My wife and I were out recently looking at ceiling fans to replace the one in our dining room, which has committed no crimes, other than having the appearance of being very much from the 1980s.
I was taken aback by how few of the fans had replaceable lightbulbs! In the entire store there were maybe three or four options with a replaceable bulb!
Call me crazy, but a nonreplaceable LED is a complete dealbreaker. I go through so many LED bulbs! I don't know if my electricity is like particularly bad or if that's just normal? The first LED bulb I ever bought (Shout out EarthLED) in 2008 for like $30 is still going strong, but every bulb I buy these days lasts like two years tops.
I had a car that had non replaceable light bulbs in the rear blinkers, just a strip of led integrated deeply in the tail light assembly. Of course the blinker died. Replaced the whole assembly. (And replaced the whole car later). Apparently some enthusiasts do disassemble them and replace just the led strip, probably requiring soldering etc. This company had designed cars for about 120 years at that point but still seemed to commit easy mistakes...
When an LED bulb dies, it's typically not the LED, it's the electronics driving it. This is worsened substantially by heat. If you have recessed downlights or something, that's close to worst-case for an LED bulb.
Lights with non-replaceable bulbs can actually be far better, because they can be designed for their environment. Recessed downlights with built-in LEDs for example can thermally couple the LEDs directly to the metal housing, so the heat can be dissipated into the surrounding air, instead of into the recess.
Maybe in theory. In practice, the Phoebus Cartel was a real thing, and they limited lightbulb lifespans, worldwide. The same thing exists today, albeit more because companies that sell lightbulbs want to keep selling them, instead of putting themselves out of business. So, many LED lightbulbs are intentionally designed to fail early.
The only place where this doesn’t happen is in the country of Dubai. Because of national law, lightbulbs sold there are required to have very long lifespans. That’s why there is a world-wide grey market business for taking existing LED lightbulbs apart, snipping off a resistor so that they pull about half the amperage and then putting them back together, and suddenly their lifespan is increased by 10-100x. This is called a “doobie”, after the name of the country. Check out “bigclivedotcom” on YouTube if you want to see this in action.
You will notice this if you buy Philips Ultra Definition bulbs in Dubai, versus the same bulbs sold at the same amount of lumen output from the UK or elsewhere in the world. The “doobie” version has twice as many LED filaments inside, compared to the UK version. Same price, way different life span. Philips is one of the better manufacturers of lightbulbs, and nowhere remotely close to the only one doing this.
With regards to LED light fixtures (ones that don’t allow you to screw in your own bulb), most manufacturers do the same thing. They’re designed to fail early. Who wants light fixture styling that is fifty years old, just because the LED lights inside haven’t failed yet? They want to make you buy new fixtures every couple of years, just like they do for bulbs.
Yes, there are exceptions in both cases. But they are the rare exceptions, not the rule. And if you haven’t studied up on the Phoebus Cartel, you can start with the article on Wikipedia.
I'm well aware of the Phoebus Cartel. It's not as straightforward as often reported. Have a look at Technology Connections: https://youtu.be/zb7Bs98KmnY
Dubai isn't a country. It's a city in the United Arab Emirates.
The Dubai bulb isn't some trick Big Lightbulb doesn't want you to know about, it's an engineering tradeoff: lower current on more filaments gives you higher efficiency and lower temperature but at higher cost and with substantially lower light quality (CRI).
You'll find that after EU energy labeling, there are products available to European consumers that well exceed the specifications of the "Dubai" bulbs. Look for EU energy class A. They often come with a 5-year warranty and rated lifespan of 50000 hours. The "Dubai" bulbs were rated for 25000 hours. You'll also find though that they're substantially more expensive and usually don't have a CRI above 90.
Regarding planned obsolescence, in many cases I can believe that a product will fail earlier than it would if designed for longevity. Rather than planned obsolescence, I believe this is simply a result of being cheap, a consequence of the race to the bottom. If you're buying cheap Chinese fixtures for $10, or cheap Chinese bulbs for $2, you're not going to get a high-quality, long-lasting product.
If you want products that last a long time, buy them and use them properly. If you want bright lights, make sure they're adequately cooled. Consider buying lower-voltage fixtures and bulbs so that you can have a separate power supply and don't put the full ~230V to ~3V conversion in a tiny space.
Biggest problem of leds is we have no good standards. Classic screw in bulb makes no sense with LEDs. Other formats usually mean you are screwed when you have to replace. So far LED strips seem the best way. A bit of soldering but you can replace them by parts.
Screw in bulbs make plenty of sense. You are not going to get people to convert to LEDs by forcing them to replace every single fixture in their home. That would be ridiculousmaxxing.
It would be nice to have an updated standards for newer buildings, though. In practice fewer and fewer fittings are using screw-in lightbulbs at all but there's not another standard.
I would love to buy an LED bulb that lasts a long time. I thought the reason for their premium price was supposed long lifetime. Mine all last as long as the older bulbs but cost 5X as much. Where can I buy such bulbs in the US?
There can be a lot of variation. From what I've seen, I'd say 2-5 years is a typical lifespan for an LED bulb. We have some recessed lights in the kitchen that require brighter bulbs, and those typically last only 1-2 years. But then we also have some other (non-replaceable!) recessed lights that are 14 years old and still work fine.
There was one time I bought some cheap ones from Amazon, and several of them failed within a few months. There was also an LED bulb in the front porch light (so, outside) that lasted around 10 years, despite being outside and used daily. I had several of that same type and that particular one lasted longer than all of the others, where the others were all inside and not installed upside down. So yeah, it varies.
My Philips Hue bulbs are going strong for just over 7 years now. They are the premium bulb in my experience. I've bought other LED strips using controllers compatible with Hue, but they died where there are obvious burned points all along the strip. We all have different experiences that will counter each other, so it's frustrating to no end on finding trust worthy devices.
Regardless of all of that frustration, thank the gods we no longer have to deal with CFL
> The only place where this doesn’t happen is in the country of Dubai.
As far as I'm aware, we've got comparable bulbs available in Canada. We've got the Philips 95 CRI ultra definition bulbs and the ultra efficiency bulbs.
The UltraEfficient bulbs seem better-specced than the Dubai bulbs - the standard A19 of the latter is specced for 6W/600 lumen/25k hours at 80 CRI, while the bulbs I can buy at the drug store here are specced for 5W/810 lumen/50k hours at 80 CRI.
Interesting. I was just thinking I have never had to replace a single bulb in my apartment. I have lived here for five years and the bulbs weren’t new when I moved in.
I also have Nanoleafs that I have had for about six years and so far no issues. They run for about 12 hours a day on most days.
I am in BC,CA. I gotta take apart my lights and see what they are.
> I go through so many LED bulbs! I don't know if my electricity is like particularly bad or if that's just normal? The first LED bulb I ever bought (Shout out EarthLED) in 2008 for like $30 is still going strong, but every bulb I buy these days lasts like two years tops.
That is abnormal compared to my experience. I have a lot of bulbs in my house between recessed lights, fixtures and lamps, probably 150-200 in total, and in the 5 years I've been in this house I've had, I think, 3 bulbs in total fail.
Yeah, I have so many LED bulbs that are rated at "10+ years". I put all of the lights in my apartment 5 years ago. I'd say the failure rate is 10-20% at this point. The particularly painful one is the downlights under my kitchen cabinets. They require removing the entire probably 30 kg board that I have them mounted in, which requires clamping things up and undoing 6 heavy duty screws, and the whole process of changing one takes about an hour. 2 of the 5 have failed in 5 years. I'm very picky about lighting (only get LEDs with CRI 95+), so I usually am buying the expensive ones.
Same here. We have had outdoor hanging string lights for ~10 years with nice incandescent bulbs that occasionally burn out. I thought I would join the 21st century and started replacing the burned out ones with LED versions. Big mistake. In about 3 years, half of the new LED ones have already failed. Managed to find a new pack of the incandescent ones and so far so good.
> There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.
There absolutely is. If you have a fan with a light controlled by separate wall switches, you have two hots running to the fixture. Take one, and leave it unswitched always on to the fixture, and use the second switch (or fan controller) and use it as an input to the controller on the fan. Done.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen this implemented anywhere.
This message brought to you by the hours I've spent annoyed by exactly this misfeature in our new bedroom fan. Fanimation does sell a wall mounted remote that can be wired inline with a switch, so at least there's a single point for master power and a remote you can't lose. Unfortunately, there's a noticeable delay between flipping the switch and the light turning on.
> There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.
I went through this pain when I bought ceiling fans a few years ago. Various manufacturers offer switches or remotes you can attach to the wall but that take batteries - the options for actual wired switches are slim. I ended up with a few hardwired Big Ass Fans wall controllers that work pretty well - but their current-gen wall controls are hardwired bluetooth remotes, which is subpar for something that's connected via wire. (And they cost $210/each, which is pretty egregious for a wall switch.)
> DC fans are infinitely superior to AC fans (noise, torque, longevity, etc.), which is unfortunately why this became a thing.
What?
Every house I've ever lived in over my many decades of life has had ceiling fans. I've never known one to fail, never known one to be noisy, and never known one to have inadequate power. I've personally installed a couple and know those got wired straight into AC mains power... so unless they have a converter built in, I figure that every ceiling fan I've ever lived with has been AC powered.
Unless you've been working with absolute bottom of the barrel fans (and those fans are worse than I could possibly imagine), this smells like industry propaganda to me.
> There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.
OP is asking for a normal pull chain or switch... one that's attached to the fan housing, not some doodad that's embedded in the wall and needs to be specially wired into the fan electrics. I've been to the houses of a few friends that have had fans controlled with a handheld wireless controller, and I can confirm that that was -overall- way worse than hauling my ass up to pull a damn chain.
The POE hats for something like a pi convert the high voltage (~48v) down to 5V, so efficiency is going to be generally middling if you don’t spend a lot on the components. I imagine they’re running 80% efficiency or so, which would be an easy 3W of dissipation at peak or so.
My MinkaAirs use 303MHz remotes. No pull chains. This frustrated me so much, last night i got an ESP32-S3 + CC1101 and reverse engineered the signal to the fans to be also control it from Home Assistant. Now, if i lose or break the controller, i can still switch the fans & built-in LED on & off another way. not perfect, but it is in my control.
Probably not anything more complicated than running some kind of signal receiver while clicking each button on the remote and then capturing/replaying it. I highly doubt there's much if any security around the fan remote signals lol.
Don't do that! v041 has been compromised upstream by a supply chain attack and big fan doesn't want us to know. You have to use v040 until it has been fixed. Also, used the hacked flashing software because the official version is spyware. Did you even read page 723 of the support thread?? I can give you more info when I am done patching my toaster.
In two apartments, the remote affected the neighbor's fan and vice-versa. At first I wondered at the fan's erratic behavior, especially switching modes soon after I changed it. Then I guessed the problem and spoke to the neighbor.
I tried changing channels in the remote but that didn't seem to help much. With the second neighbor, the fans were in my living room and their bedroom. We agreed to control fans in shifts (I turned mine off at night).
It's hard to believe it's just a very unlikely coincidence. Maybe the channels are too few or narrow to be useful? How hard would it be to implement some psuedo-UID?
This annoys me too. My Casablanca fans have a wall switch which is hard wired to power only for on/off, but the fan and light controls are sent via a radio frequency signal. The most frustrating part of this, is that the RF transmitter inside the wall switch is battery operated. I have to unscrew the wall switch a couple times a year to get to the batteries.
As someone that designs battery powered RF devices. It's shocking an disheartening seeing stuff like that.
Things drawing an average of a few hundred microamps while the fan is running. Probably because it's blasting a keep alive packet once a second or so. It does that because a transceiver costs an extra 50 cents.
Early LEDs were fine. Then they overclocked them a bit too much and they just break now. Too much current and so on. You can make a very simple led very bright but it won't last. If you undervolt them instead they are dim but last forever. So the deal is to have many undevolted LEDs. Ofc that is pricier...
It's funny how popular it is to take an extremely durable and long-lived light-generating technology and pair it with the cheapest short-lived power electronics.
To add to that, my advice is to look for LED lights where the AC-to-DC conversion is done by a power brick separate from the lights. Not only does that mean you can replace them separately, but generally these will be much more robust as the power electronics won't be as constrained by size.
I wish it caught on to have LED lights powered by a barrel jack DC plug like you have for most electronics. It would be a huge win for longevity. Sure it's not backwards compatible with fixtures designed for light bulbs, but the cases we're discussing here are complete light fixture replacements anyways... The fixture could have a barrel plug that you connect to an inexpensive commodity DC power brick which you then hide away in the ceiling.
A lot of comments are trying to defend this by saying a properly designed light could last some amount longer, which is true, but misses the point. These designs couple the light and the fan. That’s an extra failure mode that doesn’t need to exist.
It also prevents the user from changing the bulb if they want a different color temperature or better CRI. Most of the built-in lights I see are in the 3000-3500K range, which is cooler the warm white I’ve chosen for the house. If I could swap the bulb it would be an easy fix, but if it’s built in then I’m stuck with it.
Yeah anything which forces you to use whatever the manufacturer chooses is an instant no from me too. I don't have any fixed lights cooler than 2200 K at home, the standard 3000 K 'warm' white is going to look crappy the majority of the time.
Those are generally bad quality because they’ve split the LED budget across twice as many modules.
A high CRI single color temperature bulb beats them in light quality.
Most people aren’t going to notice, but if you’ve done any work with color, lighting, or photography then the average consumer LED lights feel terrible. They’re mostly blue light with a little bit of other colors to make them appear white to the eye.
110VAC "LED bulbs" are not the same thing as the LEDs on a PCB in a DC motor ceiling fan.
"LED bulbs" die because they have to rectify 110VAC (hot) into LEDs (hot) into an enclosure that was designed for incandescents.
In a proper enclosure, with cooling (it's a fan), they will actually live their fully-stated lifetime - assuming the fan's upstream power supply makes it.
> A recessed can or “upside down” ceiling fan globe with an open bottom is technically an enclosed fixture since heat rises.
Typically fans with built-in LED downlights are engineered to actually dissipate heat - and they have a much larger area to do it in. Edison-format bulbs are inherently space-constrained.
> In a proper enclosure, with cooling (it's a fan), they will actually live their fully-stated lifetime - assuming the fan's upstream power supply makes it.
But in an "old school" hardware, you'd then replace the bulb and get a new "lifetime" out of it, here you have to throw everything away.
An AC motor has basically nothing inside that can fail (maybe the capactitor, but that can be replaced), and can work for a hundred years and more if properly maintained (mostly cleaned).
On average ~6 hours per day (living room with night owls living there), is ~2000 hours per year... 5 years at 10.000hours expected lifetime for the leds, 10 if the stated lifetime is 20k hours... that's not really that long.
You can replace parts that don't come in nice detachable sockets.
Lightbulbs came in sockets because they were meant to fail. First by accident, later intentionally. They were also quite breakable because they were made of glass. LED lights don't have these problems unless they're designed to. Which is the meta-problem - how do you know which ones are planned obsolete?
Forcing an LED system into a lightbulb from factor has quality and cost implications though. A good LED light has a separate power brick inside the enclosure. Which is what you see in these fan lights.
I build lights with cob modules with phosphor (bridgelux), and unless I screw up the thermal interface, I get many years out of modules that cost < $5 each. one thing is that the thermal paste is too fiddly for most people, voltage/current tends to drift around and 0.5V is a big difference here. mechanically they tend to use a couple different form factors, but not 100%. the 10 watt units I had been using were bigger than the 15w I use now, and the mounting spacing went from 0.75 to 0.71
I would hope that at least some of this would get standardized over time
> An AC motor has basically nothing inside that can fail
Let me know how the non-replaceable sealed bearing packs in these AC or DC fans fare after 10,000 hours.
In a proper/high-end DC fan, the bearings are failing before any motors or LEDs.
Regardless, in a Big Ass Fans Haiku, the downlight is a completely separate/replaceable module - and it isn't going to fail before the bearings or motor.
Edison screw LED bulbs are the inferior design by every objective measure.
> Let me know how the non-replaceable sealed bearing packs in these AC or DC fans fare after 10,000 hours.
...your AC-powered ceiling fans are failing (or even "just" substantially degrading) after a little under fourteen months? What garbage are you buying?
Interesting; I’ve literally never had an LED bulb die that can remember. I’ve got a bunch of Ikea Tradfri bulbs that are now ~8y old and used daily. (240v here btw.)
I’ve replaced at least a dozen. Multiple brands, ranging from rando amazon brands to name brands like CREE and GE.
I’m under the impression at this point that they just do not do well inside can lights. I honestly don’t think the average lifespan is much higher than incandescent in that scenario.
> I’ve literally never had an LED bulb die that can remember.
This 120v-using USian has had many fail, and if they don't fail by intermittently blinking and flickering [0], they fail by slowly giving me worse and worse and worse headaches [1]. Unless you choose to count the fact that they were technically still emitting light, I've never gotten the rated lifetime out of a screw-in LED bulb.
[0] ...as all of the ACE Hardware ones did...
[1] ...as all of the dimmable [2] CREE ones did...
[2] These were never attached to a dimmer. At the time, the advice was to get LED bulbs rated for use in a dimmer, as it was believed that that would get you higher-quality construction.
Led bulbs should last you 20 years. I once lived in a place with dodgy power and led bulbs would burn out - sometimes less than a year. You could also turn the microwave on and see the lights dim.
It's bad power - transients apparently kill LEDs quickly.
Me - I have the exact same bulbs in my off grid property, and in my on-grid property. On grid, it's about 18 months MTBF. Off grid - it's been seven years and I haven't had to replace a single bulb yet. On-grid our power is anywhere between 205 and 235v, often has spikes up to 260+, and has like 99% uptime. Off grid, it's 230v, day in, day out. Grid power is terrible in most places.
It’s the same story for basically any part of a home. Faucets, furniture, tubs, windows, doors, floors, lamps, you name it.
What a testament to the manufacturing advances that have made it profitable to cater to every possible taste, budget, and architectural layout. It’s incredible actually.
I just wish there was some way to replace the LEDs on these things when they inevitably die. And, no matter what large number of years or decades are slathered on the box, inevitably at least one LED panel will blow out three to six months after purchase, nominally still in warranty but good luck getting any service under it, I'm sure. If there was, there could be a place for at least some of these in a house, but the amount of crap that you have no choice but to throw out as soon as the LEDs fry is insane.
This is why my "fancy" lighting fixture is an old track (whose proprietary lights died a long time ago) wrapped with an extension cable with 5 standard sockets on it, and some standard light bulbs in it. We dress it up with ribbons and stuff for the seasons. It doesn't look as nice as any of the things in that article, not even the gaudy and tasteless ones, but when a bulb burn out, I put a new one in and get on with life, I don't throw out an entire fan and buy a new one.
I'm old enough to remember when I was promised LEDs would last approximately forever without having to be replaced.
Your local inspector may have opinions about this, but you can buy all the components of an excellent LED system from your favorite electronics distributor, e.g. DigiKey.
Don’t waste your time or eyeballs with “driverless” devices. Get a chip-on-board LED, e.g. Bridgelux’s products, along with a matching driver (I like Luminus Devices’ small drivers - they have good startup and dimming behavior).
Aside from usual electrical safety, anyone designing what is effectively a luminaire needs to make sure that the driver matches the LED and that the driver is compatible with the dimmer in use. Matching the LED means that the driver produces an amount of current that that LED’s datasheet data is acceptable and that produces the amount of light that is desired and dissipates an amount of heat that can be managed. And that the LED’s voltage drop at the design current is in range for the driver. These LEDs are constant current devices, so you’re thinking about current first and voltage second. Read the datasheets!
Unfortunately many cheap luminaires are based on modules that are either driverless LEDs (which are terrible due to essentially unavoidable flicker and lack of regulation) or are line-voltage-supplied integrated devices. These are likely to be hard-to-find modules. There may not be room for a discrete driver and separate LED.
But then, the problem is, it depends on the specific fixture. They aren't exactly putting "EASY TO REPLACE LEDS" on the box. I can't climb up to the store display model and start hacking away at it to see if I can get to the LEDs, replace them, and reassemble it correctly.
What I saw last time I was in a store where the fixtures were on eye level looked like a lot of glue, one-way tabs, and LED strips of unknown and custom provenance were being used. I'm not really looking for this sort of experience in a lighting fixture. YMMV and more power to you.
Yeah. It's not just cost, it's time. If I have to replace the fan, that's a trip to a hardware store, then a half hour (at least) to remove the old and install the new and get it wired correctly, so that it works and doesn't burn my house down. Then I have to take the old one apart far enough to fit it into the garbage can.
Replacing a bulb is a trip to my stash of bulbs in the laundry room, then throwing the old one in the trash.
I don't have time in my life for a fan with non-replaceable bulbs.
> I'm old enough to remember when I was promised LEDs would last approximately forever without having to be replaced.
Yep, I remember that when Obama banned most incandescent lights because 'LED lighting is the future and 100 year lifespans blabla'.
Mind you, we used CFLs in the warm season, and incandescent in cold seasons. Incandescents are 100% efficient in cold seasons (heater AND light).
As much as I deign to admit, Trump reversed Obama's ban. And Biden reinstated it. I don't think Trump reversed Biden's reinstatement though. He's been way too busy with wrecking the country for shits and giggles.
But what the LED manufacturers figured out is they could overdrive LEDs and use substandard electronics for driving them. So sure, LEDs are more efficient, but they're the same old burnout cycle that's forced on us.
> Worse than natural gas or heating oil, and much worse than a heat pump.
Worse than a heat pump, yes, but very arguable whether NG is more efficient. Arguably, NG powering central electric power generation and then used for resistive would be overall more efficient. Central NG will be more efficient and also there’s substantially less opportunity for NG leakage if piping was reduced.
NG is definitely cheaper (at least in the US), but that’s not really related to efficiency or emissions cost.
I’m not sure that’s easily quantifiable. Yes, thermal efficiency of modern NG furnaces can be ~95% or whatever… but you can also run multi stage heat capturing NG power plants that have very high overall efficiency too. Not 95, but at 60-70%, it’d be a potential wash in terms of emissions if leaks are ~10% (especially considering how much worse unburnt NG is as a leak vs when it’s burnt).
Also, if you’re in the electric ecosystem, swapping to heat pump systems will obviously be lower overall power in basically every scenario, and it gives an easy transition path unlike NG.
I don't care much on the politics of it all because I do think a lot of it is silly, especially with how profit-motivated companies will still find a way to profit.
I will say I've had a number of Hue bulbs starting back in about 2018 and have yet to lose one except for a surge that got an unprotected strip. Otherwise, plenty of white and color bulbs have worked steadfast for nearly a decade while costing a fraction in energy. That said, I do miss the warmth of incandescent lighting, but I don't miss replacing bulbs multiple times a year
> The sea was purple. The beach they were on was composed of tiny yellow and
green pebbles - presumably terribly precious stones. The mountains in the
distance seemed soft and undulating with red peaks. Nearby stood a solid silver beach table with a frilly mauve parasol and silver tassles.
> In the sky a huge sign appeared, replacing the catalogue number. It said,
Whatever your tastes, Magrathea can cater for you. We are not proud.
All of the stuff available is basically a mix of the elements the author puts on his 8 images on the beginning of the article. Where only 2 of them have fans that can actually vent a room.
> a normal fan that for some reason has a border around it
So, a ducted fan! That would be a sensible and practical design if your ceiling needed extra thrust for takeoff.
Cheap and stupid goods with threatening auras, indeed. Possibly a step up from the 90s when it was cheap and stupid goods with a Memphis Group primary school aesthetic. Hard to choose.
I had to look that up and found some pretty cool articles. I like that the vapourwave trend from the 2010s created a lot of focus on the different aesthetics of software and everyday things on the internet.
The latter two links are from a dedicated "aesthetics wiki". I tend to like the detailed user-created content on fandom.com wikis, but I loathe the site itself. At least a lot of the fan wikis have moved to wiki.gg, which has a much less intrusive design (speaking of aesthetics).
The movie Beetlejuice (1988) contains within it a sort of aesthetic manifesto from Tim Burton, in which he rails against the passing of traditional architecture under the wave of Memphis modernity.
Before they die, the Maitlands lovingly restore their Connecticut Victorian home and even keep a model of the whole town up in their attic, as if capturing for themselves a bit of the town's bucolic New England charm. When they die, the Dietzes move in, and Delia declares psychotically, "I'll go crazy if you don't let me remodel this house!" With help from the obnoxious Otho she strips away the traditional Victorian trappings and turns the house into a modernist, Memphis-inspired nightmare, forcing the Maitlands to watch in horror as their hard work is destroyed (that is until they summon the title character). In keeping with the movie's structure as a "reverse ghost story" in which the ghosts are nice and the living humans are the horror.
Personally I find Memphis fascinating (though I wouldn't want to live there). I especially appreciate its influence on the design language of Sonic the Hedgehog games, as a complement to the greater variety of slopes, gradients, and curved ramps the early games afforded, to showcase the greater capabilities of the Sega Genesis. (That's really entirely why Sonic exists; some guys at Sega played Mario 3 and figured that they could "do Mario, but better".)
Don't underestimate the ability to make it very difficult to non-destructively reach the actual LEDs in many of these devices in the name of being small or "stylish."
most forget, but fan blades need cleaning. any plastic blades, specially the clear one will look like cat vomit.
Imagine clear blades with each blade displaying cat hairballs spread out on the edges, spinning them above your head. It will harass you, give ammo to your in-laws to harass you, create marital strife (when are you going to clean that?) and then death as you fall off the ladder and break your neck on the coffee table, despite surviving four frontline deployments...
While I admire the humor of the article, the overall vibe feels like the author simply cannot imagine that practicality isn't the only requirement when it comes to design, and on top of that, thinks that American marketing is the only god-approved style of marketing.
I recommend the author to go and talk to a few women. It's a very demanding request, but I insist on it. Once he understands and internalizes the logic of "my shoes are uncomfortable but they fit my purse", he'll be able to:
1. Understand that different designs have different proportions of practicality and looks, because different customers can have different expectations. I know it's hard to believe, but there are places on Earth besides Arizona, and in some places you only need to turn on the fan once a year gently, all the other days it just hangs there and is visible. Just like a woman won't be putting hiking shoes for an event where she's sitting by the table all day long (men tend to do that).
2. See the concept of "style". It might sound like an outrageous claim, but bear with me: different people like different things! Just because author doesn't like particular design, it doesn't mean that the design is objectively ugly. Shocking, I know. Different people want to build different vibes in their rooms, which is why we have a variety of designs, fitting different styles.
If the author can stomach the idea that there is life outside of Arizona, I'll try an even more radical idea: China exists. Like, really. 1 billion people that aren't Americans. They don't speak English. They don't use Latin alphabet - they actually don't use an alphabet at all! They don't say "Hello, how are you? I'm good, thank you, what about you?". I'd really love the author to spend a few minutes to imagine that. Because my argument is that, even though I have little proof of it, the Chinese might enjoy different ways of having the product presented, and the author is bitching about seeing marketing that was designed by and for the Chinese audiences.
Many times I pass by an ad and I think to myself, "This ad obviously targets American customers but I'm in Europe. Do Americans really think that their culture is the default, universal culture that joins all of humanity?".
Kate Wagner is the creator of the viral blog McMansionHell, which roasts the world’s ugliest houses from top to bottom, all while teaching about architecture and design. [...] Kate prefers the pronouns she/her or they/them. - https://mcmansionhell.com/about
I wanted to buy a ceiling fan last year, and just gave up.
LEDs integrated into fans are the worst idea. If they're not bright enough, you're hosed. You generally can't change the color. Just stick to proven fixtures, and let me put my own choice of bulbs in it!
The other problem is just how houses/apartments are designed in the US. You should always have a separate wall switch for fan and lights! Why they couple the two - I can't fathom.
> Just stick to proven fixtures, and let me put my own choice of bulbs in it!
LED retrofit bulbs (Edison screws) are just shit no matter what - your choice will basically almost always be inferior to something that can be integrated into a fan by virtue of the technology.
Down-facing light from ceiling fans is also just bad, even on a $2000 Big Ass Fans Haiku. Central-point overhead lighting is displeasing.
You're not wrong - but what do I do when the light is not bright enough (hint - almost all of them are not bright enough for my needs)?
And how many of them can I control with SmartThings, etc?
With my own bulbs, I can have it how I want it. I pick the fan based on the fan's capabilities, and not worry about the light.
> Central-point overhead lighting is displeasing.
No arguments there, but most houses/apartments in the US are built in this brain dead way. When I lived abroad, it was much better. The lights were always on the walls - often opposing walls. This way, light is coming more at an angle downwards, and you can position chairs/beds/couches such that the light is behind you, and if you're reading a book, the pages are being lit up by it.
> You're not wrong - but what do I do when the light is not bright enough (hint - almost all of them are not bright enough for my needs)?
Replace the entire LED base with a brighter one if you need more lumens. If you do the same with a standard e26 or candelabra bulb setup, you’ll have the exact same issue with bulb longevity. Brighter bulbs stuffed into the tiny enclosures will absolutely cook.
> Sometimes new design phenomena slip past even those of us who are most in tune with the happenings of the built environment.
I went to Wayfair and searched ceiling fans and holy moly this space has changed! I thought to myself, "I don't see these when walking through my local bigbox hardware store?" So I went to Lowe's website and fandeliers are an entire category now.
This was something that, and this probably comes as no surprise for the ones in the know, Technology Connections youtube channel has noted, the preference for form over function https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KWdCqpXB7A
Growing up in Texas, I have always had a fan up and running. When living in apartments and houses that didn’t come with them I’ve put them up (likely breaking a stupid lease rule). At this point I’ve installed dozens of fans and have enough strong opinions on ceiling fans that I could write a lengthy blog post on the subject.
Don’t buy any of these junk fans. Get a normal looking fan, with a quiet DC motor, that takes standard light bulbs with a medium base (e26 in the USA).
Skip modern AC motors, nobody today can seem to build one that doesn’t whomp when it runs. Older AC motors weren’t so cheaply made and don’t usually suffer this problem.
If you have an older fan 25+ years old, you can often rebuild them and end up with a better fan than anything you can buy today.
If you’re building a new house (or doing a rewire) put two light switches in every bedroom, one for the fan the other for the light kit.
If you’re getting a fan with a remote, get one that will let you change the spin direction from the remote.
Get the correct size fan for the room.
Friends don’t let friends buy Hunter Fans, they are all hot garbage. Though they do follow through with their warranties.
The bigger issue I see in new construction is that all the recessed fixtures are replaced with flat LED modules that are not serviceable.
I refuse to own a home built after ~2015 due to this and other factors. Electricity on my kitchen island, toilets that can flush human sized shits, and proper lighting fixtures are non-negotiable for me.
They are serviceable in the sense that you simply replace them when they fail. Given that they cost so little now and have a service life of decades, it's more cost effective than a traditional fixture. Older fixtures with LEDs jammed into them were always an interim solution, and more prone to failure simply because of the design.
What do you mean? I’d much rather pay $30 for a separate LED driver and LED module that will last x0,000 hours and comes with a five year warranty instead of crappy LED lamps that last a few thousand hours.
Cooper makes the HALO RL series LED can retrofit modules that can be had for $30 with adjustable color temp and dimming capable, with a five-year warranty.
Modern fan company .. I’ve take a few of them apart. They’re built from a different era — really thought out and quality build. It’s just a rare product that when you get your hands on it, you appreciate the craft and engineering that went into manufacturing it.
Funny thing... if we decided to add a ceiling fan to our apartment (we never would - we loathe them) we would have to commission an engineering study to make sure it doesn't affect our neighbors. The sound, the resonance... if we just put one in and the neighbors could hear it we'd have to remove it.
This kind of reminds me of the “Island” situation on Magic: the Gathering cards. An island is a piece of land, surrounded by water. However, due to 30+ years of needing to draw new versions of islands, Wizards of the Coast has expanded what it means to be an island, ending up with things that are… not that: https://imgur.com/a/xVnyP
I always see people complaining about failing LED lamps. It’s almost always because people are using lamps rated for open fixtures in enclosed fixtures. If it’s not a table lamp or standing lamp, it’s likely an enclosed fixture. A recessed can with an open bottom is considered an enclosed fixture, and so is an open-bottom chandelier globe.
I suggest only buying enclosed rated fixture lamps because they put out less heat and will last longer in an open or enclosed fixture.
Many retailers only sell open fixture lamps. And you need to read the fine print on the packaging to know that. Most consumers have no idea that this is even a thing.
My wife and I were out recently looking at ceiling fans to replace the one in our dining room, which has committed no crimes, other than having the appearance of being very much from the 1980s.
I was taken aback by how few of the fans had replaceable lightbulbs! In the entire store there were maybe three or four options with a replaceable bulb!
Call me crazy, but a nonreplaceable LED is a complete dealbreaker. I go through so many LED bulbs! I don't know if my electricity is like particularly bad or if that's just normal? The first LED bulb I ever bought (Shout out EarthLED) in 2008 for like $30 is still going strong, but every bulb I buy these days lasts like two years tops.
Anyway, we did not buy a fan.
I had a car that had non replaceable light bulbs in the rear blinkers, just a strip of led integrated deeply in the tail light assembly. Of course the blinker died. Replaced the whole assembly. (And replaced the whole car later). Apparently some enthusiasts do disassemble them and replace just the led strip, probably requiring soldering etc. This company had designed cars for about 120 years at that point but still seemed to commit easy mistakes...
This makes sense when you realize most ICE car makers get a substantial portion of their revenue from maintenance and replacement parts.
When an LED bulb dies, it's typically not the LED, it's the electronics driving it. This is worsened substantially by heat. If you have recessed downlights or something, that's close to worst-case for an LED bulb.
Lights with non-replaceable bulbs can actually be far better, because they can be designed for their environment. Recessed downlights with built-in LEDs for example can thermally couple the LEDs directly to the metal housing, so the heat can be dissipated into the surrounding air, instead of into the recess.
Maybe in theory. In practice, the Phoebus Cartel was a real thing, and they limited lightbulb lifespans, worldwide. The same thing exists today, albeit more because companies that sell lightbulbs want to keep selling them, instead of putting themselves out of business. So, many LED lightbulbs are intentionally designed to fail early.
The only place where this doesn’t happen is in the country of Dubai. Because of national law, lightbulbs sold there are required to have very long lifespans. That’s why there is a world-wide grey market business for taking existing LED lightbulbs apart, snipping off a resistor so that they pull about half the amperage and then putting them back together, and suddenly their lifespan is increased by 10-100x. This is called a “doobie”, after the name of the country. Check out “bigclivedotcom” on YouTube if you want to see this in action.
You will notice this if you buy Philips Ultra Definition bulbs in Dubai, versus the same bulbs sold at the same amount of lumen output from the UK or elsewhere in the world. The “doobie” version has twice as many LED filaments inside, compared to the UK version. Same price, way different life span. Philips is one of the better manufacturers of lightbulbs, and nowhere remotely close to the only one doing this.
With regards to LED light fixtures (ones that don’t allow you to screw in your own bulb), most manufacturers do the same thing. They’re designed to fail early. Who wants light fixture styling that is fifty years old, just because the LED lights inside haven’t failed yet? They want to make you buy new fixtures every couple of years, just like they do for bulbs.
Yes, there are exceptions in both cases. But they are the rare exceptions, not the rule. And if you haven’t studied up on the Phoebus Cartel, you can start with the article on Wikipedia.
I'm well aware of the Phoebus Cartel. It's not as straightforward as often reported. Have a look at Technology Connections: https://youtu.be/zb7Bs98KmnY
Dubai isn't a country. It's a city in the United Arab Emirates.
The Dubai bulb isn't some trick Big Lightbulb doesn't want you to know about, it's an engineering tradeoff: lower current on more filaments gives you higher efficiency and lower temperature but at higher cost and with substantially lower light quality (CRI).
You'll find that after EU energy labeling, there are products available to European consumers that well exceed the specifications of the "Dubai" bulbs. Look for EU energy class A. They often come with a 5-year warranty and rated lifespan of 50000 hours. The "Dubai" bulbs were rated for 25000 hours. You'll also find though that they're substantially more expensive and usually don't have a CRI above 90.
Regarding planned obsolescence, in many cases I can believe that a product will fail earlier than it would if designed for longevity. Rather than planned obsolescence, I believe this is simply a result of being cheap, a consequence of the race to the bottom. If you're buying cheap Chinese fixtures for $10, or cheap Chinese bulbs for $2, you're not going to get a high-quality, long-lasting product.
If you want products that last a long time, buy them and use them properly. If you want bright lights, make sure they're adequately cooled. Consider buying lower-voltage fixtures and bulbs so that you can have a separate power supply and don't put the full ~230V to ~3V conversion in a tiny space.
Biggest problem of leds is we have no good standards. Classic screw in bulb makes no sense with LEDs. Other formats usually mean you are screwed when you have to replace. So far LED strips seem the best way. A bit of soldering but you can replace them by parts.
Screw in bulbs make plenty of sense. You are not going to get people to convert to LEDs by forcing them to replace every single fixture in their home. That would be ridiculousmaxxing.
It would be nice to have an updated standards for newer buildings, though. In practice fewer and fewer fittings are using screw-in lightbulbs at all but there's not another standard.
I would love to buy an LED bulb that lasts a long time. I thought the reason for their premium price was supposed long lifetime. Mine all last as long as the older bulbs but cost 5X as much. Where can I buy such bulbs in the US?
There can be a lot of variation. From what I've seen, I'd say 2-5 years is a typical lifespan for an LED bulb. We have some recessed lights in the kitchen that require brighter bulbs, and those typically last only 1-2 years. But then we also have some other (non-replaceable!) recessed lights that are 14 years old and still work fine.
There was one time I bought some cheap ones from Amazon, and several of them failed within a few months. There was also an LED bulb in the front porch light (so, outside) that lasted around 10 years, despite being outside and used daily. I had several of that same type and that particular one lasted longer than all of the others, where the others were all inside and not installed upside down. So yeah, it varies.
My Philips Hue bulbs are going strong for just over 7 years now. They are the premium bulb in my experience. I've bought other LED strips using controllers compatible with Hue, but they died where there are obvious burned points all along the strip. We all have different experiences that will counter each other, so it's frustrating to no end on finding trust worthy devices.
Regardless of all of that frustration, thank the gods we no longer have to deal with CFL
> The only place where this doesn’t happen is in the country of Dubai.
As far as I'm aware, we've got comparable bulbs available in Canada. We've got the Philips 95 CRI ultra definition bulbs and the ultra efficiency bulbs.
The UltraEfficient bulbs seem better-specced than the Dubai bulbs - the standard A19 of the latter is specced for 6W/600 lumen/25k hours at 80 CRI, while the bulbs I can buy at the drug store here are specced for 5W/810 lumen/50k hours at 80 CRI.
Interesting. I was just thinking I have never had to replace a single bulb in my apartment. I have lived here for five years and the bulbs weren’t new when I moved in.
I also have Nanoleafs that I have had for about six years and so far no issues. They run for about 12 hours a day on most days.
I am in BC,CA. I gotta take apart my lights and see what they are.
Read about Dubai light years ago. I am happily surprised someone else knows about this too :)
> I go through so many LED bulbs! I don't know if my electricity is like particularly bad or if that's just normal? The first LED bulb I ever bought (Shout out EarthLED) in 2008 for like $30 is still going strong, but every bulb I buy these days lasts like two years tops.
That is abnormal compared to my experience. I have a lot of bulbs in my house between recessed lights, fixtures and lamps, probably 150-200 in total, and in the 5 years I've been in this house I've had, I think, 3 bulbs in total fail.
Yeah, I have so many LED bulbs that are rated at "10+ years". I put all of the lights in my apartment 5 years ago. I'd say the failure rate is 10-20% at this point. The particularly painful one is the downlights under my kitchen cabinets. They require removing the entire probably 30 kg board that I have them mounted in, which requires clamping things up and undoing 6 heavy duty screws, and the whole process of changing one takes about an hour. 2 of the 5 have failed in 5 years. I'm very picky about lighting (only get LEDs with CRI 95+), so I usually am buying the expensive ones.
Same here. We have had outdoor hanging string lights for ~10 years with nice incandescent bulbs that occasionally burn out. I thought I would join the 21st century and started replacing the burned out ones with LED versions. Big mistake. In about 3 years, half of the new LED ones have already failed. Managed to find a new pack of the incandescent ones and so far so good.
My pet peeve is remote controlled fans. I want a physical cord or switch. The remotes are so flaky and annoying.
DC fans are infinitely superior to AC fans (noise, torque, longevity, etc.), which is unfortunately why this became a thing.
There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.
> There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.
There absolutely is. If you have a fan with a light controlled by separate wall switches, you have two hots running to the fixture. Take one, and leave it unswitched always on to the fixture, and use the second switch (or fan controller) and use it as an input to the controller on the fan. Done.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen this implemented anywhere.
This message brought to you by the hours I've spent annoyed by exactly this misfeature in our new bedroom fan. Fanimation does sell a wall mounted remote that can be wired inline with a switch, so at least there's a single point for master power and a remote you can't lose. Unfortunately, there's a noticeable delay between flipping the switch and the light turning on.
> There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.
I went through this pain when I bought ceiling fans a few years ago. Various manufacturers offer switches or remotes you can attach to the wall but that take batteries - the options for actual wired switches are slim. I ended up with a few hardwired Big Ass Fans wall controllers that work pretty well - but their current-gen wall controls are hardwired bluetooth remotes, which is subpar for something that's connected via wire. (And they cost $210/each, which is pretty egregious for a wall switch.)
> DC fans are infinitely superior to AC fans (noise, torque, longevity, etc.), which is unfortunately why this became a thing.
What?
Every house I've ever lived in over my many decades of life has had ceiling fans. I've never known one to fail, never known one to be noisy, and never known one to have inadequate power. I've personally installed a couple and know those got wired straight into AC mains power... so unless they have a converter built in, I figure that every ceiling fan I've ever lived with has been AC powered.
Unless you've been working with absolute bottom of the barrel fans (and those fans are worse than I could possibly imagine), this smells like industry propaganda to me.
> There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.
OP is asking for a normal pull chain or switch... one that's attached to the fan housing, not some doodad that's embedded in the wall and needs to be specially wired into the fan electrics. I've been to the houses of a few friends that have had fans controlled with a handheld wireless controller, and I can confirm that that was -overall- way worse than hauling my ass up to pull a damn chain.
I want more POE devices.
It might be that POE power supplies get hot - I've noticed the POE hats for the raspberry pi need a fan
The POE hats for something like a pi convert the high voltage (~48v) down to 5V, so efficiency is going to be generally middling if you don’t spend a lot on the components. I imagine they’re running 80% efficiency or so, which would be an easy 3W of dissipation at peak or so.
My MinkaAirs use 303MHz remotes. No pull chains. This frustrated me so much, last night i got an ESP32-S3 + CC1101 and reverse engineered the signal to the fans to be also control it from Home Assistant. Now, if i lose or break the controller, i can still switch the fans & built-in LED on & off another way. not perfect, but it is in my control.
How did you reverse engineer the signal?
I’ve looked at a product called Bond that seems to facilitate it. But haven’t yet tried it.
Probably not anything more complicated than running some kind of signal receiver while clicking each button on the remote and then capturing/replaying it. I highly doubt there's much if any security around the fan remote signals lol.
Probably AI, it is really good at it. Stuff that normally takes days to reverse is taking minutes now.
Your fan doesn’t need Wi-Fi?
No, my fan is NOT part of the botnet, nor will it ever be.
Just make sure your fan is on the latest firmware!
Don't do that! v041 has been compromised upstream by a supply chain attack and big fan doesn't want us to know. You have to use v040 until it has been fixed. Also, used the hacked flashing software because the official version is spyware. Did you even read page 723 of the support thread?? I can give you more info when I am done patching my toaster.
Can you give me more information on the toaster? I am tired of it toasting slurs into my unlicensed bread....
In two apartments, the remote affected the neighbor's fan and vice-versa. At first I wondered at the fan's erratic behavior, especially switching modes soon after I changed it. Then I guessed the problem and spoke to the neighbor.
I tried changing channels in the remote but that didn't seem to help much. With the second neighbor, the fans were in my living room and their bedroom. We agreed to control fans in shifts (I turned mine off at night).
It's hard to believe it's just a very unlikely coincidence. Maybe the channels are too few or narrow to be useful? How hard would it be to implement some psuedo-UID?
> How hard would it be to implement some psuedo-UID?
Are you mad? That would cost low-single-digit pennies per unit!!! </pennypinching_bigco_derision>
This annoys me too. My Casablanca fans have a wall switch which is hard wired to power only for on/off, but the fan and light controls are sent via a radio frequency signal. The most frustrating part of this, is that the RF transmitter inside the wall switch is battery operated. I have to unscrew the wall switch a couple times a year to get to the batteries.
As someone that designs battery powered RF devices. It's shocking an disheartening seeing stuff like that.
Things drawing an average of a few hundred microamps while the fan is running. Probably because it's blasting a keep alive packet once a second or so. It does that because a transceiver costs an extra 50 cents.
Early LEDs were fine. Then they overclocked them a bit too much and they just break now. Too much current and so on. You can make a very simple led very bright but it won't last. If you undervolt them instead they are dim but last forever. So the deal is to have many undevolted LEDs. Ofc that is pricier...
Not exactly forever: I have a 20+ years old led "bulb" (it's large enough to deal with its own heat) that is barely able to light up a closet now...
It's funny how popular it is to take an extremely durable and long-lived light-generating technology and pair it with the cheapest short-lived power electronics.
To add to that, my advice is to look for LED lights where the AC-to-DC conversion is done by a power brick separate from the lights. Not only does that mean you can replace them separately, but generally these will be much more robust as the power electronics won't be as constrained by size.
I wish it caught on to have LED lights powered by a barrel jack DC plug like you have for most electronics. It would be a huge win for longevity. Sure it's not backwards compatible with fixtures designed for light bulbs, but the cases we're discussing here are complete light fixture replacements anyways... The fixture could have a barrel plug that you connect to an inexpensive commodity DC power brick which you then hide away in the ceiling.
I bought this fan from Amazon: amazon.com/dp/B085W7Q7LF
I bought some high CRI LED bulbs from some place recommended in an HN post.
I'm pretty surprised, I've had LED bulbs for ~5+ years without any dying. I also wouldn't accept a nonreplaceable LED in a ceiling fan though.
A lot of comments are trying to defend this by saying a properly designed light could last some amount longer, which is true, but misses the point. These designs couple the light and the fan. That’s an extra failure mode that doesn’t need to exist.
It also prevents the user from changing the bulb if they want a different color temperature or better CRI. Most of the built-in lights I see are in the 3000-3500K range, which is cooler the warm white I’ve chosen for the house. If I could swap the bulb it would be an easy fix, but if it’s built in then I’m stuck with it.
Yeah anything which forces you to use whatever the manufacturer chooses is an instant no from me too. I don't have any fixed lights cooler than 2200 K at home, the standard 3000 K 'warm' white is going to look crappy the majority of the time.
Does the design actually stop you from replacing the parts or is it just more difficult than plugging in a power plug?
Many of them are switchable color temperature. At least from what I’ve seen.
Those are generally bad quality because they’ve split the LED budget across twice as many modules.
A high CRI single color temperature bulb beats them in light quality.
Most people aren’t going to notice, but if you’ve done any work with color, lighting, or photography then the average consumer LED lights feel terrible. They’re mostly blue light with a little bit of other colors to make them appear white to the eye.
110VAC "LED bulbs" are not the same thing as the LEDs on a PCB in a DC motor ceiling fan.
"LED bulbs" die because they have to rectify 110VAC (hot) into LEDs (hot) into an enclosure that was designed for incandescents.
In a proper enclosure, with cooling (it's a fan), they will actually live their fully-stated lifetime - assuming the fan's upstream power supply makes it.
There are LED lamps rated for enclosed fixtures. If you buy and use them in enclosed fixtures, your lamps will last longer.
A recessed can or “upside down” ceiling fan globe with an open bottom is technically an enclosed fixture since heat rises.
> A recessed can or “upside down” ceiling fan globe with an open bottom is technically an enclosed fixture since heat rises.
Typically fans with built-in LED downlights are engineered to actually dissipate heat - and they have a much larger area to do it in. Edison-format bulbs are inherently space-constrained.
> In a proper enclosure, with cooling (it's a fan), they will actually live their fully-stated lifetime - assuming the fan's upstream power supply makes it.
But in an "old school" hardware, you'd then replace the bulb and get a new "lifetime" out of it, here you have to throw everything away.
An AC motor has basically nothing inside that can fail (maybe the capactitor, but that can be replaced), and can work for a hundred years and more if properly maintained (mostly cleaned).
On average ~6 hours per day (living room with night owls living there), is ~2000 hours per year... 5 years at 10.000hours expected lifetime for the leds, 10 if the stated lifetime is 20k hours... that's not really that long.
You can replace parts that don't come in nice detachable sockets.
Lightbulbs came in sockets because they were meant to fail. First by accident, later intentionally. They were also quite breakable because they were made of glass. LED lights don't have these problems unless they're designed to. Which is the meta-problem - how do you know which ones are planned obsolete?
Forcing an LED system into a lightbulb from factor has quality and cost implications though. A good LED light has a separate power brick inside the enclosure. Which is what you see in these fan lights.
I build lights with cob modules with phosphor (bridgelux), and unless I screw up the thermal interface, I get many years out of modules that cost < $5 each. one thing is that the thermal paste is too fiddly for most people, voltage/current tends to drift around and 0.5V is a big difference here. mechanically they tend to use a couple different form factors, but not 100%. the 10 watt units I had been using were bigger than the 15w I use now, and the mounting spacing went from 0.75 to 0.71
I would hope that at least some of this would get standardized over time
> An AC motor has basically nothing inside that can fail
Let me know how the non-replaceable sealed bearing packs in these AC or DC fans fare after 10,000 hours.
In a proper/high-end DC fan, the bearings are failing before any motors or LEDs.
Regardless, in a Big Ass Fans Haiku, the downlight is a completely separate/replaceable module - and it isn't going to fail before the bearings or motor.
Edison screw LED bulbs are the inferior design by every objective measure.
> Let me know how the non-replaceable sealed bearing packs in these AC or DC fans fare after 10,000 hours.
...your AC-powered ceiling fans are failing (or even "just" substantially degrading) after a little under fourteen months? What garbage are you buying?
Interesting; I’ve literally never had an LED bulb die that can remember. I’ve got a bunch of Ikea Tradfri bulbs that are now ~8y old and used daily. (240v here btw.)
Mine typically last a year or two. Very frustrating to pay 10x what incandescent used to cost for about the same life or marginally better.
I’ve replaced at least a dozen. Multiple brands, ranging from rando amazon brands to name brands like CREE and GE.
I’m under the impression at this point that they just do not do well inside can lights. I honestly don’t think the average lifespan is much higher than incandescent in that scenario.
> I’ve literally never had an LED bulb die that can remember.
This 120v-using USian has had many fail, and if they don't fail by intermittently blinking and flickering [0], they fail by slowly giving me worse and worse and worse headaches [1]. Unless you choose to count the fact that they were technically still emitting light, I've never gotten the rated lifetime out of a screw-in LED bulb.
[0] ...as all of the ACE Hardware ones did...
[1] ...as all of the dimmable [2] CREE ones did...
[2] These were never attached to a dimmer. At the time, the advice was to get LED bulbs rated for use in a dimmer, as it was believed that that would get you higher-quality construction.
Led bulbs should last you 20 years. I once lived in a place with dodgy power and led bulbs would burn out - sometimes less than a year. You could also turn the microwave on and see the lights dim.
It's bad power - transients apparently kill LEDs quickly.
Me - I have the exact same bulbs in my off grid property, and in my on-grid property. On grid, it's about 18 months MTBF. Off grid - it's been seven years and I haven't had to replace a single bulb yet. On-grid our power is anywhere between 205 and 235v, often has spikes up to 260+, and has like 99% uptime. Off grid, it's 230v, day in, day out. Grid power is terrible in most places.
Is there a solution for this?
I have this issue as well, of burning thru LED lights.
Systems built of separate parts instead of LED light bulbs made as lightbulbs. LED strips and LED drivers.
Overhead light is generally dogshit anyway, just get a fan with no light
Overhead lights may generally suck, and I can say that I've been grateful to have one every time I've needed it.
As opposed to what? A bunch of lamps?
Yes, a bunch of lamps. Not a joke. Look at any room with a bunch of lamps vs a ceiling fan
Second this. My apartment has wall lights only, except for the kitchen. Very cosy.
Technology Connections nerd-snipes ceiling fans in a recent video,
https://youtu.be/_KWdCqpXB7A
And of course complains.
But they are technologically informed complaints.
I immediately thought of this video.
It’s the same story for basically any part of a home. Faucets, furniture, tubs, windows, doors, floors, lamps, you name it.
What a testament to the manufacturing advances that have made it profitable to cater to every possible taste, budget, and architectural layout. It’s incredible actually.
I just wish there was some way to replace the LEDs on these things when they inevitably die. And, no matter what large number of years or decades are slathered on the box, inevitably at least one LED panel will blow out three to six months after purchase, nominally still in warranty but good luck getting any service under it, I'm sure. If there was, there could be a place for at least some of these in a house, but the amount of crap that you have no choice but to throw out as soon as the LEDs fry is insane.
This is why my "fancy" lighting fixture is an old track (whose proprietary lights died a long time ago) wrapped with an extension cable with 5 standard sockets on it, and some standard light bulbs in it. We dress it up with ribbons and stuff for the seasons. It doesn't look as nice as any of the things in that article, not even the gaudy and tasteless ones, but when a bulb burn out, I put a new one in and get on with life, I don't throw out an entire fan and buy a new one.
I'm old enough to remember when I was promised LEDs would last approximately forever without having to be replaced.
Your local inspector may have opinions about this, but you can buy all the components of an excellent LED system from your favorite electronics distributor, e.g. DigiKey.
Don’t waste your time or eyeballs with “driverless” devices. Get a chip-on-board LED, e.g. Bridgelux’s products, along with a matching driver (I like Luminus Devices’ small drivers - they have good startup and dimming behavior).
Aside from usual electrical safety, anyone designing what is effectively a luminaire needs to make sure that the driver matches the LED and that the driver is compatible with the dimmer in use. Matching the LED means that the driver produces an amount of current that that LED’s datasheet data is acceptable and that produces the amount of light that is desired and dissipates an amount of heat that can be managed. And that the LED’s voltage drop at the design current is in range for the driver. These LEDs are constant current devices, so you’re thinking about current first and voltage second. Read the datasheets!
Unfortunately many cheap luminaires are based on modules that are either driverless LEDs (which are terrible due to essentially unavoidable flicker and lack of regulation) or are line-voltage-supplied integrated devices. These are likely to be hard-to-find modules. There may not be room for a discrete driver and separate LED.
LEDs rarely die unless cooling is inadequate. DC/DC and AC/DC circuitry is a far more likely culprit.
In either case, learn to do hot air rework?
Have you tried replacing the LEDs or have you just assumed it's impossible because it's not a bulb?
It depends on the specific fixture.
But then, the problem is, it depends on the specific fixture. They aren't exactly putting "EASY TO REPLACE LEDS" on the box. I can't climb up to the store display model and start hacking away at it to see if I can get to the LEDs, replace them, and reassemble it correctly.
What I saw last time I was in a store where the fixtures were on eye level looked like a lot of glue, one-way tabs, and LED strips of unknown and custom provenance were being used. I'm not really looking for this sort of experience in a lighting fixture. YMMV and more power to you.
Yeah. It's not just cost, it's time. If I have to replace the fan, that's a trip to a hardware store, then a half hour (at least) to remove the old and install the new and get it wired correctly, so that it works and doesn't burn my house down. Then I have to take the old one apart far enough to fit it into the garbage can.
Replacing a bulb is a trip to my stash of bulbs in the laundry room, then throwing the old one in the trash.
I don't have time in my life for a fan with non-replaceable bulbs.
> I'm old enough to remember when I was promised LEDs would last approximately forever without having to be replaced.
Yep, I remember that when Obama banned most incandescent lights because 'LED lighting is the future and 100 year lifespans blabla'.
Mind you, we used CFLs in the warm season, and incandescent in cold seasons. Incandescents are 100% efficient in cold seasons (heater AND light).
As much as I deign to admit, Trump reversed Obama's ban. And Biden reinstated it. I don't think Trump reversed Biden's reinstatement though. He's been way too busy with wrecking the country for shits and giggles.
But what the LED manufacturers figured out is they could overdrive LEDs and use substandard electronics for driving them. So sure, LEDs are more efficient, but they're the same old burnout cycle that's forced on us.
And we know all of this by the fact that Phillips makes "Dubai Lamps", and you can't buy them at any price. https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li...
> Incandescents are 100% efficient in cold seasons (heater AND light).
That's resistive heating, which is the most inefficient means of heating. Worse than natural gas or heating oil, and much worse than a heat pump.
> Worse than natural gas or heating oil, and much worse than a heat pump.
Worse than a heat pump, yes, but very arguable whether NG is more efficient. Arguably, NG powering central electric power generation and then used for resistive would be overall more efficient. Central NG will be more efficient and also there’s substantially less opportunity for NG leakage if piping was reduced.
NG is definitely cheaper (at least in the US), but that’s not really related to efficiency or emissions cost.
It doesn't take into account leaks, but modern NG furnaces are substantially more efficient than modern gas power generation.
I’m not sure that’s easily quantifiable. Yes, thermal efficiency of modern NG furnaces can be ~95% or whatever… but you can also run multi stage heat capturing NG power plants that have very high overall efficiency too. Not 95, but at 60-70%, it’d be a potential wash in terms of emissions if leaks are ~10% (especially considering how much worse unburnt NG is as a leak vs when it’s burnt).
Also, if you’re in the electric ecosystem, swapping to heat pump systems will obviously be lower overall power in basically every scenario, and it gives an easy transition path unlike NG.
I don't care much on the politics of it all because I do think a lot of it is silly, especially with how profit-motivated companies will still find a way to profit.
I will say I've had a number of Hue bulbs starting back in about 2018 and have yet to lose one except for a surge that got an unprotected strip. Otherwise, plenty of white and color bulbs have worked steadfast for nearly a decade while costing a fraction in energy. That said, I do miss the warmth of incandescent lighting, but I don't miss replacing bulbs multiple times a year
> every possible taste, budget, and architectural layout
Except "traditional" it seems.
Or “fit for purpose”.
> The sea was purple. The beach they were on was composed of tiny yellow and green pebbles - presumably terribly precious stones. The mountains in the distance seemed soft and undulating with red peaks. Nearby stood a solid silver beach table with a frilly mauve parasol and silver tassles.
> In the sky a huge sign appeared, replacing the catalogue number. It said, Whatever your tastes, Magrathea can cater for you. We are not proud.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
And also to flood the market with an ocean of cheap, disposable crap that won't even function very well as a fan.
Except that it doesn't.
All of the stuff available is basically a mix of the elements the author puts on his 8 images on the beginning of the article. Where only 2 of them have fans that can actually vent a room.
> a normal fan that for some reason has a border around it
So, a ducted fan! That would be a sensible and practical design if your ceiling needed extra thrust for takeoff.
Cheap and stupid goods with threatening auras, indeed. Possibly a step up from the 90s when it was cheap and stupid goods with a Memphis Group primary school aesthetic. Hard to choose.
> Memphis Group primary school aesthetic
I had to look that up and found some pretty cool articles. I like that the vapourwave trend from the 2010s created a lot of focus on the different aesthetics of software and everyday things on the internet.
The latter two links are from a dedicated "aesthetics wiki". I tend to like the detailed user-created content on fandom.com wikis, but I loathe the site itself. At least a lot of the fan wikis have moved to wiki.gg, which has a much less intrusive design (speaking of aesthetics).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Group
https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Memphis_Design
https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Memphis_Jr.
The movie Beetlejuice (1988) contains within it a sort of aesthetic manifesto from Tim Burton, in which he rails against the passing of traditional architecture under the wave of Memphis modernity.
Before they die, the Maitlands lovingly restore their Connecticut Victorian home and even keep a model of the whole town up in their attic, as if capturing for themselves a bit of the town's bucolic New England charm. When they die, the Dietzes move in, and Delia declares psychotically, "I'll go crazy if you don't let me remodel this house!" With help from the obnoxious Otho she strips away the traditional Victorian trappings and turns the house into a modernist, Memphis-inspired nightmare, forcing the Maitlands to watch in horror as their hard work is destroyed (that is until they summon the title character). In keeping with the movie's structure as a "reverse ghost story" in which the ghosts are nice and the living humans are the horror.
Personally I find Memphis fascinating (though I wouldn't want to live there). I especially appreciate its influence on the design language of Sonic the Hedgehog games, as a complement to the greater variety of slopes, gradients, and curved ramps the early games afforded, to showcase the greater capabilities of the Sega Genesis. (That's really entirely why Sonic exists; some guys at Sega played Mario 3 and figured that they could "do Mario, but better".)
as the LEDs usually cannot be replaced,
They certainly can, with the right tools. A bag of bulk LEDs imported from China is surprisingly cheap.
Don't underestimate the ability to make it very difficult to non-destructively reach the actual LEDs in many of these devices in the name of being small or "stylish."
On behalf of my late mother, these look impossible to clean
I see no indication that the photo is AI. https://st.hzcdn.com/simgs/pictures/living-rooms/century-woo...
most forget, but fan blades need cleaning. any plastic blades, specially the clear one will look like cat vomit.
Imagine clear blades with each blade displaying cat hairballs spread out on the edges, spinning them above your head. It will harass you, give ammo to your in-laws to harass you, create marital strife (when are you going to clean that?) and then death as you fall off the ladder and break your neck on the coffee table, despite surviving four frontline deployments...
The "weird blades" fan is similar to recent propeller designs, which are especially efficient and quiet. It's probably a really good fan.
Just to add the name, it's called a toroidal propeller.
While I admire the humor of the article, the overall vibe feels like the author simply cannot imagine that practicality isn't the only requirement when it comes to design, and on top of that, thinks that American marketing is the only god-approved style of marketing.
I recommend the author to go and talk to a few women. It's a very demanding request, but I insist on it. Once he understands and internalizes the logic of "my shoes are uncomfortable but they fit my purse", he'll be able to:
1. Understand that different designs have different proportions of practicality and looks, because different customers can have different expectations. I know it's hard to believe, but there are places on Earth besides Arizona, and in some places you only need to turn on the fan once a year gently, all the other days it just hangs there and is visible. Just like a woman won't be putting hiking shoes for an event where she's sitting by the table all day long (men tend to do that).
2. See the concept of "style". It might sound like an outrageous claim, but bear with me: different people like different things! Just because author doesn't like particular design, it doesn't mean that the design is objectively ugly. Shocking, I know. Different people want to build different vibes in their rooms, which is why we have a variety of designs, fitting different styles.
If the author can stomach the idea that there is life outside of Arizona, I'll try an even more radical idea: China exists. Like, really. 1 billion people that aren't Americans. They don't speak English. They don't use Latin alphabet - they actually don't use an alphabet at all! They don't say "Hello, how are you? I'm good, thank you, what about you?". I'd really love the author to spend a few minutes to imagine that. Because my argument is that, even though I have little proof of it, the Chinese might enjoy different ways of having the product presented, and the author is bitching about seeing marketing that was designed by and for the Chinese audiences.
Many times I pass by an ad and I think to myself, "This ad obviously targets American customers but I'm in Europe. Do Americans really think that their culture is the default, universal culture that joins all of humanity?".
Kate Wagner is the creator of the viral blog McMansionHell, which roasts the world’s ugliest houses from top to bottom, all while teaching about architecture and design. [...] Kate prefers the pronouns she/her or they/them. - https://mcmansionhell.com/about
I wanted to buy a ceiling fan last year, and just gave up.
LEDs integrated into fans are the worst idea. If they're not bright enough, you're hosed. You generally can't change the color. Just stick to proven fixtures, and let me put my own choice of bulbs in it!
The other problem is just how houses/apartments are designed in the US. You should always have a separate wall switch for fan and lights! Why they couple the two - I can't fathom.
> Just stick to proven fixtures, and let me put my own choice of bulbs in it!
LED retrofit bulbs (Edison screws) are just shit no matter what - your choice will basically almost always be inferior to something that can be integrated into a fan by virtue of the technology.
Down-facing light from ceiling fans is also just bad, even on a $2000 Big Ass Fans Haiku. Central-point overhead lighting is displeasing.
You're not wrong - but what do I do when the light is not bright enough (hint - almost all of them are not bright enough for my needs)?
And how many of them can I control with SmartThings, etc?
With my own bulbs, I can have it how I want it. I pick the fan based on the fan's capabilities, and not worry about the light.
> Central-point overhead lighting is displeasing.
No arguments there, but most houses/apartments in the US are built in this brain dead way. When I lived abroad, it was much better. The lights were always on the walls - often opposing walls. This way, light is coming more at an angle downwards, and you can position chairs/beds/couches such that the light is behind you, and if you're reading a book, the pages are being lit up by it.
> You're not wrong - but what do I do when the light is not bright enough (hint - almost all of them are not bright enough for my needs)?
Replace the entire LED base with a brighter one if you need more lumens. If you do the same with a standard e26 or candelabra bulb setup, you’ll have the exact same issue with bulb longevity. Brighter bulbs stuffed into the tiny enclosures will absolutely cook.
> Sometimes new design phenomena slip past even those of us who are most in tune with the happenings of the built environment.
I went to Wayfair and searched ceiling fans and holy moly this space has changed! I thought to myself, "I don't see these when walking through my local bigbox hardware store?" So I went to Lowe's website and fandeliers are an entire category now.
This was something that, and this probably comes as no surprise for the ones in the know, Technology Connections youtube channel has noted, the preference for form over function https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KWdCqpXB7A
Growing up in Texas, I have always had a fan up and running. When living in apartments and houses that didn’t come with them I’ve put them up (likely breaking a stupid lease rule). At this point I’ve installed dozens of fans and have enough strong opinions on ceiling fans that I could write a lengthy blog post on the subject.
Don’t buy any of these junk fans. Get a normal looking fan, with a quiet DC motor, that takes standard light bulbs with a medium base (e26 in the USA).
Skip modern AC motors, nobody today can seem to build one that doesn’t whomp when it runs. Older AC motors weren’t so cheaply made and don’t usually suffer this problem.
If you have an older fan 25+ years old, you can often rebuild them and end up with a better fan than anything you can buy today.
If you’re building a new house (or doing a rewire) put two light switches in every bedroom, one for the fan the other for the light kit.
If you’re getting a fan with a remote, get one that will let you change the spin direction from the remote.
Get the correct size fan for the room.
Friends don’t let friends buy Hunter Fans, they are all hot garbage. Though they do follow through with their warranties.
The bigger issue I see in new construction is that all the recessed fixtures are replaced with flat LED modules that are not serviceable.
I refuse to own a home built after ~2015 due to this and other factors. Electricity on my kitchen island, toilets that can flush human sized shits, and proper lighting fixtures are non-negotiable for me.
They are serviceable in the sense that you simply replace them when they fail. Given that they cost so little now and have a service life of decades, it's more cost effective than a traditional fixture. Older fixtures with LEDs jammed into them were always an interim solution, and more prone to failure simply because of the design.
What do you mean? I’d much rather pay $30 for a separate LED driver and LED module that will last x0,000 hours and comes with a five year warranty instead of crappy LED lamps that last a few thousand hours.
Cooper makes the HALO RL series LED can retrofit modules that can be had for $30 with adjustable color temp and dimming capable, with a five-year warranty.
Your shits are human sized? Ooft
Modern fan company .. I’ve take a few of them apart. They’re built from a different era — really thought out and quality build. It’s just a rare product that when you get your hands on it, you appreciate the craft and engineering that went into manufacturing it.
Obligatory Tech Connections video?
https://youtu.be/_KWdCqpXB7A
I will never love anything as much as Alec loves oil bath motors.
What about the latent heat of vaporization?
Well now you've got me backed into a corner...
I thought this article was going to be about how obnoxious ceiling fans with lights are because they create a strobe effect throughout the room.
Funny thing... if we decided to add a ceiling fan to our apartment (we never would - we loathe them) we would have to commission an engineering study to make sure it doesn't affect our neighbors. The sound, the resonance... if we just put one in and the neighbors could hear it we'd have to remove it.
Where do you live?
Zürich
This kind of reminds me of the “Island” situation on Magic: the Gathering cards. An island is a piece of land, surrounded by water. However, due to 30+ years of needing to draw new versions of islands, Wizards of the Coast has expanded what it means to be an island, ending up with things that are… not that: https://imgur.com/a/xVnyP
It's je ne sais quoi.
I always see people complaining about failing LED lamps. It’s almost always because people are using lamps rated for open fixtures in enclosed fixtures. If it’s not a table lamp or standing lamp, it’s likely an enclosed fixture. A recessed can with an open bottom is considered an enclosed fixture, and so is an open-bottom chandelier globe.
I suggest only buying enclosed rated fixture lamps because they put out less heat and will last longer in an open or enclosed fixture.
Many retailers only sell open fixture lamps. And you need to read the fine print on the packaging to know that. Most consumers have no idea that this is even a thing.
Dyson, where are you when we need you?
Unfortunately, I have a feeling that their "solution" would be every bit as weird as what McMansion Hell is highlighting. See e.g. https://www.dyson.com/air-treatment/fans-heaters/cool-cf1/wh....
the gamerfan is a new one for me. haha i had no idea..
I bet a matrix of cpu fans mounted to the ceiling would work rather well, rgb lighting is optional.
Quite a lot of deserved hate, honestly.
1. Almost all are "appified", aka proprietary crappy BT protocol with required corporate spy/app.
2. Non-replaceable LEDs means burnout = e-waste.
3. LEDs are overdriven meaning they're intentionally ran to burn out sooner.
4. Many of the "fans" are indeed blades on a motor. For they blow? Nope. But they do indeed suck.
5. Many are just hideous and garish pieces of garbage. But "in matters of taste, the customer is always right".
"AI dOeSn'T hAvE tAsTe, ur j0b iS sAfE"
Meanwhile, making products for the tasteless: $$$