How come LED Light Bulbs only last for about 2-3 Years?

I have a dozen that run 12+ hours a day. I've had 1 fail in 5 years.

Don't buy cheap LEDs, and don't put them in enclosures that trap heat.

Generally because you're buying cheaper ones that aren't built as well. Heat destroys LEDs and the cheap bulbs generally use fewer individual LEDs running at higher power to produce a given output in lumens. More expensive bulbs use more LEDs at lower power to achieve the same light output so that they're not constantly being overdriven and last much longer.

Heat.

While the actual LEDs (*) may be rated up to 20,000 hours+ in optimum circumstances, but the actual 3rd party bulb manufacturers, especially the cheapo brands, are building bulbs with poor heat dissipation designs and cheap and/or poorly designed circuits. Same goes for other parts they may use, such as the power supply. To reach 20,000+ hours, you need everything - not just the LED - to be working optimally together.

(*) the best LED makers out there right now, e.g. Nichia, Cree, Phillips - really do some amazing engineering.

The same reason that western countries refused to buy the extremely hard to break Superfest glasses manufactured in the GDR (East Germany) during the Cold War: planned obsolescence and consumable goods mentality in the interest of profit (they got a west German salesman to take the glasses to a trade show, and nobody gave a shit, because part of the industry’s profit model at the time was the sale of new glass due to breakage.

In point of fact: better, longer lasting LED bulbs DO exist, but they’re only sold in Dubai (due to the monarchy there basically decreeing that they wanted that to happen, so Phillips made them for them, but will NOT sell them outside of the country, because it would kill their sales elsewhere).

They've been sabotaged by design. LEDs should last 10+ years if built even half away reasonably, but unfortunately the manufacturers basically got together and agreed to build them in such a way they would fail. Same as regular light bulbs, they just have to work harder.

I still have some of the earliest modern LED bulbs on the market--old Philips ones, the AmbientLED (i think) with the yellow casing and large heat sinks. They've been running for like 15 years now and not a one of them has failed. I spent several hundred USD replacing all my bulbs with those back in the day and they've done me well.

Modern bulbs are trash by comparison. Not because the technology is limited in some way but because they refuse to make anything to that quality anymore.

We need an alternate solution to this planned obsolescence bullshit. Light bulbs hit 50k rated hours long ago and they were talking about making ones that went 100k+ but these days you can't find anything above 25k. And that's setting aside the fact that a lot of these rely on apps that could be dropped at a moment's notice.

Since people are just giving snarky douchebag replies, I'll actually attempt to answer the question since that's what this community is for?

The estimate given on the packages of these bulbs are absolute best case scenario, using an optimal temperature range and pattern of use that won't really match up with the average household because:

1. You may go on vacation and let your house get cold or hot. This could affect the life of thr bulb
2. The manufacturer is likely leaving the bulbs on 24/7 when measuring. Most people turn lights on and off multiple times throughout the day. This can decrease the life of thr bulb, just like with any other electronic device.
3. Humidity in the house can change dramatically year round. Manufacturing tests probably keep a constant humidity level.
4. If you're buying cheap random LED bulbs off Amazon from dogshit brands (i do thid too so not knocking you), the manufacturer estimates might just straight up be a lie.

I'm sure there are other reasons but that's a good start.

I replaced my mom's can lights with LEDs and I was an early adopter. I believe it was ~2012-15 ish. Not a single one has died. The only reason any of them fail now is poor quality and / or planned obsolescence. The tech itself is solid AF. I had some bulbs I got from IKEA for $1. Those have failed countless times.

Get the ones with the strip LEDs that look like they're trying to emulate a glowing tungsten filament. I can't remember where I got the information; it was like the Technology Connections YouTube channel or something, but I remember them saying that since they put the LED lights in series on those bulbs, they have a much higher voltage requirement to drive them, and much less circuitry is needed. It's the circuitry that burns out, and many of these filament-style LED lights literally only have a resistor as their main component.

I've swapped to these kinds of LEDs like...5 years ago, and haven't had one burn out yet. Probably have like...15 of them across the entire house.

https://youtu.be/fsIFxyOLJXM?si=4wz0wa355Wd9gkUP&t=1389 -- YEP -- Found the advice. Starts at 23:09 BigCliveDotCom also says the same in his episode about Dubai Lamps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4

Smart bulbs like this:

Have PCBs with small LEDs surface mounted to them. This means that the on-off cycle of the bulb causes heat deformation cycles of the PCB. This stresses the foils in the PCB and can eventually cause them to lose connection. That’s one of the reasons why they’ll often start flickering or lose the ability to be cool white, warm white, or specific colors (the different kinds of LEDs in them).

But bulbs like this (often called smart edison bulbs):

Use longer/larger LEDs that aren’t mounted to the PCBs, and will probably last much longer. They are better at not overheating their own electronics.

If you want the first kind to last longer, don’t run them above ~60% brightness.

i have 7 bulbs since 2019
none of them failed so far.

all the lifespans i found ranged between 15.000 to 25.000 hours ( which btw was equated to 1.000 hours per year instead of 5.000 per year)

so this doesn't sound normal to me.

how manny(in use) bulbs do you have?
what brands do you use?

Typically it's not the emitters -- the LED's themselves -- that fail. If driven correctly, those have lifetimes of tens of thousands of hours. That's what the manufacturer is advertising on the box. Yes, an individual LED when driven correctly will probably last 20,000 hours. (Usually more, depending on how pedantic you want to get. The 20,000 hour figure often quoted is the point where the emitter drops to 80% of its original light output.)

LED "bulbs," the type that replace filament bulbs in consumer fixtures, typically fail in their driver hardware. LED's run off of low voltage DC and in the base of all of those LED conversion bulbs is a power conversion assembly that steps down and rectifies 120v/240c AC to whatever DC voltage the LED array in there expects. These are inevitably made out of whatever the cheapest passives and semiconductor components the manufacturer thinks they can get away with. These don't last 20,000 hours, especially not in where they're usually installed.

The main killer for all semiconductor electronics, which includes both LED's themselves and their driver circuitry, is heat. This is often exacerbated by the fact that LED replacement modules are usually stuck in enclosed light fixtures designed for filament bulbs that have insufficient ventilation to get rid of the waste heat from the components in an LED module. The insides of those enclosed ceiling light fixtures, the ubiquitous "boob light," gets hot, even with only LED modules installed. Filament bulbs don't care because they don't have any electronics in them and how they work is literally by getting so hot the glow. But LED modules in that kind of environment will invariably suffer an early failure.

The best way you can get your LED modules to last longer is to install them in a fixture where they'll have a lot of air circulation available or at the very least which is not fully enclosed.

Mine work for I think over 10 years now. Some of the actual LEDs inside died but you don't really notice 1-2 of 200 inside the bulb being dark.

They don’t? What are you talking about?

Maybe stop buying the seizure-brand ones from Amazon?

I think I've had to replace one bulb in my entire house in the last 6 years or so.

They never last that long, as they easily get away with it.

In one of the gulf states, though (Dubai?), they actually have only longer lasting LED lights for sale, as the minister responsible for regulation is something like an EE and forced the LED bulb providers to make a special version of those bulbs that basically last for ever. Those are only sold in that country, and hard to come by elsewhere.

I've had sets of LED under-cabinet lights powered on 24/7 for about 14 years. I think one bulb went bad, out of 12.

Only buy Philips (not the Hue stuff) or Osram

The rest are shite

I have had the same light bulbs since 2012. One of them broke when I dropped it while moving. Otherwise, no issues at all. Philips brand that I bought a box of 12 of when I moved into an apartment that year. Maybe I'm just lucky, but still no issues.

The bulbs themselves are amazing. There are good ones in cars and computers, the flash of phones etc.

The failure point is typically the electronic components that run or regulate it. And of course most companies want to sell more bulbs so they conveniently skimp on that stuff. So maybe the answer is a more expensive bulb that hopefully will last long enough to justify the extra cost?

What would you recommend?

Philips.

Stop buying the cheap ones. :-)

My smart LED bulbs don't even say how long they last, but my experience with LEDs in general tells me they will last practically forever. Out of all the LED things I have, the only ones with any burnt out lights are a couple of cheap LED strips I have and I can't even be sure the ones that are dead weren't because of where I cut the strip. I've had those things for over 12 years now and they're in my PC which is always on.

Afaik, the biggest threat to killing the LED is heat, and some cheaper LED bulbs have really poor heat dissipation. Technology Connections has a video about them, which may be more informative.

Can't actually remember when or if I had a LED bulb die on me yet. Knock on wood ...

What are the brands? What are the appliances? Have you tested the electricity coming out of those ports?

Mine are generally good for near 5

Planned obsolescence

My experience has been that they last for more years than I tend to notice which ones are which. I'm not mad at all about their longevity.

I had 2 LED bulbs that I know for sure that I bought prior to 2015 that only recently failed. Those bulbs lasted at least 9-10 years. The rest of my bulbs I haven't kept up with but those 2 older ones looked very distinctive with aluminum heatsink material for their bottom halves.

Killer of LED bulbs is heat. If you have some in fixtures that trap heat you should either replace the fixtures or get high quality bulbs for those fixtures. Look for bulbs rated for hot locations. And for outdoors make sure it's rated for wet areas.

Technology Connections has advice for you!

I fix my LED bulbs when they stop working

FWIW, I've killed a bunch of Phillips hue bulbs through normal use

Are you sure you have the same set up for voltage and resistance? If you don't you'll pass more current and burn out faster. Similar to a laptop marketing saying 14hrs, but that's only if you leave it on low power, airplane mode, and don't do anything useful. I'm curious to see if someone comments the real answer.

Yeah the drivers are shit on cheap products and heat can wear them out easily. I find that LED bulbs "burn out" by just being super dim rather than physically snapping like incandescent filaments. I have these 96 cent cheapass LED bulbs that I have no expectation of lasting long, and I have other 6 dollar dimmable bulbs that I hope I will last longer.

What lasted forever for me...CFLs. downside is they just don't seem to put out as much light. But I had some in my house 10+ years old. They lasted so long that when one finally burned out and I didn't have a replacement of the intensity...I was pissed to learn they don't even make them anymore. I'm not a fan of LEDs because some of the cheaper ones are like mini strobe lights and really big my eyes. I had to go through like $60 work of LEDs to find a set I actually liked

I still buy more halogen bulbs than LEDs - 4 fixtures in one room that I haven’t been able to convert go through more bulbs than the rest of the house of LED fixtures combined.

So far I haven’t bought any bulbs this year and have used only halogens, but I used up my stock of both.

My only real complaint about replacing LED bulbs is they change design more frequently than they need to be replaced - If I need to replace one bulb in a fixture, I can never find an exact match

I'm no scientist, but I think it has something to do with actually turning the light off and on that's actually stressful to most light bulbs. I mean check out the Centennial Light (wiki link). I know it's an entirely different type of lightbulb, but they have run that light almost continuously since 1901, and it's largely believed that continuous operation has kept it going for so long (though it has dimmed quite significantly).

I suspect that 20,000 hours operation is likely expected under continuous illumination, not ever turning the light off.

The same reason that filament based incandescent bulbs burned out. Planned obsolescence.

There's a very real conspiracy (not just a theory) about the "arms race" in light bulbs for long lasting bulbs. Eventually, they made bulbs that lasted so long that they stopped making money.

Lighting manufacturers intentionally made worse bulbs to simply improve profits. They realized that they were driving themselves out of business. Everyone in the light bulb industry agreed to stop development of even longer lasting bulbs, just so they could continue to move units and make money.

Also, with LEDs, the thing that burns out fastest isn't the LEDs (there's usually a dozen... ish, in an LED bulb)... It's the electronics. The power needs to be converted from line power to something the LEDs can handle, which is usually DC. So there's a full power supply in the bulb to convert AC to DC, with a certain voltage to power the LEDs.

Sometimes this conversation is simple, a full bridge rectifier with little more than a filtering capacitor, other times it's very complex.

The power supply in the bulb is usually what fails first.

? What are you talking about?