| I’ve been noticing that lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of failed LEDs, when I’ve seen much less in 2017. I notice that I often see much more newer LED bulbs fail than older ones. Older LEDs often went on 7-10 years, while newer bulbs often last 1-2 years.
Online, nowadays, there are so many reviews regarding premature failures. It’s like the companies now design them to fail by the time the warranty expires. I’ve also been noticing that LED bulbs are now more lightweight and I’ve seen YouTube video teardowns of modern LED’s and the power supply only consists of a capacitor and a circuit board, with a little aluminum for the heatsink. Most older LEDs go on for years and many are still going strong. Older LEDs often didn’t have as good light quality as newer LEDs, and they didn’t look that good, but they lasted MUCH longer, even LEDs from the mid to late 2010s (like models from 2016-2017) often lasted for years. The lifespan advertised for LEDs keeps going down. The warranties keep getting lower. Energy star stopped certifying LED bulbs unless they are an integrated LED light fixture or ceiling fan.
At this point, LED’s really don’t last much longer than CFLs, it’s sad, but true. LEDs are really like your instant start CFL all over again. CFLs would say last 10,000 hours and they never came close. That’s how the LEDs are no. I’m guessing the companies are just overdriving the LEDs a bit to lose one watt of electricity. I heard companies are reducing the number of LEDs in bulbs for efficiency reasons, but are driving them harder, giving like an 800 lumen snowcone LED using like 6 watts. That’s why so many LEDs fail prematurely. They are intentionally overdriving the LEDs to make them “more efficient”, even the reputable brands tend to die within 1-2 years now. In 2016, if someone installed an LED for example, you didn’t usually see it burned out by 2017. It seems that the pandemic has affected the quality of light bulbs permanently, and this isn’t even limited just to LEDs. Ever since 2020, every type of light bulb has gotten worse in quality. And for LEDs, I noticed the decline started in around 2018-2019, when LEDs already started to get worse and worse. And, even in 2018-2019, good LED options still existed. The GE’s were decent, as well as higher end Philips (as long as it wasn’t the warm glow filament bulb) and the higher end sylvania. The U.S.-made sylvanias weren’t made well from the outside but they lasted a while. TCP has reduced the quality of their LEDs dramatically in 2018-2019, with both their own bulbs and the ones they made for Great Value. Later TCP LEDs (and the Great Value variants) were junk. Older TCP LEDs were good. They made the heat sinks smaller and they used less components. Newer TCP LEDs also love to strobe before they die.
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