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Comment by wildzzz | Hacker News Reader

It's absolutely amazing that I can light my entire house for the same power draw as like one 100W lightbulb.

But the bulbs cost 10x what incandescents did, and in practice don't last much longer. That normally isn't included in the calculations.

In the 90s I’d change bulbs all the time - about once a month. I don’t remember the last time I changed a bulb. I don’t think my teenager has ever had the opportunity to.

I have a bunch of third generation Philips Hue bulbs, from around 2016. They weren't cheap. But I've had them all this time, and I brought them along when I moved house.

Haven't burnt out a single bulb yet.

I understand that this has caused some challenges for the Philips Hue division. They had extremely satisfied customers but not many repeat buys.

Here's a 100W-equivalent bulb: https://www.ikea.com/ie/en/p/solhetta-led-bulb-e27-1521-lume...

It costs 6 euro. I'm _fairly_ sure that incandescent 100Ws didn't cost six cents. I bought a few of these (actually a cheaper non-dimmable model which is no longer on Ikea's confusing website, from a cursory search) in 2016, when I moved. They're still working fine.

Whereas incandescents failed _all the time_.

A tenth of 6 euros is 60 cents, not 6 :)

I used to buy incandescent bulbs 4 for a dollar shortly before they were banned.

Throughout the house, I need to replace a regular screw-in LED bulb probably every other month or so. I don't know what brand they are, they are light bulbs I picked off the shelf at Target or Walmart. Life is too short to worry about light bulb brands. Until now.

> 4 for a dollar shortly before they were banned.

Well, yeah, because they were trying to get rid of them.

> Life is too short to worry about light bulb brands

Just get the Ikea ones, they're fine.

My experience is completely different. I've only had to replace two LED bulbs in the past six years. At the last place I lived, I swapped the CFLs in some of the fixtures (overhead lamps mostly) for LEDs and then swapped them back, taking the LEDs with me, when I moved. I've got a desk lamp in my laundry room that's been on nearly continuously for six years and that came from my last place as well.

Depending on the quality you can get a LED bulb ranging from 1 euro to 5 for the best one. The incandescent bulbs did not cost much lower, and adjusted for inflation, did cost almost the same, but you had to replace them much more often.

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