Big brands cheating consumers with false lightbulb efficiency claims

Here yet another reason to switch to LED truly saving energy up to 90%.

Ikea, Philips, GE and Osram are among the companies exaggerating energy performance by up to 25%, test results show. Photograph: Frederick Florin/Getty

Lightbulb manufacturers are misleading consumers about the brightness and energy use of their products by exploiting a loophole in European tests, lab results seen by the Guardian show.

Ikea, Philips, GE and Osram are among the companies exaggerating energy performance up to 25% higher than that claimed on packaging, according to the Swedish Consumer Association tests. Ikea told the Guardian as a result it would refund customers who were dissatisfied with bulbs they had bought from its stores.

The discrepancy is caused by manufacturers taking advantage of leeways – known as “tolerances” in official testing procedures for bulbs.

The Swedish tests, conducted between, 2012-14, found that a 42W Airam halogen lamp consumed 25% more energy than claimed on the label to achieve its declared 630 lumens of brightness.

A GE 70W halogen bulb was 20% duller than its stated 1,200 lumens. A 28W Philips halogen bulb was found to be 24% less bright than claimed while Ikea’s 53W and 70W bulbs both underperformed by 16%.

A senior lighting industry executive told the Guardian that tolerance manipulation was rampant, forcing smaller firms to put substandard products onto the market or risk going out of business.

“All the major brands are doing it,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“No one is clean on this issue and everyone has to follow suit to compete. In the past, we declared our measured values on the packaging but when we measured our competitors equivalent products we saw that they were declaring higher values on their labels.

“So we had to play the same game. We’re in a competitive market and if we didn’t, we would be idiots.”

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Source: The Guardian