© 2024 New Atlas
Environment

Osram Sylvania's 100 W-equivalent LED bulb may be pick of the bunch

By James Holloway
May 11, 2012
Osram Sylvania's 100 W-equivalent LED bulb may be pick of the bunch
Osram Sylvania has been in touch to tell us about its 100 W-replacement LED light bulb, joining its Sylvania Ultra series: a 20 W, 1600 lumen light bulb with a a warm color appearance of 2700 K - the most compelling spec we've seen
Osram Sylvania has been in touch to tell us about its 100 W-replacement LED light bulb, joining its Sylvania Ultra series: a 20 W, 1600 lumen light bulb with a a warm color appearance of 2700 K - the most compelling spec we've seen
View 1 Image
Osram Sylvania has been in touch to tell us about its 100 W-replacement LED light bulb, joining its Sylvania Ultra series: a 20 W, 1600 lumen light bulb with a a warm color appearance of 2700 K - the most compelling spec we've seen
1/1
Osram Sylvania has been in touch to tell us about its 100 W-replacement LED light bulb, joining its Sylvania Ultra series: a 20 W, 1600 lumen light bulb with a a warm color appearance of 2700 K - the most compelling spec we've seen

Following Gizmag's coverage of GE Lighting's 27 W Energy Smart and Switch Lighting's 100 W-replacement LED light bulbs, Osram Sylvania has been in touch to tell us about its 100 W-replacement LED light bulb, joining its Sylvania Ultra series: a 20 W, 1600 lumen light bulb with a warm, "incandescenty" color appearance of 2700 K. With Philips also to release a 100-W equivalent this means the big three manufacturers of light sources are joining Switch Lighting in offering high-output LED light bulbs for the home, but all things considered, Osram Sylvania's may prove the pick of the bunch.

Though the press release provided to us puts the Ultra's efficacy at 89 lm/W, the math suggests a 1600-lm light source running at 20 W has a slightly lower efficacy of 80 lm/W. Even so, that's right up there with Switch Lighting's latest figures (also 80 lm/W), and superior to GE's (60 lm/W).

The 20-W Ultra fares just as well on color appearance, out-warming both GE's (2870 K) and Switch's (4100 K) offerings with a remarkably toasty color of 2700 K. There's a fuller explanation of color appearance in our report on GE's announcement (linked above), but the upshot is that warmer colors, indicated by lower Kelvin values, tend to be preferable for home use.

We understand Philips is also to put a 100 W-replacement LED light bulb onto the market. Though we've yet to see word directly from source, industry insiders corroborate press coverage that Philips' 23-W AmbientLED emits an impressive 1700 lm, for an efficacy of 74 lm/W - very good for home light sources, but mid-table in respect of the direct competition of 100 W-replacement LED light bulbs. We have not yet seen color appearance figures for Philips' AmbientLED.

Like the competition, Osram Sylvania claims its LED light bulb boasts omni-directional output, though none of the manufacturers has produced data to quantify this to our knowledge (which it is possible to do).

On paper at least, Osram Sylvania's Ultra appears to have the strongest specification, matching or exceeding the best-performing competition in terms of efficacy and color appearance, (even if Philips' light bulb will emit the most light of all). But with prices for most of these light bulbs yet to be announced, the complete picture remains very far from clear.

We understand Osram Sylvania's 20 W Ultra should hit shelves between June and September this year.

Tags

EnvironmentLightingLEDEnergy EfficientLight BulbLED Light BulbLightingLEDEnergy EfficientLight BulbLED Light Bulb
18 comments
James Holloway
James writes about science and technology from his home in rural East Anglia. Whether it's the internet, nature, video games or AI, he pays particular heed to the flash points with culture, society and the planet.

Most Viewed

Load More
18 comments
Pedro Ribeiro
May I suggest that a "RF pollution" evaluation to be included in the next reviews of this kind of products. The LED light bulbs include a switching power supply and some of them have bad filtering and make a lot of noise over several MHz of spectrum degrading (sometimes blocking) some communication services like MW/LW AM broadcasting, CB, Hamradio, ADSL, etc. see some testing made by Thilo in Germany at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8zMhjXcmoA Being "green" also includes avoiding this kind of pollution ... Regards!
Fahrenheit 451
Completely agree with Pedro. There is so much rubbish in this very slowly developing, but up and coming category of energy savers.
peterdub
Interesting video Pedro, thanks!
Interesting James also about Osram Sylvania answer to the GE bulb. Somewhat unfortunate that LEDs are being used to simply copy incandescents in fixed warm color temp etc - rather than being developed (and awarded, subsidised etc) for their own advantages in adjustable color temps, and as RGB LEDs or as LED (OLED) sheets. Never allow a simple regular incandescent bulb solution, get in the way of a complex expensive copycat replacement!
peterdub
I would add that the supposed 25 year (and similar) LED lifespans are highly questionable for several reasons. The lab-tested specs do not conform to real life use (http://ceolas.net/#li15ledax)
Also, because manufacturers gain little profit from long lifespans - on light bulbs as on other products. General Electric, Philips and Osram/Sylvania already cooperated to fix regular incandescent lifespan at 1000 hours - and cooperated again to achieve the 2007 legislation banning these patent expired unprofitable light bulbs. GE light bulb lifespan policies are specifically documented by Michael Leahy and Howard Brandston (the latter is the US Congress lighting consultant) in their 2011 e-book "I Light Bulb", there's a review on Dunday.com
Skip Michael
Pedro;
You radical, you just blew this piece of junk right out of the water. You know you are going to be hunted down and persecuted for showing the truth.
Thanks Pedro, good job. American companies can do better than this. Or maybe we should turn to China, India for innovative breakthroughs. And we wonder why we can't compete in the world market. How much you want to bet the cost will be somewhere between $15 and $25 per bulb. Pathetic...
Kris Lee
1600 lumens is very bright from one bulb. The best CFL's I have seen are aroung 800 lumens.
The only interesting question is the price indeed.
Bill Bennett
And yet, my three old all LED lighting from lumiabulbs has paid for themselves, umm six months ago, payback was 2 and 1/2 years from energy savings
Calson
The "warm" 2700K LED lamps produce a dingy yellowish light. Sunlight is at 6500K and most tungsten lamps are at 3400K so going down to 2700K is not going to produce a light that many people are going to enjoy using. This is going in completely the wrong direction with regard to SAD as well.
mhenriday
Agree with Calson above ; it does seem odd that manufacturers of these devices seem to want to reproduce the colour characteristics of incandescent lamps, which resemble those of (rather dim) dim class M stars, rather than those of our Sun (G2V). People have, indeed, become accustomed to indoor lighting with such characteristics, given that bulbs with tungsten (wolfram) filaments were introduced over a century ago - but most of us still emerge from our artificially lighted rooms into the light of the sun from time to time...
Bruce H. Anderson
Kelvin is one thing, the full color spectrum is another. Quality of light needs to take both into account.
Load More