On 11/08/2019 11:01, Roger Hayter wrote:
wrote:

On Saturday, 10 August 2019 23:06:44 UTC+1, tim... wrote:
"pinnerite" wrote in message
...
I bought an LED outside light less than 3 years ago from Homebase.
It was white and less obtrusive against our white walls.
Recently it started to barely glow.

My electrician, as friend for over 50 years popped i to deliver
something. I showed him the lamp which he had fitted. He laughed and said
'you need to get a new one'. The original came in a sealed unit so
couldn't be repaired.

He will no longer supply them because so many are unreliable. He
mentioned a brand that he claimed was more reliable than most but I could
not find it on the web so purchased one that claimed that it was water-
proof.

I should have come here first and sought advice but I reckon I am losing
it.



Hm,

I've got a sealed for life LED lamp in my kitchen, admittedly on a switch

Hope that I get better than 3 years out of it.

It came from B&Q and I think it was what appears to be their "own" brand
"Colours"

tim

Why do people buy light fittings with bulbs they can't change?

Because the concept of a "bulb" belongs to a time when the light
emitting part of a luminaire was a short life relatively cheap to make
encapsulated hot wire. Now that the light emitting part is an
electronic component with many other components to control it and makes
up a significant fraction of the cost to the whole fitting, the idea of
a separate bulb is completely obsolete. Not least because it imposes
artificial restrictions of size and cost on the electronics. There is
no reason why a light fitting should not have the same life as any other
electronic consumer device, and no reason at all why you should expect
to replace part of it rather than the whole.



Against which it made it simple to market vast ranges of lamps in many
different designs and powers using a relatively small number bulbs; for
those bulbs to be replaced easily by end-users; and for end users to
keep a stock of them as spares if they wished.

Compa

a. nonagenarian pensioner has ceiling pendant with B22 bulb. Bulb fails.
Neighbour (herself in her 70s) stands on kitchen steps and replaces it.
Cost: £7. (She bought it at Tesco.)

b. octogenarian pensioner has a LED lamp fitted by a handyman. It fails
after 2 years. No family, neighbours etc nearby comfortable with
unscrewing, disconnecting and wiring in a replacement. So another job
for the handyman. Cost (with lamp) over £50. (Not London!)

(These are not fictional examples.)

--
Robin
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