these are great - the more we buy the more the prices come down ...
we have no incandescent bulbs in our house - couple of years now - LEDs are great - as your Christmas/Durga Puja/Chanukah LED light-strings and light-bill will attest ... looking for improvements to some aging florescent fixtures . . .

I am not a fan of these lights. So what if they last a lifetime? If I am 40 and these last till I am 120 am I going to leave these in my will? When an incandescent bulb costs $1.00 and an LED equivalent is $12 to $15 there is no decision. How can a company expect to sell a $134 light bulb. Again another smart product priced out of reach of the masses it needs to be affective.

I soooo much agree with Mark A. I am 64 so these bulbs will last my 21 year old son untill he is quite old or maybe I\'ll leave them to his yet unborn children. Do ya\' think these will go up in value as a \"collectable\" as the price prohibits most reasonable people that I know from buying even one.

Actually it makes more sense. Your incandescent bulb will burn at least 5 times the power of an led. Over the life of that LED versus the incandescent, that\'s a lot of power. Plus if that bulb is in a ceiling or mounted some place where you need a ladder to change? You want to change it once a year or one a lifetime?
Also as the LED bulbs sell, they will get much cheaper. The first portable handheld calculator was something like $7000. Now you can get a passable one at the dollar store for basic math.

Yeah when compact flourescents came out - they were HEAPS - and gradually they dropped to $23 each - and then lowered over the DECADES to a few $ each...
BUT the thing is most especially NOW the power....
To clear that up a bit, all this talk of \"Power Saving\" is total bullshit - like with a 100W globe compared to a 20W CFL - what are you doing with the other 80W of power that you didn\'t use? Storing it in a bucket?
There is only one thing in terms of power consumption - The effective or efficient utilisation of it.
The ratio of the power in / to the work, illumination, etc., out.
I make up my own spot lights - to light up specific areas, like my work desk etc., out of LED arrays - the 5mm or 10mm - put in plywood - in a grid pattern, running in strings with NO current limiting resistors.
How can this be done you ask? It\'s easy LED\'s go into thermal run away IF they are run near their peak voltage and amperage - or maximum brightness.
Assuming the white LED runs at 3.5V 20ma, and the power supply is 12V, one could assume that running 4 LEDs in a string will be running each LED at 3V - and that is OK...
But LED\'s have almost no discernable difference in brightness between being run at 100% and 75% of power.
And since LED\'s are a resistor in their own right, running these LED\'s in strings in series of 5 or 6, on a 12V supply, they ever so slightly dim AND there is no current limiting resistor needed.
Hence arrays of LED\'s can be made up as desk lamps - 1 bag of 100 or 200 LEDS - soldering iron, plywood, 12V inverter power supply...
And if you are really keen you can use the LEDS as DIODES and run them directly off AC - in parallel - Pos to Neg and Neg to Pos - IF you use enough of them to compensate for spikes etc and acceptable over voltages in the supply, as well as their own self induced current limiting.
Bingo!
It\'s not that cost effective in term of labour, but it is a great way to do it on an educational / hobby basis.

Much as I could use the energy saving of these globes I have around 60 lights in the house I have been following development of LED\'s for years looking to replace the 50w 12v downlights with transformers that account for most of the lighting bill used in living areas as the bayonet and edison screw fittings have compact fluoros fitted long ago at a very reasonable price. My experience with LED\'s has been a disaster, the first direct replacement LED\'s gave the rooms a ghostly blue glow at about $25 each & family ordered their removal. Later models do give a warmer light but instead of coming down in price they have gone from $25 to $134. The only users able to install the vast quantity of these comparatively low light output LED\'s obviously are not worried by their electric bill.

@Clive Edmead - You have the halogen power supplies - make your own LED lights...
There are SO easy...
\"Family - today we are going to stop being brainwashed vegetables in front of the TV - and we are going to make some lights\".
Mixing in a few yellow with warm or bright white - makes them really nice.

At 99 Euro a piece and the present 0.18Eurocent KwH electricity price here in Belgium, their price represents 550 KwH - that\'s 15% of my total yearly electricity bill for 1 LED bulb. Apparently energy saving using this type of lighting device is only for the rich !!

I have a 7 watt LED (60wattEQ) from KUDOS, which looks great. I have it in warm white. I costs around GBP20 inc. postage. I have seen a similar type for GBP14. It has a white bulb shaped cover, so you cannot see the individual LEDs

Mr Stiffy, I always enjoy your comments. Any chance you have a project page available?