Archive for February, 2014

Letter to Philips and Cree- LED Lights are Not Ready for Prime Time

Thank you kindly for the refund check of $8.50. Because I purchased all of my LED lights within the past 3 months, I simply returned all of my lights to Home Depot for a full refund instead. Therefore, I am returning the check.

In case you are interested, I will never again purchase another LED light from Philips or any other company. Philips’ advertising, marketing, and packaging is false and deceptive; and I’ve learned my lesson. Initially, I was persuaded by LED lights’ purported longevity and low energy consumption. When I did the math, my wife and I determined that they would pay for themselves in a matter of 2-2.5 years. So we decided to go all-out, and we spent more than $600 on LED lights from Philips and Cree.

I am upset with both Philips and Cree, because neither the advertising nor the packaging indicates that I needed to pay an electrician several hundred dollars more to replace dimmer switches with some new special kind of dimmer switch. And the cryptic “suitable for open fixtures” fine print is misleading- I didn’t realize it meant, “This bulb will self-destruct in 3 months if you put it in a closed fixture.” The bulbs that were supposed to last until my late 60’s began to fail after just 2-3 months. I’ve reverted to incandescent bulbs; an inefficient but proven technology.

I was excited to drastically decrease my carbon footprint and save money long term. But LEDs are not ready for prime time. I’m just glad I was able to return them to Home Depot before it was too late.

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