LED Light Bulbs with Insteon

Digger

Senior Member
Is anyone using LED Lighting with Insteon? Depending on the power supply design in the bulb they may run quieter and can be dimmed.

I am not talking about Low Voltage lighting for undercabinet etc. but something similar to CFL's but are LED instead. The prices are starting to drop and they may be feasible.
 
Don't they mostly just use dropping resistors? I didn't thingk there was a lot of circuitry required the way there is with CFLs.
 
I think a few are using switching power supplies and others are using dropping resistors and other minor circuitry. If they are using dropping resistors they are basically noisless.

They are much more effecient in theroy but I havent seen many that have the light output I would want.
 
That would work great. Low power and dimmable. I think they were $40 each a little while back I think. What are you finding the price to be now?
 
I've tried two types recently. I bought one from Smarthome claimed to be as "bright as a 45 watt bulb" but uses about 6 watts. It looked exactly like a normal glass spotlight. I tried it. I'd guess maybe looks like a 30W bulb. It claimed to be "dimmable" but it onlt had two settings, on and off. It was wired in parallel with several incandescents. They dimmed it didn't.

Then I bought a high-efficency commercial can-type light from here: http://www.permlight.com/
It claimed to be dimmable and the highest efficency efficiency made. Ran about $85 for one. It was bright, maybe about like a 60W bulb. Again, even when in parallel with incandescent bulbs it didn't dim.

I measured its power use and light. Both were very close to the amount of a normal compact fluorescent bulb but at 10X the price. And not dimmable despite the claims, although it worked fine on a dimmer (just didn't dim.)

So conclusion, if you want a dimmable light, I haven't seen it. The only advantage they have that I have seen over a compact fluorescent bulb is life. I'm replacing compact fluorescents once a year or two, these are claimed to have a 15-20 year life.

People assume that LEDs are an efficient light source, but usually they are no better than a normal fluorescent, sometimes less.
 
Well the post says it works 'well with dimmers', it said nothing about actually dimming the lights.
 
When permlight said that the leds can be dimmed, they meant using the old school resistance style dimmers. Most modern electronic dimmers use a triac, and do some form of waveform clipping.

Kenny
 
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