When shopping for LED light bulbs at your local Bunnings or hardware store, you may have read claims of LEDs having life spans of 50,000 to 100,000 hours on their packaging.

Not Exactly True

Impressive as this may seem, such claims are highly arbitrary and misunderstood, as no one really knows how long LEDs will last. Moreover, there really isn’t a standard that defines how one should judge an LED bulbs lifespan. When you hear about an LED having a 50,000-hour lifespan, you may think that it takes that span of time for the bulb to burn out, just as an incandescent bulb would.

Performance

This however, isn’t the case. If an LED light bulb is rated at 15,000 hours, as most of our products here in LiquidLEDs are, that only means that the product will lose 15% to 20% of its brightness, but it will still work. Rather than set unrealistic expectations on how long your LEDs will last, we prefer to be upfront and tell you how long you can enjoy your LED light at its peak performance.

All LED Chips Degrade with Time

All LED chips lose their strength over time, regardless of which brand they’re from. Once an LED chip crosses the 10,000-hour threshold, it begins to decrease in intensity—some brands depreciate than others faster. At LiquidLEDs, our lamps depreciate at around 8% after 8,000 hours, then by 15% at 15,000 hours. They will however, work beyond this point, just not at full brightness.

Brands Still Matter

Brand reliability is still important when it comes to an LED bulb’s lifespan. Good brands generally use better manufacturing techniques, giving their products longer lives. Choosing a good brand is important, as we’ve seen cheap bulbs from no-name companies losing 50% of their intensity after just 12 months of use.