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Philips to Sell iOS-Controlled LED Light Bulbs Exclusively Through Apple Stores

Carlanga

Carlanga

macrumors 604
Nov 5, 2009
7,132
1,409
dcorban said:
I decided to do some calculations to see if LED is worth the cost. Assume that the bulb will be used for six hours every night, for a total of ~2200 hours per year. Prices taken from bulbscanada.

$0.55 for 60w incandescent, rated 6000 hours
$2.45 for 13w CFL, rated 6000 hours
$16.00 for 6.9w LED, rated 40000 hours

LED life is 18 years, meaning I would use 7 incandescents or CFL for every LED.

Purchase price over 18 years:
$3.85 incandescent
$17.15 CFL
$16 for LED

I pay 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour (we have "time of use" rates in Ontario, this is the off-peak rate), so the energy rates per year are:
$8.58 incandescent, $154.44 for 18 years
$1.86 CFL, $33.48 for 18 years
$0.99 LED, $17.76 for 18 years

Total cost of ownership for 18 years:
$158.29 incandescent
$77.58 CFL
$33.76 LED

Conclusion: you will pay $43.82 more over the life span of an LED bulb if you use CFL. Over the life span of these three bulbs, you would pay $131.46 to own and operate equivalent CFL bulbs. The Philips bulbs in the article have a $102 premium price. It is actually cheaper to buy these "expensive" Philips LED bulbs than any other bulb type!
Click to expand...

Umm, I pay 21 cent per kilowatt hour, 2 months ago was $0.24 ;)
My CFL bulbs cost around $1 each and LED around $4 each. So just in half a year of using either CFL or LED I'm saving money from there on. I think you need to go to Costco or Sams to get them cheaper.
 
P

portishead

macrumors 65816
Apr 4, 2007
1,114
2
los angeles
Great idea, price is too high though. I'm sure it will come down slightly. I bought a couple WeMo devices from Belkin and I don't use them as much as I thought, but these might be more useful as it's all in the bulb and I don't have to plug any wires in.
 
D

dietrichvisuals

macrumors newbie
Oct 29, 2012
1
0
Check this guy out. He's the creator of LIFX, I discovered him via kickstarter.com

his project will be funded in 16 days from now.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/lifx-the-light-bulb-reinvented
 
IJ Reilly

IJ Reilly

macrumors P6
Jul 16, 2002
17,909
1,496
Palookaville
Beerstalker said:
For those of you looking at the Nest, I recommend checking this out too.

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...ngId=-1&keyword=wifi+thermostat&storeId=10051

I installed it a few weeks ago and I have been very happy with it so far. I would much rather take 10 miutes and program the unit myself instead of having to adjust it up and down for weeks in order for it to learn what I want it to do. Not to mention its $100 cheaper.

It's been real slick being able to log into the app on my iPhone and turn the heat down after we have left home on Friday, and then log back in again on Sunday on our way home and have it back up to temp by the time we get there. My wife was always complaining before about coming back to a 50° house after a weekend in the winter, or a 80° house in the summer, now it is the normal temp by the time we get home.

It was a bit of a PITA to get it connected to my WiFi. I think the issue was it tries to set itself to the 192.168.1.100 IP address when it first joins the network, and I already had another device taking up that address using DHCP. Once I changed my router to start assigning IPs at 192.168.1.101 it hooked up right away and has worked since.
Click to expand...

So it sounds like if you use an Apple router that assigns addresses in the 10.0.1 range then you'd be SOL with this product.
 
R

reallynotnick

macrumors 65816
Oct 21, 2005
1,249
1,193
I like them but they are only 600 lumens (50W equivlent) so it's not bright enough for me, get the price down and make them brighter and I could totally see myself picking some of these up.

It would also be cool if they could integrate with your TV set like Phillips old ambilight technology but for your whole room.
 
HiRez

HiRez

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2004
6,250
2,576
Western US
A lot of people are going to hate on this, but count me in, this is completely awesome. I guess it depends on how you feel about lighting. Some people don't mind a bare fluorescent tube on the ceiling, some people (like me) are sticklers for lighting details. It truly believe lighting really does affect your mood and mindset, the color, type (bare, diffused, etc.) and arrangement of lights. So while this isn't cheap I can totally see buying into it, as someone who is self-employed and spends a lot of time at home, it's worth it. Being able to control it all from my iPhone is perfect (big difference in convenience from having to log into a PC for control). Maybe I will wait for the sale price though, $150 for the set and ~$30-$40 for a bulb would be a lot more palatable.
 
pubwvj

pubwvj

macrumors 68000
Oct 1, 2004
1,901
208
Mountains of Vermont
dcorban said:
Conclusion: you will pay $43.82 more over the life span of an LED bulb if you use CFL. Over the life span of these three bulbs, you would pay $131.46 to own and operate equivalent CFL bulbs. The Philips bulbs in the article have a $102 premium price. It is actually cheaper to buy these "expensive" Philips LED bulbs than any other bulb type!
Click to expand...

Wrong answer! (Wow, how can someone doing math get it so right yet sooo wrong!?!)

LED light bulbs (the part that is saving energy) cost a lot less. If you just buy LED light bulbs and don't bother with the fancy-smancy iOS part then you save a lot. You miss out on a lot of the savings if you go with the iOS LED bulb.

I have only LED lights throughout our home. I've had them for nine years. The earlier generation of bulbs was very poor. The current generation of bulbs is excellent. No need for the fancy, expensive iOS control or the color changing in normal light usage in an office or home. Perhaps you want this if you're a disco. :)
 
chr1s60

chr1s60

macrumors 68020
Jul 24, 2007
2,061
1,857
California
I like the LED light bulbs that are coming into the market, but overall the price is still way too high to be practical for most people. The LED bulbs only save you a little bit over the already energy efficient bulbs to the point that spending $200 to replace the bulbs in your house in order to save an extra $10-15 per year is not worth it for most people.

I was just looking at some bulbs at the store the other day that were $15 a piece with an estimated $1 per year cost. Many energy efficient bulbs only cost $2-3 per year. The savings aren't big enough to justify the price by the time you replace many.
 
faroZ06

faroZ06

macrumors 68040
Apr 3, 2009
3,387
1
I tried to get our Lutron system to work with iOS or at least the Mac, but it's really a waste of time. Just think about it. Why bother with the iPhone when you can just press a switch instead?
 
J

jw2002

macrumors 6502
Feb 23, 2008
392
59
This could be the death knell for Lutron and other manufacturers who make extremely expensive, proprietary systems for home control. Looking at the price per LED bulb and the functionality, this is not a bad deal really. You're getting a bulb that will last 10 years plus the ability to turn it on/off remotely. Hopefully they will integrate dimming into the system as well.
 
Antares

Antares

macrumors 68000
Jan 16, 2006
1,721
28
Somewhere in the Milky Way....a little place calle
One Still Sheep said:
I'm still waiting for an iOS app that can sync with my toilet, so that I can flush it from a different room.
Click to expand...

Seriously? Why would you want something like that other than as a gag/to play pranks?

This lighting system is actually useful. Its a cheaper way to create an automated lighting system with the bonus of cool effects. I would be down once it gets to a 100w equivalent…
 
Treq

Treq

macrumors 6502a
Apr 23, 2009
963
1,496
Santa Monica, CA
Antares said:
Seriously? Why would you want something like that other than as a gag/to play pranks?

This lighting system is actually useful. Its a cheaper way to create an automated lighting system with the bonus of cool effects. I would be down once it gets to a 100w equivalent…
Click to expand...

It may be cheaper for some, but for me... No. 4 z-wave dimmers is around $200 vs $1400+ for the 24 bulbs I would need to do the same thing (not counting the color control). It looks like a neat system, maybe I could use it in a couple of places for accent lighting.

As a side note, does anyone know if you could plug one of these into a circuit with a dimmer on it? I would think not, but who knows...
 
Webduo

Webduo

macrumors newbie
Oct 1, 2012
22
0
Light it up...

I paid $40 each for the LED bulbs I have now, so this is not bad at all. Count me in on this one - with 4 extra bulbs to boot. I got rid of the CFL bulbs a long time ago and moved on to the LED bulbs and love them (although I bought them early on so they didn't make them as bright as they do now). They last forever - and yes, is this kind of a gimmick... probably, but I'll be having a good ole' time with it.
 
U

uwbadger

macrumors member
May 20, 2009
69
21
dcorban said:
I decided to do some calculations to see if LED is worth the cost. Assume that the bulb will be used for six hours every night, for a total of ~2200 hours per year. Prices taken from bulbscanada.

$0.55 for 60w incandescent, rated 6000 hours
$2.45 for 13w CFL, rated 6000 hours
$16.00 for 6.9w LED, rated 40000 hours

LED life is 18 years, meaning I would use 7 incandescents or CFL for every LED.

Purchase price over 18 years:
$3.85 incandescent
$17.15 CFL
$16 for LED

I pay 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour (we have "time of use" rates in Ontario, this is the off-peak rate), so the energy rates per year are:
$8.58 incandescent, $154.44 for 18 years
$1.86 CFL, $33.48 for 18 years
$0.99 LED, $17.76 for 18 years

Total cost of ownership for 18 years:
$158.29 incandescent
$77.58 CFL
$33.76 LED

Conclusion: you will pay $43.82 more over the life span of an LED bulb if you use CFL. Over the life span of these three bulbs, you would pay $131.46 to own and operate equivalent CFL bulbs. The Philips bulbs in the article have a $102 premium price. It is actually cheaper to buy these "expensive" Philips LED bulbs than any other bulb type!
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money
 
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