With more and more people using LED lighting in their homes every year, you may be finding it increasingly compelling to make the transition from incandescent lightbulbs to LED bulbs.
But a question we get here a lot: how long do LED bulbs last?
And it’s a fair question. A lot of the time LED bulbs are more expensive to buy than incandescent bulbs, so if they last the same amount of time why should I pay the extra?
Let’s take a look.
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How long do LED bulbs last?
The lifespan of an LED bulb varies by brand, but in general you can expect an LED bulb to last up to 100,000 hours.
This is not to say all LED bulbs will last this long however – some brands are going to make longer-lasting LEDs than others.
For example, Phillips are well-known to be a market leader in long-lasting LED bulbs, and their lights are consistently rated as some of the best available.
How long do LED bulbs last (in years)?
You may also find that the lifespan of LED bulbs is only measured in time, e.g., 7 years. A lot of brands will do this as it makes more intuitive sense to the consumer than saying tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of hours.
Unfortunately, while this number may be easier to understand, you’ll need to take it with a grain of salt.
This is because manufacturers will often make assumptions they know likely won’t be the case in order to make this number as good as possible.
For example, if the manufacturer knows their LED bulb lasts for 30,000 hours but their competitor brands LED bulbs have a lifespan of 50,000 hours, they may choose instead to use a number of years instead of the direct number of hours to avoid making the direct comparison.
And when they do this, they will also assume that their LED bulb will only be used for 4 hours each day, meaning they can advertise their bulb as having a lifespan of ~ 20 years.
But this assumption is low – most people have their lights on pretty much all day long, but obviously the higher the number of hours per day you use in your calculation, the lower the estimated number of years the LED bulb will last.
Why do LED bulbs last so long?
There are two main reasons why LED bulbs last much longer than other types of light bulb. The first is because LED bulbs don’t have filaments, and the second is because they are much more efficient.
Let’s look at each.
LED bulbs don’t have a filament
Unlike incandescent bulbs, LED bulbs have no filament that needs to be heated up in order to produce the light.
That small piece of wire you see in incandescent light bulbs is the filament – it’s a small piece of wire that gets heated up until it glows, thus producing the light.
LED bulbs don’t work like this however.
Instead, LED bulbs have a small semiconductor that lights up all of the tiny individual LEDs when an electrical current passes through it.
This means there is no part of an LED bulb that will ‘burn out’, meaning they last much longer.
LED bulbs are much more efficient
The second reason is that LED bulbs are simply much more efficient at converting electrical energy into light energy.
The aim of the game with a light bulb is to convert as much of the electricity to light as possible.
When you heat up a filament in an incandescent light bulb, you’re converting some of the electrical energy into light, but you’re converting a lot of it into heat energy. In fact, about 90% of the output of an incandescent light bulb is heat, and only 10% is light.
However, because you’re not heating a strip of wire to cause it to glow to produce the light you’re after, a lot less electrical energy gets converted to heat.
A typical LED bulb therefore converts about 80% of the electrical energy to light, with the other 20% converting to heat.
This also explains why LED bulbs don’t get as hot as incandescent lightbulbs, as we talk about in more detail here.
So, because LED bulbs are much more efficient at producing light, they can do so using much less electricity – resulting in a longer lifespan.
Frequently asked questions
Do LED bulbs last longer than incandescent light bulbs?
Yes, LED bulbs last significantly longer than incandescent light bulbs.
So, even if LED bulbs cost you a bit more upfront, the cost benefits of a much longer-lasting light that uses less in electricity to run is often a no-brainer.
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