Suppose that, many years ago, the US government had decided upon -- not $1, $5, and $10 denominations -- but rather $1, $9, and $10 bills. You'd be scratching your head, no?
Well, Feit has now come out with its Utilitech-branded, 150 watt, three-way LED bulb, the first-ever LED three-way bulb to have nominal lumen/wattage-equivalent parity with the best-known incandescent and CFL three-way variety. And it's reminiscent of a $9 bill.
Two basic incandescent three-way types make up 90% of sales of such bulbs -- No. 1 is 50/100/150, and No. 2 is 100/200/300. (Its 100/150/250 cousin is an alternative to the latter.) The 30/70/100 is way down the list.
Even though this bulb costs $39 at Lowe's and weighs a pound, it still seems at first glance to be a very impressive achievement. After all, there is not yet even a one-way 150W A-style bulb on the market. In fact there are only a few UL-listed 100W equivalent LED bulbs available.
The Feit bulb's three-way's wattage/lumen figures are given as 10/22/32 watts and 800/1,600/2,200 lumens. Depending on whose chart you choose to believe, a 150W incandescent puts out 2,600 lumens, or 2,700, or 2,850. So the Feit three-way's highest level corresponds to the output of an incandescent bulb of somewhere between 115 and 127 watts. The bulb might more accurately be characterized as 60/100/120.
Non-linear response
Incandescent three-ways have always had a poor spread, but this bulb takes it to a new level.
With three-way bulbs, funny stuff always happens with eyeball perception -- that pesky non-linear response of the human eye to lumen increase or decrease. When I first tried the bulb, I almost thought the high setting was not even working. Demonstrating for numerous other people, most of them non-experts, resulted in the same reaction -- that the apparent difference in brightness from medium to high is about 5%.
So the low is not so low, the medium is medium, and the high is a smidgen brighter.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the US and Canada are the only markets with three-way table or floor lamp sockets. So someone in China involved in this design probably said, "Hey, the wattmeter said three different wattages, so I guess that makes it a three-way, and my design task is done. Don't blame me." Ergo, a $9 bill would satisfy the need for three small-bill denominations, following the same logic (or lack thereof).
Feit spent a lot of good money designing this bulb, tooling it, making it, and getting it into Lowe's.
We have previously discussed ad nauseam the "race to the bottom" on A-style LED bulb pricing.
Perhaps we now need to get back to watching the "race to be first."
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