It's been a busy 12 months within the lighting aisle, with the debut of recent, low-price LED light bulbs that promise to chop your private home's energy draw without breaking the financial institution. The newest, from GE, is the Shiny Stik LED, which bucks the bulb altogether in favor of a push-pop-shaped construct. The associated fee: $10 for a three-pack (a GE representative tells me that they don't plan on selling the bulbs individually simply but). Like the other main participant on the cheap finish of the spectrum, the Philips 60W Alternative LED , the Vivid Stik affords a fairly compelling value proposition. While a 60W incandescent will add about $7 per yr to your power bill, the 10W Vibrant Stik will add just $1.20. Spend $10 on that three-pack and EcoLight products use them for EcoLight products a year, and your complete price is $13.60. Spend a buck on three incandescents, and you may end up spending another $21 over the course of the year -- after which you'll must exchange them, since that is about so long as they last.

The Bright Stiks will last nicely over a decade. There are a few commerce-offs, though. The Vivid Stik is not quite as shiny or as environment friendly as other LEDs and, just like the Philips bulb, it isn't an choice that'll work with dimmer switches. Still, it's a very strong match for fundamental lighting setups, and at a cost of about $three per bulb (or, um,"Stik"), it's a very stable worth, EcoLight too. If I just needed to substitute one gentle, I would in all probability stick to Philips, but when I am changing my bulbs in bulk, I am going to provide the Vivid Stik some critical consideration. The GE Vibrant Stik isn't the first big brand LED that wants you to suppose outside the bulb. For over a 12 months now, the flattened-down Philips SlimStyle LED has been selling on Home Depot shelves, and its success would possibly serve as proof of concept for the odd-wanting Shiny Stik LED. You will soon see the two selling side-by-facet in the house Depot lighting aisle.

Still, the SlimStyle LED not less than makes an attempt to approximate the overall silhouette of a light bulb (from certain angles, EcoLight products anyway). With the Vibrant Stik LED, you're all in on newfangled design, no incandescent nostalgia vital. Whether or not that is a great factor is solely as much as you. We're probably missing the point, though. Bulb or no bulb, the Vivid Stik remains to be, EcoLight products well, a light bulb. Normally, you are not going to see the factor after you screw it in and lower the lampshade. The form factor really does not matter a lot in and of itself. What does matter is how that kind factor impacts the standard of gentle, which is the place my concerns lied as I prepared to test the Brilliant Stik out. None of that cylindrical plastic is angled downward, the best way the underside half of a spherical bulb is. I puzzled if that might keep the Shiny Stik from casting the kind of downward mild individuals typically desire to read underneath.

Fortuitously, that wasn't the case. With the LED hidden beneath a lampshade, I could not distinguish the standard of the Brilliant Stik's gentle from every other customary, omnidirectional bulb. That applies to the appear and feel of the sunshine, too. At 2,850 Okay, it's as warm and yellowy as you'd expect from a normal, household mild (a 5,000 K "daylight" model is available, too, for an extra buck). The 760-lumen mild output -- whereas a bit short of the ideal 800 lumen benchmark for a 60W replacement -- is plenty brilliant for most fundamental wants. Really, the only distinction this design makes is on GE's end -- the slimmed down determine makes it a breeze to bundle the Vibrant Stik, EcoLight and easier for GE to ship them in bulk (especially when packaged three at a time). All of that helps shave cents off the upfront price, and there's nothing to not like about that.