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They will be available in 40W (below) and 60W (above) equivalents and should be producing at lease 210lm/W.
“Thanks to this technological breakthrough, the new products are the first in a range of new Philips LED A-class bulbs meeting the highest level in the new EU energy labelling legislations,” said Signify.
BUT…
Philips has been able to produce ~200lm/W led lamps for a while, and has been making them exclusively for the Dubai market, so this might not be quite such a “breakthough”, but more a case of EU’s legislation forcing Philips to use a variation of its existing more expensive design to be able to use the new EU ‘A’ branding (which requires higher efficacy that the old EU top efficiency rating).
By the way, the UK looks to be following the EU on this one, even post-Brexit.
YouTube’s BigClive got hold of a set of Philips Dubai bulbs, and both measured them and pulled one apart.
In the Dubai case, Philips was using 4x more led ‘filaments’ than its standard led filament bulbs, and running them at a fraction of the ‘normal’ current. It is also using a capacitive dropper amongst other current limiting techniques in the fairly simple in-bulb-base psu – again, check Big Clive’s linked video – he is a calm and wise presenter.
From looking at the boxes in the video, the Philips Dubai bulbs are:
- ’25W’ 2W 200 lm four filament ‘warm’
- ’40W’ 2W 400 lm eight filament ‘cool’
- ’60W’ 3W 600 lm twelve filaments ‘cool’
As a result of drastically reduced drive power, predicted lifetime increases hugely.
The new Philips A-rated bulbs (40W right) are not ‘cool’ and don’t appear to have quite so many filaments, so more engineering has occurred, but Philips could have achieved ‘ultra-efficient’ ‘breakthrough’ performance, as it describes it, earlier if it had wanted to.
The new Philips EU A-rated bulbs are:
- ’40W’ 3,000K 2.3W, 485 lm, four ‘filament’, 30mA from mains
- ’40W’ 4,000K ditto
- ’60W’ 3,000K 4W, 840 lm, eight ‘filament’, 43mA from mains
- ’60W’ 4,000K ditto
In all cases:
- 210 lm/W efficacy
- 80 CRI
- 220-240V 50-60Hz mains
- 50,000hr to 70% life
- non-dimmable
- E27 base, 105mm tall, 60mm dia
Surprisingly, the 3,000K and 4,000K products have the same efficacy and seemingly identical other characteristics in each power class.
The bulbs also carry Philips’ EyeComfort branding, which is a bit of a catch-all (it includes dimming and glare, not applicable to these bulbs) but it does suggest the company has at least thought about flicker and strobe, which are both included under this branding.
Not suprised that Philips/Signify hand is forced by regulation before updating their designs. To me it seems Philips/Signify is trying to balancing on a fine line of economical benfefit and offering quality LEDs.
Their LED-bulbs dont just die randomly like many “no-brand” bulbs, the technical specification on the box are really on-point. And they are flicker free.
However i find it strange they are still making new bulb with a terriblely low cri of 80. Their normal “warm-glow”-lineis allready 90 and is – just ok – in term of color rendering. was hoping they would be pushing to improve their CRI and R9(red) rendering by now, its 2021….. They already proven they can do it with their Expert Color -series, however they dont offer it as E27-bulb, just g10-spot for commericial aplications.
With such low power consumption I wonder if these are specified as being suitable for use in enclosed fixtures, something very few LED bulbs are.
Morning Duncan
Always a tricky one. I am guessing you know all the arguments.
Personally, I never put led ‘bulbs’ in enclosed fixtures, and have gone over to purpose-built led fixtures where I can.
I know some led bulbs (at least, the controller chips inside them) throttle back the output if they start to get too warm – sometimes in two stages before shutting down
I wonder if Philips has done something similar in these new bulbs?
Mind you, this ‘filament’ style is meant to be seen, so might not be the sort folk would shut away?