Household LED bulb quality is terrible!

[Klutch9]

I've had enough! This is now the 7th LED bulb I've had fail within the past 8 or 9 months. The first 6 were all Feit Electric brand (some were dimmable, some were not, but all were used on non-dimmed switches). These were all installed indoor, in open fixtures, and were used in a place of worship where they were turned on and left on for hours at a time - ideal conditions for bulb life. Nope, these all died and/or turned into strobe lights. Now the 7th bulb, a candelabra-style Ecosmart brand bulb, which was again used indoors in an open fixture, just died after 2 months use. What gives?! I know brand plays a role, but none of these were off-brand products. Because of this I've been switching back to incandescent/halogen at home, as I like the look within the fixture + the warm glow when dimmed on a standard dimmer.

 

[edwardh1]

hope the quality / reliability of bulbs does not ever migrate over into circuit breakers, switches, and recepticles, and wires, we will all be in trouble

 

[Andrew1972]

Quality is definitely mixed. I am hoping a quality brand comes out but who knows....

 

[C1KLTX]

Feit are garbage. Get some Philips. Had my Philips in over a year now. All worked out of the box no flickering nothing.

 

[itguy08]

I've had best luck with Ecosmart bulbs - have some going on 5 years now. Same with Cree bulbs. These are in a usage pattern similar to the OP - on at dusk and off at around 11:30 or later. I've even got some off brand LEDs in the pole light - bought 5 years ago and they are on at dusk off at dawn for the past 5 years. 2 of 3 are going strong and one is starting to dim.

I've had better luck with the LED's than the previous CFL's.

 

[JimPghPA]

Saved for future reference.

 

[wymi516]

Got the Cree 4 Flow bulbs all over our house, no issues with any of them.

 

[Warstud]

I have a few Ziloteks from Menards and a few Cree from Home Depot that haven't failed me yet.

 

[Pop_Rivit]

I've only had one issue with the 80+ LED bulbs I purchased and installed-3 years ago now? I've been extremely pleased with them.
The only Feit bulbs were some 2W bulbs that have been outside under the pergola. The rest were all higher quality bulbs.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

I have gone nuts with all kinds of LED bulbs in our house and condo and think I have only had one true instance of infant mortality...thought I had a CFL and two LEDs fail in one socket, but finally figured out that the socket itself was oxidized and cleaned it up.
I really like the new all glass LED bulbs from Utilitech, they are dimmable and look a lot like incandescents. They have a wide angle of broadcast and look great to me!

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: wymi516
Got the Cree 4 Flow bulbs all over our house, no issues with any of them.


This.

I have a house full of Cree bulbs, the only one that failed on me was in an entirely enclosed fixture on my deck.

 

[C1KLTX]

I have one Cree 4 flow in the front porch enclosed fixture, good bulb esp on clearance i got it for $2.30. All the rest in my house are Philips LED.

 

[Rand]

The older cree were even better massive heatsink, 5x the warranty.

The newer cree 4 flow rely much more on airflow to cool.. but still tons better than
the cheap garbage..

That being said I have a few utilitech and feit.

The only feit are stupid gu24 bulbs. NO ONE Else MAKES THEM.
What was wrong with Edison base.. I have 6 GU24 base fixtures ugh.
4 I left the old crusty florescent in(closet lights).. the breezeway and kitchen sink light
both got feit gu24 base led bulbs.. They did cost 8$ each and seem well made.
Even florescent cost 6$+ for gu24

Only 1 out of 19 Cree bulbs died.. but 9 had the glass globe fall off.. they were hotglued on and I must have gotten a bad batch. Cree replaced 6 for free with 4-flows

The CREE HIGH CRI bulbs are amazing.
I went with GE "HD" Reveal LED for $3.50 each in the bathroom. Sam's club has them 2 for $6.74

 

[sleddriver]

Thanks for the post. I've been looking at LEDs more lately as prices have come down, wondering which ones to purchase.

 

[bmwjohn]

are you sure (OP) there is not an occasional surge somewhere, so subtle it is not noticed?

 

[E150GT]

feit electric? Those are the cheapest of the cheap. We sell those when we need to fill an order and we need to try and do it as cheap as possible. Get the Philips or sylvania or renesola brand.

 

[KD0AXS]

I've switched probably 3/4 of the lighting in our house over to LED. Several different brands, indoor and outdoor. I have yet to have a single one fail.

 

[DeepFriar]

I've had one blazing away in the living room for two years as kind of a test. No problem. But I've tried the same type outside in an inverted fixture and they die in a month or less. I've wondered if the heat may not be able to dissipate in that orientation and it's killing them. Just a guess.

 

[JHZR2]

I've had no issues yet with LEDs. We probably have 12 in service right now that I can immediately think of. We have a ton of CFLs in service too still, because we've been lucky with them, and I'm not throwing them out for the sake of switching to LED.

I did pick up LED 60W bulbs at Costco the other day in special, think they were 40c/bulb.

That's my main issue with LEDs, most box stores have very little by way of compact size 100w equivalent bulbs (ca1400 lumen)

 

[jeepman3071]

Originally Posted By: wymi516
Got the Cree 4 Flow bulbs all over our house, no issues with any of them.


This. I have the Cree LEDs in a few places as well and they have been excellent. I had a few other LED bulbs with a brand name I couldn't pronounce and sure enough they died in 5-6 months.

2 of the Cree bulbs are in our shed which sees a pretty wide range of temperatures and they have been fine so far.