GE Advances the State Of the Art In Dimmable CFLs

[xcel]

More precise dimming and longer life.

Wayne Gerdes - CleanMPG - Aug. 11, 2012

According to GE, consumers can have their cake and eat it too. Before now, if you wanted advanced dimming, you had to forgo energy savings. That changes now.

A new generation of GE Energy Smart and Reveal bulbs now provide dimming capabilities to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). An standard incandescent feature that previous CFLs were not able to mimic has now been overcome as GE’s new CFLs can dim down to five percent of light output vs. the CFL standard of just 20 percent.

In addition to enhancing ambiance, GE’s dimmable CFLs offer energy savings from $44.00 to $81.00 compared to standard incandescent bulbs over the life of a bulb. They also provide warm color tones and instantly bright technology, all thanks to advances in engineering.

In a prepared statement, GE’s Jacint Gergely, Design Engineer, GE Lighting said the following:

“We changed our complex ballast design to a more simplified version, which increased the power factor, allowing our lamps to dim down to five percent. This allows us to give customers energy-saving options and do so without compromising any of the features.”

GE’s new CFL dimmable bulbs will also include Reveal bulbs, a GE technology specially made to enhance colors. Among the new choices:

• 14-watt and 26-watt Energy Smart Soft White and Reveal Spiral bulbs (replaces 60-watt and 100-watt incandescent bulbs, respectively), which both have a rated life of 10,000 hours, and last up to 10 times longer than comparable incandescent bulbs
  
  
• 15-watt Energy Smart Soft White and Reveal R30 reflector bulbs (replaces 65-watt incandescent reflectors), which both have a rated life of 8,000 hours, up to 4 times longer than comparable incandescent bulbs
  
  
• 26-watt Energy Smart Soft White and Reveal R40 reflector bulbs (replaces 85 – 90-watt incandescent reflectors), which both have a rated life of 8,000 hours, up to 4 times longer than comparable incandescent bulbs

GE says these new bulbs are now available at Walmart, Target, Ace, True Value, Do It Best, Kroger, CVS, Walgreens and Lowe’s.

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I was conned! The dimmable CFL I bought in October 2008 was actually a spiral incandescent!

EDIT: OK, I missed the 5% from previous low of 20%. Duh. In actual fact we never use the dimmer, it's just that there's one on the light and it seemed to cause early blowout on conventional CFLs.

[vangonebuy]

CFL's have shorter lifespan when dimmed.
Whats the average life when it's 50% dimmed.
That should be posted on the package.


And GE, where is your breakthrough 100watt= LED bulb?

[Blackbelt]

Interesting. I have a leviton touch dimmers in my house.like these
http://www.amazon.com/Leviton-619-66.../dp/B00004YUOF
I have a set of '4 way' (3 locations) touch dimmers controlling 4 recessed lights in my kitchen, each containing a 65W R30 flood. I put in some dimmable CFL's and they would not work AT ALL. Nothing, no light nada.
I wonder if these new ones will work with my dimmers?

[PaleMelanesian]

Meh. As far as I'm concerned, CFL's time has come and gone. I have a stash of CFL bulbs to last a couple years. When they run out I'm buying LED's. Those couple years will let the LED market mature. I think they're almost ready now, just a little pricey. That is a nice change from not too long ago when they were pricey.