LED Bulb Failure and Cree Customer Service

[Pop_Rivit]

Originally Posted By: Triple_Se7en
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
Out of the 80 or so bulbs purchased this is the first issue, so I'm still quite pleased with the decision to convert to LEDs.



You have 80 bulb plugins in your house?
Congrats on getting Cree to respond and offer free service.
Now don't ever try that again with the other 79 bulbs. They are-on to you now. What you sold them in words, only works once.

All kidding aside, what is the warranty on those bulbs?


More than that if you count the shop-there are another 20 or so fixtures inside and 6 outside. The warranty on the Cree bulbs is 10 years.

Originally Posted By: HerrStig
Have you had some bad thunderstorms of late?


Nope.

Originally Posted By: Nate1979

Every time there is a thread about some new deal on LED's and the so called payback vs a CFL people like to tout the lifetime but often forget the reliability. Clearly reliability is not there yet for LED's (based on the multiple failures mentioned in this thread) and this is a critical factor when making a high purchase cost vs high operating cost for payback.


Compared to the low failure rate of CFLs? That's just lousy logic-you're taking a single thread and attempting to extrapolate real data and drawing a conclusion from it. Not to mention the pathetic light quality of CFLs, the slow warm up time, the lack of dimmability without getting extremely expensive, the toxic mercury that needs to be properly dealt with at disposal, and the lack of cold weather usability.

In my case the LEDs have been a very good investment, and out of 80+ bulbs I've had only 1 failure. That's a 1.25% failure rate in my case, and Cree is standing behind their product.

 

[rfeir]

Out of 30 Cree bulbs 5 have failed. The newer vented versions still work just fine. One call to Cree and the bad ones were replaced for free. All of the 40w Crees are still burning all day and night after 3 years.

 

[Andrew1972]

Pop_rivit you have had decent success with them.

Are they all in open fixtures where they can actually vent off the heat they produce at the bases?

 

[greenjp]

Some incorrect info here that warrants correction:

Originally Posted By: Johnny2Bad
One final irony is CFL bulbs have bad Power Factor characteristics. On a Commercial Account with 3-phase power it's not an issue but there is no way to account for Power Factor in a Single Phase line (like the one going into your home).

Net result is the Power Company has to generate more power than they can bill for to residential customers, which means they must raise the price per Kilowatt-Hour to compensate.

This is not correct. Lower power factor increases the apparent power required but not the true power. True power requirements are what dictate the amount of energy/fuel going into the generation system. There is a very small effect of low power factor on overall generation and transmission efficiency, on the order of a percent or two.

Originally Posted By: Johnny2Bad
The Efficiency Little White Lie ... Lamp efficiency is defined as wanted output plus unwanted output = 100%. Basically that is light plus heat = 60 watts for a 60w lamp, or for an incandescent that might be 6w plus 54w = 60w.

But what if the heat is wanted output? Any home when the HVAC system is producing heat it doesn't matter how that heat is generated. Electric heat (like that from a bulb) is more efficient than gas, oil, wood, etc.

True that the waste heat from inefficient appliances can contribute to heating requirements during the winter. And while heat generated by electrical inefficiency is "100% efficient" at the point of use, you're simply shifting the location of the inefficiency. All the loses are incurred in generation and transmission. With gas and oil the inefficiencies take place right in your home, but still are 80% and up, which is much better than overall electricity efficiency. Similarly a heat pump is much more efficient than electric resistance heat - this is why people on heat pump systems try to avoid situations where the electric resistance "emergency" heat is required.

jeff

 

[Cutehumor]

I have had good luck with LED so far. I bought my first set of 40 watt LED bulbs from Ikea. It's going on 6 months no failure out of 6 LED bulbs. Then, I bought Target closeout of GE LED bulbs 21 of them, 3 for 10 bucks I think. I say that was around 4 months ago. I haven't had any burn out. so far so good. I'm not a heavy user. I turn lights off whenever I leave the room. All my indoor lighting is a combination of LED and CFL. When the CFL bubls die, I will use the LED I picked up from home depot, Phillips 60 watt $4.97 bulb two pack. I'm set for awhile.

The one area I REALLY want to go to LED are my outdoor floodlights. They are on at sunset till sunrise. Right now, the LED bulbs are 20 dollars a bulb and I need 8 of them. I will wait until the price go down or when they go on sale. I know my next door neighbor will be thrilled.

 

[CoconutTelegraph]

In the last 5 years, I've been slowly phasing out incandescent and cfl's in my home to LED where I can. I'm mostly using the Cree bulbs from Home Depot and just before I thread them in I write the date it was installed on the base of the bulb. I had a few that the frosted glass globes came un-glued and I super glued them back on. I recently had my first two fail within the last 2 weeks. Both installed 2-16-14. Both in the bath fixtures above my sink.
I contacted Cree about the first failure and by the time I replied to their response the second bulb quit. They were great with the warranty process. I offered to return the bad bulbs but they didn't want them back. I though they would require them back for verification that A. I owned the bulbs, or B. bulbs were actually defective or C. to prevent some from receiving the replacement and then returning the faulty bulbs to Home Depot for yet another set of replacements. I'll dispose of the old bulbs once the replacements arrive and gladly choose Cree products in the future simply because of those two bad bulbs.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: CoconutTelegraph
In the last 5 years, I've been slowly phasing out incandescent and cfl's in my home to LED where I can. I'm mostly using the Cree bulbs from Home Depot and just before I thread them in I write the date it was installed on the base of the bulb. I had a few that the frosted glass globes came un-glued and I super glued them back on. I recently had my first two fail within the last 2 weeks. Both installed 2-16-14. Both in the bath fixtures above my sink.
I contacted Cree about the first failure and by the time I replied to their response the second bulb quit. They were great with the warranty process. I offered to return the bad bulbs but they didn't want them back. I though they would require them back for verification that A. I owned the bulbs, or B. bulbs were actually defective or C. to prevent some from receiving the replacement and then returning the faulty bulbs to Home Depot for yet another set of replacements. I'll dispose of the old bulbs once the replacements arrive and gladly choose Cree products in the future simply because of those two bad bulbs.

How often do you turn on the light in the bathroom ? 1-2 hours a day or less ? And both failed after a little more than a year, so the total time in used is no more than 700-800 hours ?

Most companies claimed that LED life is about 15,000 hours, and you have 2 failed in less than 10% of the expected life. Longevity/reliability of LED bulb is questionable.

 

[Pop_Rivit]

Originally Posted By: madRiver
Pop_rivit you have had decent success with them.

Are they all in open fixtures where they can actually vent off the heat they produce at the bases?


All of the TW series in the master bath are mounted in horizontal sockets above the mirrors-the bulbs are open and on a dimmer. Of the other standard A19 style Cree bulbs most are in open fixtures, but there are 10 (I think) that are in enclosed fixtures.

I do have 30+ LED bulbs that are in either recessed lighting or track/pendant lighting, all of which are base-up. None of those bulbs have had any issues.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: Cutehumor
The one area I REALLY want to go to LED are my outdoor floodlights. They are on at sunset till sunrise. Right now, the LED bulbs are 20 dollars a bulb and I need 8 of them. I will wait until the price go down or when they go on sale. I know my next door neighbor will be thrilled.

Me too. I'm truly like to change to LED for my motion detection on front of my garage. But at $15-20 each I will wait until it gets down to reasonable price of $5-6/ea.

It is on less than 10-20 minutes minutes a night, spending $40 for 2 LED floodlight bulbs to save few pennies a month doesn't make economic sense.

 

[SumpChump]

I got the CREE white 60 bulbs for my open (lampshades) fixtures. Great color and instant on. These were the metal heat sync ones. One started a totally random super quick flicker. I called Cree an the guy was like Pow! Sent a new on that arrived in one day. It was a new design. Working well.

I hate CFL anymore. Weird colors even between same maker. And then when they blow I feel like the toxic fumes must indeed be toxic. Stinky. I had one burn out and when I took it out the thick fumes actually wafted out into my face.

LEDs rule

 

[Nate1979]

What prevents someone from just calling them, making up a story about a burned out LED and getting a free one? I can't imagine that they can keep up this ease of replacement for long. Likely they are doing this because they want to keep happy customers during the very important customer adoption phase. If they made you show a receipt your opinions might be very different about the technology.

 

[GiveMeAVowel]

My guess is that they have a limit of how many free replacements they will give to any one customer during a time period. Of course they can hope that people will be honest but we all know how that works in the end.

I know that some companies will simply say keep the receipt and if the bulb fails you can return to the place of purchase and they will do the replacement for free. That seems to be a better way of getting it done and keeping people honest.

 

[hoosierrun]

CREE is obviously having a problem with these LED bulbs. I had one I bought in late 2014 that went bad (100 watt equal). This bulb cost $20 + tax at Home Depot and I just happened to have the receipt so I took it back to Home Depot and they gave me another. The problem is, the replacement they gave me only lasted 3 weeks. They exchanged it again and didn't bat an eye (never even looked at the receipt).

In another instance, I had a CREE 60 watt equal bulb that I bought online, but did not save the receipt. It also went bad. I called customer service and they agreed to send a replacement out at no charge and didn't want the bad one shipped back.

I agree that the customer service is handling the problem well, but I have to wonder if they are working to solve the quality control problems. I recently switched to another brand, so we'll see if they last any longer.

 

[Errtt]

I've replaced all the bulbs from CFL to LED. The ones Costco had when they ran a sale - Feit.
Been less than a year since going LED. I have 3 outside we keep on 24/7 and had to replace one of those once. The base was dark, probably hot from the summer triple digit temps don't help.

 

[JustinH]

$20 for a light bulb?

What is the cost in savings on ones electric bill for one bulb?

I'll use up my CFL stockpile then hope the prices come down.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: JustinH
$20 for a light bulb?

What is the cost in savings on ones electric bill for one bulb?

I'll use up my CFL stockpile then hope the prices come down.


Depends on your electric utility, they're down to $1 a bulb for me when I find them on sale or on clearance.

 

[spackard]

A few days ago I had a 100W equiv CREE flicker (purchased in Dec '15). Emailed them and they're sending out a replacement. I think they had a bad run of the 100W equivs. I have several of lower wattage ones and no problems with them.

 

[daves87rs]

Now have 5 Crees/4 Fiet/6 different brands-all are still going strong!!

 

[hoosierrun]

Originally Posted By: JustinH
$20 for a light bulb?

What is the cost in savings on ones electric bill for one bulb?

I'll use up my CFL stockpile then hope the prices come down.


$20 for a bulb is outrageous. The fixture I put this in is very hard to access, requiring the need for a ladder and the need to move stuff. It was the 10 year warranty and label that says that the average life is 21.5 years that gave me the incentive to spend that kind of money. The electric savings will likely never be recovered. I also needed an 'instant on' full brightness bulb which the CREE's do. Changing a bulb at the top of a ladder is not a fun thing.

I really feel mislead by their claims and I suspect the FTC will eventually catch up with them for deceptive labeling. Good customer service only goes so far.

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: hoosierrun
Originally Posted By: JustinH
$20 for a light bulb?

What is the cost in savings on ones electric bill for one bulb?

I'll use up my CFL stockpile then hope the prices come down.


$20 for a bulb is outrageous. The fixture I put this in is very hard to access, requiring the need for a ladder and the need to move stuff. It was the 10 year warranty and label that says that the average life is 21.5 years that gave me the incentive to spend that kind of money. The electric savings will likely never be recovered. I also needed an 'instant on' full brightness bulb which the CREE's do. Changing a bulb at the top of a ladder is not a fun thing.

I really feel mislead by their claims and I suspect the FTC will eventually catch up with them for deceptive labeling. Good customer service only goes so far.
It's envirowhackjob economic "policy" at the very finest.