It took me a while to decide which LED light bulb I wanted. First I wanted a 2700k light bulb (2700k is the standard for home light bulbs. Its not white light, it gives a "warm" light) and a bulb that is equivalent to 60W. The current champ is the Phillips 60W bulb that is currently selling for about $39 but Home Depot has finally started selling the same version in its stores for about $27.
So I ordered this bulb, plus I went to Home Depot to pick up the Phillips version. But I did not like the Phillips version because there is a 1/2 sec delay when you flip the switch. When I first tried the Phillips bulb, for a split second I thought it was broke! I couldn't stand the delay, so back to the store it went. I read other reviews on Amazon, and users reported the same thing, but most reviewers weren't bothered by it. But I was.
I also at Home Depot I tried the EcoSmart 60W 3000k bulb (Lighting Science makes these also, so it looks exactly like this one) but the brightness color was too white, almost like my office at work. 2700k color is perfect for the home in my opinion. When i'm at the office, I need white light to keep me awake. At home, i'm trying to relax, not try to burn my retinas.
Heres the pros and cons on the Lighting Science Group bulb:
Pros:
Instant on brightness. Unlike fluorescent bulbs which take a few minutes to warm up to reach full brightness, LED lights are at full brightness the second you flip the switch! Thats one of the biggest reasons why I went with LED.
No delay when turning it on. As soon as you flip the switch, the bulb is on, unlike the Phillips LED bulb which has a 1/2 sec delay before it turns on when you flip the switch.
The price was great! For under $30 you get a nice LED bulb.
Build quality. The bulb did not feel cheap or flimsy. It felt like a $30 bulb should be. The metal fins around the bulb are made of high quality and keep the bulb cool.
Lighting is the same as fluorescent bulbs. I was worried that the LED bulbs can not spread out the light like a fluorescent bulbs or regular bulb can. But my worry was gone when the LED bulb lit up my room exactly like my old fluorescent bulb did. I could not tell the difference!
2700k warm light. The light is warm just like my old fluorescent 2700k bulb was.
Cons:
The metal fins on the bulb do get very hot after a few minutes. The top light itself is cool to the touch, but becareful when handling the bulbs metal fins after its been on a few minutes. It can burn your fingers. Like most LED bulbs, the bottom contains all the resisters which regulate the power of the LED bulb, which can get hot.
Overall, this bulb is a must have for anyone who wants "instant-on" bulb thats 60W. You will not be disappointed.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
*** UPDATE 06/09/2013 ***
I originally gave this review five-stars, which is deserved. I have since downgraded it to four stars because this bulb appears to have been discontinued and replaced by an even better bulb. It does not appear to be available on Amazon just yet but it's available at Home Depot as the EcoSmart A19 12-Watt (60W) LED Light Bulb; Model # ECS A19 WW 60WE (for the 3000K version, they also have a 2700K version but I do not have the model number). The new Definity Bulb is far better at dispersing "omnidirectional" light than the previous one. The previous one is still excellent, but if you're going to drop this kind of coin on new bulbs, that will be in use for years to come, you should buy the latest-and-greatest. This is particularly true given the rapid innovation in this space.
** ORIGINAL REVIEW 09/2012 **
There is a steadily growing industry around building LED light bulbs like this one. The holy grail for them is to make an inexpensive and energy efficient replacement for the ubiquitous standard 60W light bulb that can be sold to millions, or billions, of customers. To that end, a number of companies have flooded the market and your local home improvement store with LED bulbs touting themselves as the 60W replacement, including Philips, Sylvania (Osram), Toshiba, Samsung and a number of smaller brands.
I've tested almost every one of these bulbs, and the Lighting Science Definity A19 is the one that comes closest to achieving near perfection in an LED bulb and, except for the cost, closest to the goal of a universal 60W replacement bulb. Among its many benefits:
1) Superior Dimming. A number of companies build "dimmable" LED bulbs, but their technologies are simply not ready for prime time. The Lighting Science dimming is absolutely flawless -it's smooth and does not exhibit any kind of buzzing at any brightness level. Buzzing is a major problem for some of its competitors such as Sylvania and Samsung, and to a lesser extent Philips, as those bulbs tend to emit a high pitched buzz when dimmed to less than full intensity. I am not sure the reason, but the Lighting Science bulb seems to be the only one I've tested that is absolutely flawless in this category.
2) Well Engineered. It also works well in any type of dimmer that can handle LED/CFL bulbs and has an exceedingly high tolerance for wiring variations. The ceiling lights in my house, for example, have the original "knob and tube" wiring from the 1920s when the house was built, and the wiring is ungrounded and has a greater amount of interference than normal. The other bulbs that I have tested cannot handle this wiring without very noticeable buzzing. The Philips bulb does an okay job of filtering the buzzing out; it's less than the others but still there to some extent. But with the Lighting Science bulb, there is no buzzing at all in any application or any type of wiring I have thrown at it. It's clear to me that Lighting Science put its circuitry through a much more rigorous and robust testing suite than the others.
3) Instant on. You turn the switch and this bulb is on -instantly. You take this for granted in your incandescent bulbs, but most LED bulbs have a noticeable delay of anywhere from a half second to a full second before they come on. I was surprised how annoying this can be with some of the other bulbs. It seems like a small issue when you think about it logically, but we all grew up from childhood with the expectation that when you flip the switch, the light comes on immediately. This is so ingrained in our brains from childhood that it's very hard to get used to a bulb that doesn't come on instantly.
4) Perfect light coloring. This is another area where companies other than Lighting Science inexplicably cannot get it right. There are a lot of LED bulbs out there that advertise "warm" color, but if they don't put the actual color temperature (measured in Kelvins) on the box, you don't know what you're going to get. This is a big issue because we all grew up with incandescent bulbs with a color temperature of around 2600K. Your light fixtures -everything from the color of the glass in your wall fixtures to the design of your lampshades -was designed based on the assumption of an incandescent color temperature of around 2600K. Even the paint on your walls of your house may have been designed, to some extent, based on how it would look at night under the glow of these 2600K bulbs. You mess too much with that magical 2600K color temperature and everything in your home can simply look "off" and ugly.
This Lighting Science bulb has a color temperature of 2700K, which appears to be the "warmest" the LED bulb industry has been able to produce to date. It's slightly whiter than an incandescent bulb but generally looks good in most fixtures. Substantially the same bulb is sold at Home Depot under the "EcoSmart" label, but the "warmest" color temperature that one comes in is 3000K, which is way too white and fluorescent for me. The competitor bulb that comes closest to Lighting Science in terms of warm color reproduction is the Philips 2700K model, but it has a slightly pinkish hue to the color reproduction that is absent with this bulb. The Lighting Science is also superior to any CFL bulb I've ever tested in terms of color temperature.
5) Cost savings and heat. They emit a fraction of the heat, and consume about 1/7th of the energy, as a regular incandescent 60W bulb. Under the bulb there are a series of aluminum "fins" that act as a heat sink for the circuitry inside. Those fins can get somewhat hot but nothing like an incandescent bulb. The heat generated by this bulb is basically comparable to other LED bulbs at the same wattage. You will over the long haul see a reduction on energy costs, but it will take many years for those savings to recoup the higher initial purchase price.
Another theoretical upside that I refuse to acknowledge is the lifetime of LED bulbs -most manufacturers say they will last 50 times longer than incandescent bulbs or around 20 years. Because these bulbs have only been available for a few years, it's way too early to assess whether this claim is credible. I tend to think that this claim is based on the rated life of the LED lighting elements themselves. But the circuitry that feeds the LED elements (the stuff that generates the heat) will likely burn out or malfunction long before that. I've had these kinds of bulbs for about a year with no problems, but that's obviously no indication of whether they'll last as long as the manufacturers claim.
The big downside is price -as noted above, it will take years to save enough money on energy costs to make up for the greater initial cost of this bulb, and that's assuming that you believe the claims that these bulbs will last 50 times longer or 20 years (which I do not). But that's not how I think about these bulbs. I'm not interested in skimping to save a few bucks now when what we're talking about is something that will be "on" for many hours a day providing clean, safe and cool light to your home.
Best Deals for Lighting Science Definity - A19 Omni V2 - Dimmable - 2700K - 60
I just purchased a few of these bulbs and they're really great! I love the warm lighting much better than CFL's orangey tone, and the dimming is really smooth. I would recommend this bulb to anyone who needs non directional light and amazing dimming.
Honest reviews on Lighting Science Definity - A19 Omni V2 - Dimmable - 2700K - 60
My wife and I recently bought a house with recessed lighting in nearly every room, almost all of it on dimmer switches. The lights were power monsters, with big fat halogen bulbs. I set about changing this, and investigating other bulbs.
Th obvious first choice was dimmable CFLs. Unfortunately, the dimming on a dimmable cfl is... Well, it's crap. At the time, I felt that dimmable LEDs were cost prohibitive. Yes, I had heard that the bulbs worked much more nicely than cfls, the dimming effect was much better, you didn't have the light cutting out at a certain voltage, no buzzing like you do with cfls... But come on, it can't be worth that kind of money, can it?
Actually, it is. While the dimming isn't on par with an incandenscent, they're amazing in comparison to cfls. They last pretty much forever, the color of the light is beautiful and warm, the dimming works great, and I'll be replacing all the recessed lightbulbs in my house with these (slowly... They aren't cheap)
Is it worth the cost? Depends. If you don't mind power hungry halogens, keep your halogens. If you want money saving exclusively, go with cfls. If you want lights that dim well, last for ages, have good light color... Well, you're gonna pay for it.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Lighting Science Definity - A19 Omni V2 - Dimmable - 2700K - 60
I've been buying LED bulbs for some time, in some cases prematurely. Finally there is a bulb that is as bright as advertised, dimmable, and well-made. I'm very happy with these bulbs.
