Updating home incandescent lamps to LED lamps

Over the years I have mentioned updating to LED lighting.  
 
Been doing this in baby steps and groups of different style lighting.  Both bathrooms here utilize smaller globe style candelabra bulbs.   These lamps are only over the mirrors in the bathroom. 
 
Decided on the  clear bulbs here.  Noticed that they look just about identical to the incandescent style bulbs.  These are warm 2700 G16.5 clear bulbs which are 4 watts each and have the brightness of the old 40 watt bulbs.
 
40-Watt Equivalent G16.5 E12 Base Dimmable Clear Filament LED Light Bulb, Soft White
 
Prices are all over the place.   The Ecosmart bulbs in 3 packs are around $8 at the big box stores.
Some places have prices up to $20 per bulb (which personally too high for me).
 
Here have purchased 4-12 packs of these lamps.  They look similar but builds are either very good or very bad.
 
Will post what I found and prices here.
 

Pete
 
Have you had any LED bulbs fail? I have  about a dozen spread around the house and garage and have had three fail on me which I consider a pretty high failure rate.. They're all Cree bulbs.
 
Mike.

So far with the smaller candelabra base have not had any fail.  It's not been a long time. I did get a delivery from Amazon multipack in which two of the bulbs came off the base or were shipped that way.  It's been over a year now for the garage daylight LED lamps and they are still doing fine.  I also installed a flat small footprint can looking light in the shower.  It's been over a year with that one and it's doing well.
 
A side note
 
An issue though relating to my comments on products purchased on Amazon has been that Amazon has rejected every comment for some negative verbiage whether it is good or bad comments which is odd because I do look at these comments before purchasing a product from them. 
 
Not seeing any Amazon delivery vans lately and for the last couple of months all deliveries have been from USPS. 

Master bathroom ~12 candelabra lamps (40 watt) lost one a couple of days ago so now replacing these.  More difficult though as they are under glasss and a bit difficult to get to...have to climb on the sink area to be able to change these.  Lots of light and very bright (high on the WAF).
 
Here is a picture of the new LED lamps over the mirror in the guest bathroom.  Color is just right and it does create a bright room.  Note there is also an overhead fan / light combo with one 60 watt lamp today which will also be changed over to an LED lamp.
 
Most of the lighting here is using clear bulbs.  (even outside).  I am impressed that the old filaments can be replicated with LED style filaments.  This is a 2700 warm color which is good on the WAF.
 

 
Also here changed the laundry room lighting from one fixture with two 60 watt lamps.  The went to a regular old fashioned florescent lamps (double) to...
 
a 4 foot florescent style LED lamp (double) and the color is off so will probably change it again.  It is much brighter though than the old lamps...white states it the color of the lamp messes with the color of the room.
 
It is all plastic and it is very light and it was easy to install.  It is an outdoor indoor lamp.  Might move it to the garage in the future.
 

mikefamig said:

Have you had any LED bulbs fail? I have  about a dozen spread around the house and garage and have had three fail on me which I consider a pretty high failure rate.. They're all Cree bulbs.

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I've had a pretty high failure rate on my Cree bulbs as well.  I bought about 50 or so of mostly the 40w TrueWhite bulbs, and had like 7 of them crap out.  That's pretty high for LED.  I had some really crappy earlier generation LED's from Lowed that had poor CRI and color - but not a single one ever failed.  I also had just 3 philips candelabra bulbs in one fixture - and 1 of them died within like 2-3 years.

So much for long term savings. I've been buying the Cree bulbs at Home Depot and they replace them but it's still disappointing. Long life is a big selling feature of LED and I have one sitting on my dinette table for a week now waiting for me to take a ride to HD.
 
What is your experience with other brands? Is this a problem across all brands?

I haven't really noticed the same failure rates on the other bulbs.  That said, many bulbs out today aren't dimmable and don't produce the same quality of light.  Also, Cree was trying to use a more innovative manufacturing process that allowed them to keep making them in the US affordably - maybe that ultimately cost them.   I came from CA where I was paying $0.41/kwh, so it was worth it to do anything to drop from 60w to 8w.  I have a spreadsheet around here that calculates  ROI for me, and I think it was an average of 3 months per bulb if I got them at the right price.  I didn't care if I had to replace a few annually.
 
The technology continues to evolve and get better.  Speaking of, someone just posted a link yesterday in CT's chat to http://finallybulbs.com/ - interesting concept... still early and non dimmable, but I'll be interested in seeing where they are in a couple years.

I've been playing with different bulbs. I've stayed away from Cree bulbs. Got it second hand that the bulbs are over driven to make them brighter and not last as long. I've found nasty blue-white, bright white (says it's sun light), and the bulbs with the LED filaments. I like the yellowish glow if the LED filaments (like what Pete is showing). The 'sun' light bulbs are nice in the bathroomThey're GE brand at Lowes. Not sure of life span yet.
 
A couple of notes on CFL and LED, both have electronics. Found out the GE bulbs don't like being put into night lights (I think the night-light socket has a diode to cut the power in half). I know that CFL fail when they overheat. Several have failed with a lot of smoke. These were bulbs pointed down in a ceiling fan with a glass cup (?) around them. I suspect the power supply over heated. I would expect that the LED to have a similar issue. I'm planing to drill holes in the tops of the holders to get better ventilation.
 
I'm hoping this stays true: 15W of incandescent bulbs == 1W of LED == 90 lumens. I've been trying to use that to help get bulbs. And I think 2700K color seems to be on the nice yellow side. I think 3K gets on the bluish side and maybe 5K is sun light bulbs. Still trying to understand the new light bulbs. 

Here liking the 2700 color for the bathroom lighting.  Not sure how long they will last.  I do not automate nor dim the bathroom lighting here.
 
For the garage went with multiple circular LED's providing daylight.  They are blinding and I do not look at them.  They do illuminate the garage daylight like.  These are connected to an automation switch and only for on or off - no dimming.
 
Wife does not approve of the color of the LED tube lighting in the laundry room. 

pete_c said:

Here liking the 2700 color for the bathroom lighting.  Not sure how long they will last.  I do not automate nor dim the bathroom lighting here.

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I wasn't sure which  is better. My wife isn't sure either.

pete_c said:

For the garage went with multiple circular LED's providing daylight.  They are blinding and I do not look at them.  They do illuminate the garage daylight like.  These are connected to an automation switch and only for on or off - no dimming.

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I hadn't given much thought about daylight bulbs in the garage. That's probably a good place for them. When I get setup in the garage I'll give the daylight LEDs a try.

pete_c said:

Wife does not approve of the color of the LED tube lighting in the laundry room. 

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That's been the toughest part, correct color, correct lumens, correct fit and light quality. Of course there is a lot of junk out there. But lots of the new LED bulbs seem to block the lower half of the bulb (bulb pointed up) so they're no good in lamps because they don't provide any light going down. The bulb with the LED Filaments work great but getting high enough lumens (or even finding them) has been tough. I honestly think the bulb manufacturers don't know they're customers. I told my wife we need to rethink the lighting in our house.

Working on second set (8 LED bulbs) installation.  This is for the master bathroom over the mirror lighting which is similiar to guest bathroom done a few months back.  These bulbs come with a 3 year warranty.
 
Wrote to the company today in China relating to warranty of bulbs.
 

 
Adding LED's to master bathroom baby step fashion. 
 
1 - installed new shower stall LED (2017) - very bright - flat footprint easy install - 12VDC - 120VAC
 

 
2 - over the mirror LED bulbs - candelabra round - clear - E12 G14 round
 

 
3 - cans - TBD
 
4 - toilet area bathroom fan - E26 LED bulb
 
Master bedroom has 4 lamps which are UPB dimmable such that I am trying these.  There is also a fan combo light overhead (way too high to get to right now).
 
This will be my first attempt at dimming clear LED dimmable bulbs with a UPB switch.
 

 
Ordered these today and delivery is on Sunday (Prime).
 
20th of May, 2018
 
Received new clear LED dimmable bulbs and installed them.  They dim fine with the UPB switch except that I had to re adjust the single tap UPB switch to 20% versus 30% and the 3000k is too white compared to the candelabra bulbs at 2700k.

I have a bunch of LED bulbs, Philips is the best in quality for A19, but tried various brands for different types. And then I got Lifx bulbs, and these are the best LED lights ever! You can fine tune the color/temp/brightness to a pixel. And the mood lighting is awesome. They do not offer too many types, but A19, MR15 and strips are available. They do go on sale every now and then, I am planning to get more. I wish I had tried them earlier. You can just get one bulb and try it on different setting in your rooms to decide which color temp would work better.

Yes purchased a couple of these (16X2 packs) a few months back. 
 
These replaced the CCFL lamps in the unfinished basement and a few dual lamp domes in the house.
 

 
For the outside coach lamps utilize incandescent crystalline candelabra E26 / A19 base clear bulbs which I dim every night.  These are not clear glass and have a shimmer to them.  The coach lamps have clear glass covers.
 
I would like to find similar (want the same look / appearance) in LED but have not found them yet and not sure how well the dimming will work with UPB switches.

pete_c said:

Working on second set (8 LED bulbs) installation.  This is for the master bathroom over the mirror lighting which is similiar to guest bathroom done a few months back.  These bulbs come with a 3 year warranty.
 
Wrote to the company today in China relating to warranty of bulbs.
 

BR-LED.jpg
 
Adding LED's to master bathroom baby step fashion. 
 
1 - installed new shower stall LED (2017) - very bright - flat footprint easy install - 12VDC - 120VAC
 

MBath2.jpg
 
2 - over the mirror LED bulbs - candelabra round - clear - E12 G14 round
 

MBath1.jpg
 
3 - cans - TBD
 
4 - toilet area bathroom fan - E26 LED bulb
 
Master bedroom has 4 lamps which are UPB dimmable such that I am trying these.  There is also a fan combo light overhead (way too high to get to right now).
 
This will be my first attempt at dimming clear LED dimmable bulbs with a UPB switch.
 

LED Dimmable.jpg
 
Ordered these today and delivery is on Sunday (Prim).

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I've been using similar bulbs in my office. They're okay. I have noted that they start out at a brighter level and then lose some of the brightness after a few minutes. I wonder if this is because they're in the fan's globe (dang can't recall what they're called). Which allows them to heat up a bit. They are warm to the touch but not hot. They're the equivalent of 60W bulbs but seem more like 50W incandescent. I like them better than the CFL I had in there.

The basement CCFL's here over the years have been falling apart breaking at the stalk and I was just using incandescent bulbs to replace them.
 
One issue here for last endeavor of the candelabra round bulbs was the height of the bulb which is only documented on the box that the bulb comes in.  The stalk is a bit higher than the old incandescent bulb.  The over the mirror lighting have diffusers over each bulb which made it difficult to fit the new bulb.
 
I had to remove the base from the wall and loosen the plastic diffuser to put in the new bulb which climbing on top of the double sink counter.  I should have installed a wire to support the structure as it was a bit heavy and when loose only the load / neutral wires held it in place.