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by afiori 731 days ago
Planned obsolescence is very real, but the reality of incandescent light bulbs means that lifespan, efficiency, and luminosity are not independent.

The 1000 hours limit is in practice a lower bound to a combination of luminosity and efficiency
2 comments
Onavo 731 days ago
LED diodes can theoretically last decades given the correct drivers (current and heat needs to be significantly limited), unfortunately they are the very definition of planned obsolescence.

https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-l-e-d-quanda...

A stable DC current and temperature limited LED can easily last decades.

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fkyoureadthedoc 731 days ago
I remember seeing a relevant video about Dubai and some bulb company working together to create a longer life led bulb.

Ok here it is --

The lamps you're not allowed to have. Exploring the Dubai lamps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4

> These fascinating lamps are a result of a collaboration between Philips Lighting and Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum - the ruler of Dubai. They are designed to be the most efficient available, matching high lumen output with very long life. Once you see the construction and circuitry you'll realise this isn't just marketing spin.

Now I want to actually look into and see if they're available elsewhere, because my LED bulbs really do seem to fail pretty frequently...

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afiori 730 days ago
I agree that LED lights are a better example of planned obolescence.
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jajko 731 days ago
Literally in that linked wiki article:

> "A longer life bulb of a given wattage puts out less light (and proportionally more heat) than a shorter life bulb of the same wattage"

As long as we can recycle (or at least safely get rid of) the burned out ones I'd say its a win from ecology perspective, and at least in some cases also for end users. But this wasnt the main driver of the change, it was the good ol' corporate greed as per the same wiki page.

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afiori 730 days ago
I believe that the main drive was to stop a race to the bottom where everybody would advertize 1000000 hours lightbulbs but they all sucked and the technology would be considered worthless.

I seriously doubt you can recycle the tungsten as it literally evaporates and oxidize on the lightbulb.

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