers laugh at me for collecting and using fluorescent lamps in my home because they have all fallen for the LED trend, but whatever, I don't care.

I'll keep on collecting and enjoying my fluorescent tubes and fixtures, regardless what happens!

Speaking of, I wanted to share that it is indeed still possible to purchase brand new tubes in 2025 here in europe, more specifically sweden! Infact, I just did about a week or so ago. I bought another box of Philips Master TL-D 36W 840's! You just have to look beyond the usual suppliers. The usual ones have all switched to selling LED only. But there is still hope for brand new tubes. I will check the date code on the box as soon as I am able to, but I am reasonably sure they were all made after the "ban" started. :3

I think hesitance to change is a recurring theme when it comes to the need to transition to new technology, such as metric units, LED and electric cars.

I understand why LED lighting is more energy efficient, but I have have been used to the orange glow of low pressure sodium for most of my life.

I also accept that reliability and safety is crucial to build trust in new technology. If local authorities choose models that have to be completely replaced every few years because the LED panels cannot be replaced, then people will be worried about waste.

You built trust in new tehnology if u are not forced to use it and replace light sources u like for whatever reason

And funny how people say LED is new, cuz its not even new, its been around for ages

Whats new are bans it seams

for me mainly lack of variety, theres used to be around 35+ total variants of fixtures in my area and now theres like 5

I don't hate LED as a technology, I think it is good that we have made advancements, and LED definetely has good usage applications. well-made LED lamps that have good light control (and high CRI!) can be good for certain things. However, I do have some personal opinions which I think are worth sharing, and I also do not like this forcefull push that our governments are doing to make LED become mainstream absolutely everywhere.

Banning HID and Fluorescent is not the way to go, infact, I really hate that they are trying so hard to push LED everywhere. There are lots of applications where it is not worth it cost wise to replace everything with LED, for example in a smaller workshop that doesn't have a huge budget, or perhaps where the lights are not powered on for enough hours a day for energy usage to be of concern either, or places where specialty light colours or Very high CRI is needed. In many cases, I have found that the old fixtures are just as energy efficient if not better than the new LED ones too. For example, I have found that T8 and T5 fluorescent lamps are often very efficient and hard to beat, especially with HF ballasts. And their serviceablity also makes them hard to beat, more on that later... (Perhaps, what little you save in energy if you were to install a LED fixture... You would loose having to replace a failed LED fixture that cannot be repaired or re-bulbed easily in the future!) Same with HPS and MH, they often surpass LED in terms of efficiency, especially together with electronic drivers too.

Personally, the thing I worry about with LED a lot, is how long they are really going to last. Many LED lamps and fixtures are not living up to their lifetime promises... I have seen (and replaced) many that have failed after just 3-4 years, not even powered on all day every day. That is quite poor. Especially when there are fluorescent tubes and other lights out there that easily last 20 years... Aura's fluorescent tubes for example, they are just absolutely amazing. 200K hours is actually not at all impossible with them, infact I have seen it on several occasions!

another thing that I personally have strong opinions about regarding LED, is that oftentimes you cannot repair a failed LED fixture. They seldom sell replacement LED modules or drivers, and warranty times are short. So when one fails, you have to replace the whole fixture, which can mean downtime, lots of extra cost due to need to hire an electrician, sky-lift, etc. I also do not like the E-waste that all of these LED lamps are going to produce when they all have to be replaced instead of repaired. What will happen to all the dead LED lamps? will they go right to a dump somewhere in a poor country and get burned by poor children to salvage metals...? Are LED fixtures really that much better for the environment then, is my question...? Mercury is bad too obviously, but... Fluorescent tubes for example contain so incredibly little. and we have perfected a method to recycle and re-make new tubes without any mercury spill. So is mercury content in lamps really a problem then? Not if you ask me. We certainly wouldn't need to go mining for more mercury to keep our lamps alive, even if we all still used hG containing lamps. just re-cycling it is enough. I'm reasonably sure that making LED lamps require more mining for materials.

We have perfected the art of fluorescent tube recycling, one EOL tube going in, can be re-made into almost one entire new tube coming out (almost, you probably need to give it new kathode material ), but still, pretty damn impressive. Pretty much NO waste. I do not think we can say the same about LED fixtures when they start to fail eventually...


There you go, there are some of my personal opinions. My coworkers laugh at me for collecting and using fluorescent lamps in my home because they have all fallen for the LED trend, but whatever, I don't care.

I'll keep on collecting and enjoying my fluorescent tubes and fixtures, regardless what happens!

Speaking of, I wanted to share that it is indeed still possible to purchase brand new tubes in 2025 here in europe, more specifically sweden! Infact, I just did about a week or so ago. I bought another box of Philips Master TL-D 36W 840's! You just have to look beyond the usual suppliers. The usual ones have all switched to selling LED only. But there is still hope for brand new tubes. I will check the date code on the box as soon as I am able to, but I am reasonably sure they were all made after the "ban" started. :3

What store did u visit, and how much u paid for ur flurescent tube? (Just incase I will ever be in sweden and will want to import to Slovenia

I brought an Osram 250W HPS bulb from Sri Lanka (it was about 3€ there, while its about 20€ in Slovenia) in my lagguage and it survived and noone complained, so flurescent tube is not much different

In Slovenia, I paid 7€ (in 2020 right it was 3€ in the same store) in we have everything store called bauhaus

But we do have a few special stores, only for lights, called Svet Svetil and Svetila

It is not possible to buy them locally anymore here, well, except some stores that sell a few specific types of tubes. I bought them from a site called Any-Lamp, which has a swedish version of their site. They still seem to have plnty of tubes in stock! Sadly, I was wrong about the date of manufacture, they are all new, but slightly older stock from around 2020-2023. It appears as though all manufacturing of fluorescent tubes has sadly stopped, except speciality tubes which may still be made, but I am not sure. So stock up while you still can!

If you come visit sweden, I can show you which stores still sell some tubes, if you would like to

They're still definitely manufacturing the tubes, just not going to Europe. I've got on my hand Lumilux bought from my local hardware store with date code f468, made 06/2024 and TL-D green cap super 80 made 11/2024. What's really stopped are mercury vapours, even then I've got a fake metal halide (Literally mercury vapour with metal halide etch on it) made 05/2024.

I think it depends on the country. Some places have started phasing out fluorescent lamps now but in those places that still sell fluorescent lamps, the majority of new production lamps in my area come from the following countries:

India
Poland
China

Lamps from India I have not see any, but yes most new lamps comes from China, and only some compact fluoros comes from poland.