Philips is introducing an LED bulb that gives off as much light as a 75-watt incandescent bulb and consume 17 watts of power.
The lighting giant said today that the EnduraLED A21 will be available in the fourth quarter for a price expected to be between $40 and $45. It will show off the bulb tomorrow at the LightFair lighting conference, where many LED lighting announcements are expected.
The EnduraLED A21 will be the first general-purpose LED bulb to give off as much light as a 75-watt incandescent bulb, according to Philips. It will be rated at 1,100 lumens and an efficiency of almost 65 lumens per watt.
The bulb itself roughly resembles a crown, a design meant to give off light evenly. LED light sources give off directional light, making them very good at downlights or spotlights, but now manufacturers are designing bulbs to disperse light more in all directions.
The bulb will have a rated life of 25,000 hours, or about 17 years with four hours of daily use. The color rendering index, a measure of light quality, is 80 and the color temperature is 2,700, or a warmer yellow light meant to be similar to incandescents.
Philips last year started selling a 60-watt equivalent LED bulb with the same design and LED light sources, which is available through Home Depot for $39.97. It uses 12.5 watts.
Lighting manufacturers are seeking to boost the brightness and light quality of LEDs to make them attractive alternatives to incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs. The prices for LED bulbs are much higher but are expected to drop over time.
Philips said that over its lifetime, an EnduraLED A21 could save a home or business $160. There are about 90 million 75-watt incandescent bulbs sold every year in the U.S., and switching to LEDs would eliminate the carbon emissions of almost 1 million cars, according to Philips.
