The Home Depot takes LED lighting mainstream with $20 bulbs
By Sean Hollister 
posted May 11th 2010 3:57AM
posted May 11th 2010 3:57AM
Slowly but surely, LED light bulbs have been getting brighter and more efficient, but price has always been a major factor staying their adoption. Back in 2007, a single 308 lumen bulb cost $65, and the more things changed, the more they've stayed the same. Now, out of the blue, The Home Depot has stepped forward with a cost-effective alternative. For $20, the new EcoSmart LED bulb promises a 429 lumen, 40W equivalent with a 50,000 hour expected lifetime, making it cheaper and nearly as powerful as the 450 lumen, $40-50 design industry heavyweight GE unveiled last month. Best of all, it's already available for purchase (though backordered) at our source link. Honestly, we're starting to wonder what the catch is. PR after the break. A REVOLUTION IN LIGHTING BEGINS TODAY AT THE HOME DEPOT WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF LIGHTING SCIENCE GROUP'S BREAKTHOUGH ECOSMART LED LIGHT BULBS...BUILT IN THE USA
First LED Bulb to Achieve 50 Percent More Lumens
at Half the Price of Competing Products
New Technology Paves the Way for Highly Efficient, Affordably Priced and
Environmentally Responsible Lighting
Satellite Beach, Florida, May 10, 2010 – Finally, an LED light bulb that delivers high quality lumens at an affordable cost. Starting today, homeowners can lower energy cost without sacrificing light quality by installing The Home Depot's new proprietary ECOSMART LED light bulbs. By revolutionizing the science of light, Lighting Science Group Corporation, a leading American maker of LED-based lighting, has produced for The Home Depot the first affordably priced, yet highly efficient 9 watt A19 LED bulb that is a smart choice to replace traditional 40 watt incandescent bulbs and compact fluorescent lamps ("CFLs"). The ECOSMART LED bulb's retail price is $19.97, compared to over $50 for other LED bulbs, uses approximately 80% less energy than a 40 watt incandescent light bulb and is expected to last more than 22 years.* Built in the USA, the ECOSMART A19 LED bulb is the first in a full line of ECOSMART LED products made by Lighting Science Group that will be available exclusively in The Home Depot stores this year.
Independent tests show that the lumen output of the A19 ECOSMART LED bulb is unrivaled-outperforming similar products by 25-30%. The ECOSMART LED bulb is dimmable, available in the familiar A19 light bulb shape, and more energy efficient than an equivalent CFL. Furthermore, unlike CFLs, the ECOSMART LED bulb contains no mercury, is completely recyclable and offers outstanding light quality.
"We believe the ECOSMART LED bulb is the highest quality and longest lasting light bulb on the market-at a very affordable price," said Jorge Fernandez, Merchant-Electrical, The Home Depot. "If one of our new ECOSMART light bulbs is installed in a newborn's room today, it will probably not have to be replaced until the child is ready to graduate college! The ECOSMART LED light bulb represents a huge cost savings to the consumer, both in terms of the reduced use of electricity coupled with savings on replacement costs versus traditional bulbs. At The Home Depot we are committed to providing our customers with innovative merchandise that delivers value and everyday low price."
In most home applications, consumers are expected to save $155 in energy cost over the life of the product and the bulb will pay for itself in less than two years from energy and replacement savings alone.** Furthermore, to ensure consumer confidence and reliability, an independent testing lab approved by the U.S. Department of Energy's CALiPER program has validated the performance of the UL-listed ECOSMART LED bulb.
"The ECOSMART LED bulb is a significant leap forward from Thomas Edison's 130 year-old invention," said Zach Gibler, Chief Executive Officer, Lighting Science Group Corporation. "Consumers now have the freedom to switch to an environmentally friendly and energy efficient lighting solution without sacrificing light quality. Lighting Science Group is proud to be the technology provider behind The Home Depot's ECOSMART lighting products, and deliver an American solution for our energy and environmental challenges."
The A19 ECOSMART LED bulb is available on Home Depot's website (www.homedepot.com) and in stores nationwide.
@Paul Ryan
in soviet russia memes outdate you
@$20 bulbs
Put a coupon for a free 6 pac and I'll take it.
I've been using the LED spots from fry's that are branded Stimulus Products (http://www.stimulusbrands.com/)
My only problem with them is they are spots. Also, they all seem to be exactly the same, except for the big light. The ceiling fan model is no different than the outdoor spots. Why they mark them different is beyond me. I have 4 of the bug light grade in my front yard, happily lighting the whole place up for 8W.
Mind you, I don't do this because I care, I do it because I hate paying for power.
So, these lights from Home Depot look interesting. They're priced right. If they're non spot I might put a few in my ceiling fan to see how they do. The spots just don't work too good for me and they are that blue/white cold spectrum. I'd really like to see some warm spectrum LED. Seems like you could get that effect by having a few Amber colored LEDs in the mix when you have 18+ of them.
I'll take LED over CFL any day.
The catch? It's a Chinese knock off assembled by children.
@in5ane Mmm, I can taste their tears and wasted youth on every bulb.
*pthewey*
Never mind, that was lead I was tasting.
@in5ane Pretty much everything we buy now is a Chinese knock off built by children.
@in5ane
And to add the Home Depot connection. Needless to say, I avoid Home Depot due to their politics.
"This is what Home Depot's founder Bernie Marcus said on a conference call....:
"If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys," Mr. Marcus said, apparently referring to Republican senators facing tough re-election fights, then those retailers "should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs.""
On CFLs, they have improved, but still don't last anywhere near the stated lifetimes. Since it is the electronics/ballast that craps out, I would not be terribly surprised to find out they don't last either.
@in5ane
Haha, oddly enough it's none of the above. I'm pretty familiar with the company that makes them and they are actually assembled, tested, packaged, and shipped right here in Florida. So, buying them helps your energy bill AND helps our US economy.
@in5ane Oh, and none of that involves any children.
These use 8.6 watts for 440 lumens, I can get much cheaper CFL that uses 14 watts and produces 900 lumens.
So the CFL is more efficient, though the LED will probably last longer.
On color spectrum issues: everyone loves the 2700K yellow incandescent lights, however, they are actually horrible on your eyes. The HD CFL bright white ones are 3500K I believe, and I love them. Everyone who says that you can't go back to yellow is right.
On the LED: I think that the price point is encouraging and of course, will lead to some early adopters. It's a good sign that prices are gonna start falling now. Keep in mind that these are DIMMABLE, so while the energy savings/lumen output isn't quite there to merit the cost increase over CFLs, keep in mind that if you're in a situation where you've been stuck with incandescents because you like to dim the lights, this is your first crack at big energy savings
@savarese04 - As far as I know, what gives people a headache is not the color temp but the fact that they're flickering. While you can't percieve it, your brain doesn't like it too much. Some people are more sensitive than other.
Dimmable? Reliable? full brighness straight away? Able to outlast a normal high quality 2000 hour incandescent or a halogen energy saver?
If no to any of those, then not interested. CFLs fail on all those, but do have better colour than incandesent which is why I tollerate them for most places in the house.
@richms
the previous poster mentions these are dimmable
who knows about reliability yet?
leds are inherently instant-on
the article (ie. the manufacturer) says 50000h
@mrqs Reliability is certainly something that has to be proven, however, at minimum home depots product site says that they are guaranteed for 5 years. Sounds good to me.
Nice step in the right direction. According to an associate I know at my local store Home Depot has been selling all their LED bulbs below cost for months, at least from what she saw in the computer. She could not figure out why other than trying to get people in the store bur who knows.
I definitely want to transition to LED, but since nearly all my bulbs are CFL it seems a waste to toss working bulbs for the current crop of LEDs. Hopefully they will be better showing lumens and color temp on the package as some early LEDs were a little fast and loose with specs. I dont need 2700 degree, but I can't stand the blue light many current cheapie LEDs put out. Looks closer to 8000 degrees K.
Also the dimming is nice but who has much need to dim a 440 lumen bulb? That's almost on thevrange of accent lighting.
@Sherifftruman
May not be the case everywhere, but in my area, the reason they can sell them below cost is that they are subsidized by the power companies.
Ah! Bright light bright light!
Before moving to a new technology, we should first make the old sockets - obsolete! Trying to fit into a regular, incandescent bulb socket technologies that are meant to be packed otherwise both reduces their superiority and their usefulness... LEDs are much better when used in stripes, and they can get much cheaper and replaceable (after 10 years, tho) if there weren't for all that AC/DC and stabilization circuitry within them.
Builders should be stimulated to implement better electrical infrastructure in new buildings - namely, to completely separate light lines from everything else, so that you can run through those whatever current you like - as well as using an universal connectors in the ceiling to which you can connect any kind of fixture you want...
If that was the case, you'd be able to buy an array of ultra-bright LEDs for those $20, and besides them being better arranged, they'd output far more lumens. And you'd be able to change and/or arrange them any way you like.
@incognito
Do some research on the GU24 socket. It's the future(!)
What about ESL from http://www.vu1.com?
@ttiiggeerr
ESL lighting tech looks pretty nice. I wonder if they will slowly dim over time since it uses similar technology to a old CRT monitor. Go to any sports bar that still has old TV's and see how washed out and dull the TV looks because its on all the time. It does solve the toxic material problem though.
If the LEDs fall under the same energy star labeling as CFLs we should hopefully see color temperature listings on them. Lately I have been using daylight CLFs with a color temperature of 5000K. They seem harsh at first compared to the incandescents but they light a room so much better and mess less with colors. I also got a 5500K 100w equivalent for my office where I do design work.
What do you mean you can't see what the catch is?
It's pretty obvious what the catch is.
It's a $20 light bulb! ! !
Who cares if it has a 50000 hour lifespan? No one needs that!
And I can buy twenty energy saving light bulbs that give off more light for the same price!
Let me know when these bulbs are less than $5, and then we'll talk!
@Johnny Rockets
I am R&D engineer in a LED bulb manufactor.
A 8W / 550LM / 50000hr / 2800K LED bulb BOM cost is just US$10.
A dimmable version BOM cost only US$11. All include 90%+ PFC,
and FCC.
The reseller may take our bulb at US$12~15.
But the street price is US$25 to 30.,, Ya, double the price.
I don't know why reseller take much money.
@(Unverified)
Wow, that's ridiculous.
Awesome! LED bulbs are the future of light, and this looks like a great product. To check out more LED solutions including light bulbs and linear tubes go to our website at http://www.GreenRayLED.com
Well, I can say a few things about this light bulb. I just installed one the other day in my kitchen to compare to my traditional lighting. First off, having done the math, if I retool my entire kitchen with these things it would cost me about $200. Sounds like a lot, but just on energy savings from the reduction from 40-60W down to 8W would save me $100 a year based on average power costs and estimating using the bulbs 4hrs/day. Now you might say it will crap out and die before you can recover the cost, however if you look at homedepot's website, the bulbs are guaranteed to last 5 years. So, if they at least last the 5 years, I'll have saved $500 and spent $200, aka saved $300 overall. Now, they estimate the lifetime to be 50,000 hours, which if left on continuously would take something like 23 years to die out. So, you can at least hope for 10-15 years of use AND you can count on 5 years.
That doesn't even take into account the thermal properties. My traditional bulbs get incredibly hot during use, generating tons of heat and running my AC bill out the window. If you're not a fan of additional heat like we are in Florida, then getting this 8W equivalent creates far less heat further increasing your energy savings.
And finally, to address the people calling it a cheap, foreign knockoff. The press release states, as does many other sources, that these bulbs are engineered, assembled, packaged and shipped right here in the USA. So, if you're a fan of lowering your energy bill and helping the US economy, this is an awesome light bulb.
Here are some considerations when buying an LED light bulb:
- What is the actual color temperature. If the bulb specs show 2900K or higher you will see a big difference. When the bulb produces a higher color temperature the light output looks very commercial (office lighting)
- Stick with a good brand. There are a lot of manufacturers out there making LED's right now and many will not be around when the bulbs rated life is over. Right now we have tested many and have determined Lemnis is making a better bulb than most out there and produces great light. Here is a link to the "flame version" http://www.soslightbulbs.com/pharox300flame-ashape-6watt-led.aspx
- Make sure the bulbs are dimmable - there is not reason to pay $20+ for any LED that is not dimmable.
- Be careful not to simply price shop. Do your research and be prepared to stick with a brand. Like most consumers, it is unrealistic to re-lamp your entire house. So, find a brand you like and go back to that brand next time you want to do more replacements. There is nothing more irritating than replacing a bulb and seeing a color shift.
- If you are buying from an internet site it is a good idea that you know that the company you are buying from is reputable and actually has a storefront or warehouse. Lots of light bulb internet site are nothing more than a site and they drop ship from various companies.
- LED's are the future of lighting. We here at SOSLightBulbs.com hope that you have a great experience wherever you decide to buy your bulbs and we all don't repeat the CFL meltdown when those first arrived on the market....
I hope this helps.