My wife and I were out recently looking at ceiling fans to replace the one in our dining room, which has committed no crimes, other than having the appearance of being very much from the 1980s.
I was taken aback by how few of the fans had replaceable lightbulbs! In the entire store there were maybe three or four options with a replaceable bulb!
Call me crazy, but a nonreplaceable LED is a complete dealbreaker. I go through so many LED bulbs! I don't know if my electricity is like particularly bad or if that's just normal? The first LED bulb I ever bought (Shout out EarthLED) in 2008 for like $30 is still going strong, but every bulb I buy these days lasts like two years tops.
When an LED bulb dies, it's typically not the LED, it's the electronics driving it. This is worsened substantially by heat. If you have recessed downlights or something, that's close to worst-case for an LED bulb.
Lights with non-replaceable bulbs can actually be far better, because they can be designed for their environment. Recessed downlights with built-in LEDs for example can thermally couple the LEDs directly to the metal housing, so the heat can be dissipated into the surrounding air, instead of into the recess.
My MinkaAirs use 303MHz remotes. No pull chains. This frustrated me so much, last night i got an ESP32-S3 + CC1101 and reverse engineered the signal to the fans to be also control it from Home Assistant. Now, if i lose or break the controller, i can still switch the fans & built-in LED on & off another way. not perfect, but it is in my control.
This annoys me too. My Casablanca fans have a wall switch which is hard wired to power only for on/off, but the fan and light controls are sent via a radio frequency signal. The most frustrating part of this, is that the RF transmitter inside the wall switch is battery operated. I have to unscrew the wall switch a couple times a year to get to the batteries.
It's funny how popular it is to take an extremely durable and long-lived light-generating technology and pair it with the cheapest short-lived power electronics.
To add to that, my advice is to look for LED lights where the AC-to-DC conversion is done by a power brick separate from the lights. Not only does that mean you can replace them separately, but generally these will be much more robust as the power electronics won't be as constrained by size.
I wish it caught on to have LED lights powered by a barrel jack DC plug like you have for most electronics. It would be a huge win for longevity. Sure it's not backwards compatible with fixtures designed for light bulbs, but the cases we're discussing here are complete light fixture replacements anyways... The fixture could have a barrel plug that you connect to an inexpensive commodity DC power brick which you then hide away in the ceiling.
110VAC "LED bulbs" are not the same thing as the LEDs on a PCB in a DC motor ceiling fan.
"LED bulbs" die because they have to rectify 110VAC (hot) into LEDs (hot) into an enclosure that was designed for incandescents.
In a proper enclosure, with cooling (it's a fan), they will actually live their fully-stated lifetime - assuming the fan's upstream power supply makes it.
> In a proper enclosure, with cooling (it's a fan), they will actually live their fully-stated lifetime - assuming the fan's upstream power supply makes it.
But in an "old school" hardware, you'd then replace the bulb and get a new "lifetime" out of it, here you have to throw everything away.
An AC motor has basically nothing inside that can fail (maybe the capactitor, but that can be replaced), and can work for a hundred years and more if properly maintained (mostly cleaned).
On average ~6 hours per day (living room with night owls living there), is ~2000 hours per year... 5 years at 10.000hours expected lifetime for the leds, 10 if the stated lifetime is 20k hours... that's not really that long.
You can replace parts that don't come in nice detachable sockets.
Lightbulbs came in sockets because they were meant to fail. First by accident, later intentionally. They were also quite breakable because they were made of glass. LED lights don't have these problems unless they're designed to. Which is the meta-problem - how do you know which ones are planned obsolete?
Forcing an LED system into a lightbulb from factor has quality and cost implications though. A good LED light has a separate power brick inside the enclosure. Which is what you see in these fan lights.
I build lights with cob modules with phosphor (bridgelux), and unless I screw up the thermal interface, I get many years out of modules that cost < $5 each. one thing is that the thermal paste is too fiddly for most people, voltage/current tends to drift around and 0.5V is a big difference here. mechanically they tend to use a couple different form factors, but not 100%. the 10 watt units I had been using were bigger than the 15w I use now, and the mounting spacing went from 0.75 to 0.71
I would hope that at least some of this would get standardized over time
> An AC motor has basically nothing inside that can fail
Let me know how the non-replaceable sealed bearing packs in these AC or DC fans fare after 10,000 hours.
In a proper/high-end DC fan, the bearings are failing before any motors or LEDs.
Regardless, in a Big Ass Fans Haiku, the downlight is a completely separate/replaceable module - and it isn't going to fail before the bearings or motor.
Edison screw LED bulbs are the inferior design by every objective measure.
A lot of comments are trying to defend this by saying a properly designed light could last some amount longer, which is true, but misses the point. These designs couple the light and the fan. That’s an extra failure mode that doesn’t need to exist.
It also prevents the user from changing the bulb if they want a different color temperature or better CRI. Most of the built-in lights I see are in the 3000-3500K range, which is cooler the warm white I’ve chosen for the house. If I could swap the bulb it would be an easy fix, but if it’s built in then I’m stuck with it.
Led bulbs should last you 20 years. I once lived in a place with dodgy power and led bulbs would burn out - sometimes less than a year. You could also turn the microwave on and see the lights dim.
It's bad power - transients apparently kill LEDs quickly.
Me - I have the exact same bulbs in my off grid property, and in my on-grid property. On grid, it's about 18 months MTBF. Off grid - it's been seven years and I haven't had to replace a single bulb yet. On-grid our power is anywhere between 205 and 235v, often has spikes up to 260+, and has like 99% uptime. Off grid, it's 230v, day in, day out. Grid power is terrible in most places.
> a normal fan that for some reason has a border around it
So, a ducted fan! That would be a sensible and practical design if your ceiling needed extra thrust for takeoff.
Cheap and stupid goods with threatening auras, indeed. Possibly a step up from the 90s when it was cheap and stupid goods with a Memphis Group primary school aesthetic. Hard to choose.
I had to look that up and found some pretty cool articles. I like that the vapourwave trend from the 2010s created a lot of focus on the different aesthetics of software and everyday things on the internet.
The latter two links are from a dedicated "aesthetics wiki". I tend to like the detailed user-created content on fandom.com wikis, but I loathe the site itself.
I wanted to buy a ceiling fan last year, and just gave up.
LEDs integrated into fans are the worst idea. If they're not bright enough, you're hosed. You generally can't change the color. Just stick to proven fixtures, and let me put my own choice of bulbs in it!
The other problem is just how houses/apartments are designed in the US. You should always have a separate wall switch for fan and lights! Why they couple the two - I can't fathom.
> Just stick to proven fixtures, and let me put my own choice of bulbs in it!
LED retrofit bulbs (Edison screws) are just shit no matter what - your choice will basically almost always be inferior to something that can be integrated into a fan by virtue of the technology.
Down-facing light from ceiling fans is also just bad, even on a $2000 Big Ass Fans Haiku. Central-point overhead lighting is displeasing.
You're not wrong - but what do I do when the light is not bright enough (hint - almost all of them are not bright enough for my needs)?
And how many of them can I control with SmartThings, etc?
With my own bulbs, I can have it how I want it. I pick the fan based on the fan's capabilities, and not worry about the light.
> Central-point overhead lighting is displeasing.
No arguments there, but most houses/apartments in the US are built in this brain dead way. When I lived abroad, it was much better. The lights were always on the walls - often opposing walls. This way, light is coming more at an angle downwards, and you can position chairs/beds/couches such that the light is behind you, and if you're reading a book, the pages are being lit up by it.
It’s the same story for basically any part of a home. Faucets, furniture, tubs, windows, doors, floors, lamps, you name it.
What a testament to the manufacturing advances that have made it profitable to cater to every possible taste, budget, and architectural layout. It’s incredible actually.
I just wish there was some way to replace the LEDs on these things when they inevitably die. And, no matter what large number of years or decades are slathered on the box, inevitably at least one LED panel will blow out three to six months after purchase, nominally still in warranty but good luck getting any service under it, I'm sure. If there was, there could be a place for at least some of these in a house, but the amount of crap that you have no choice but to throw out as soon as the LEDs fry is insane.
This is why my "fancy" lighting fixture is an old track (whose proprietary lights died a long time ago) wrapped with an extension cable with 5 standard sockets on it, and some standard light bulbs in it. We dress it up with ribbons and stuff for the seasons. It doesn't look as nice as any of the things in that article, not even the gaudy and tasteless ones, but when a bulb burn out, I put a new one in and get on with life, I don't throw out an entire fan and buy a new one.
I'm old enough to remember when I was promised LEDs would last approximately forever without having to be replaced.
Your local inspector may have opinions about this, but you can buy all the components of an excellent LED system from your favorite electronics distributor, e.g. DigiKey.
Don’t waste your time or eyeballs with “driverless” devices. Get a chip-on-board LED, e.g. Bridgelux’s products, along with a matching driver (I like Luminus Devices’ small drivers - they have good startup and dimming behavior).
Aside from usual electrical safety, anyone designing what is effectively a luminaire needs to make sure that the driver matches the LED and that the driver is compatible with the dimmer in use. Matching the LED means that the driver produces an amount of current that that LED’s datasheet data is acceptable and that produces the amount of light that is desired and dissipates an amount of heat that can be managed. And that the LED’s voltage drop at the design current is in range for the driver. These LEDs are constant current devices, so you’re thinking about current first and voltage second. Read the datasheets!
Unfortunately many cheap luminaires are based on modules that are either driverless LEDs (which are terrible due to essentially unavoidable flicker and lack of regulation) or are line-voltage-supplied integrated devices. These are likely to be hard-to-find modules. There may not be room for a discrete driver and separate LED.
Yeah. It's not just cost, it's time. If I have to replace the fan, that's a trip to a hardware store, then a half hour (at least) to remove the old and install the new and get it wired correctly, so that it works and doesn't burn my house down. Then I have to take the old one apart far enough to fit it into the garbage can.
Replacing a bulb is a trip to my stash of bulbs in the laundry room, then throwing the old one in the trash.
I don't have time in my life for one of a fan with non-replaceable bulbs.
> I'm old enough to remember when I was promised LEDs would last approximately forever without having to be replaced.
Yep, I remember that when Obama banned most incandescent lights because 'LED lighting is the future and 100 year lifespans blabla'.
Mind you, we used CFLs in the warm season, and incandescent in cold seasons. Incandescents are 100% efficient in cold seasons (heater AND light).
As much as I deign to admit, Trump reversed Obama's ban. And Biden reinstated it. I don't think Trump reversed Biden's reinstatement though. He's been way too busy with wrecking the country for shits and giggles.
But what the LED manufacturers figured out is they could overdrive LEDs and use substandard electronics for driving them. So sure, LEDs are more efficient, but they're the same old burnout cycle that's forced on us.
I don't care much on the politics of it all because I do think a lot of it is silly, especially with how profit-motivated companies will still find a way to profit.
I will say I've had a number of Hue bulbs starting back in about 2018 and have yet to lose one except for a surge that got an unprotected strip. Otherwise, plenty of white and color bulbs have worked steadfast for nearly a decade while costing a fraction in energy. That said, I do miss the warmth of incandescent lighting, but I don't miss replacing bulbs multiple times a year
All of the stuff available is basically a mix of the elements the author puts on his 8 images on the beginning of the article. Where only 2 of them have fans that can actually vent a room.
> The sea was purple. The beach they were on was composed of tiny yellow and
green pebbles - presumably terribly precious stones. The mountains in the
distance seemed soft and undulating with red peaks. Nearby stood a solid silver beach table with a frilly mauve parasol and silver tassles.
> In the sky a huge sign appeared, replacing the catalogue number. It said,
Whatever your tastes, Magrathea can cater for you. We are not proud.
most forget, but fan blades need cleaning. any plastic blades, specially the clear one will look like cat vomit.
Imagine clear blades with each blade displaying cat hairballs spread out on the edges, spinning them above your head. It will harass you, give ammo to your in-laws to harass you, create marital strife (when are you going to clean that?) and then death as you fall off the ladder and break your neck on the coffee table, despite surviving four frontline deployments...
This was something that, and this probably comes as no surprise for the ones in the know, Technology Connections youtube channel has noted, the preference for form over function https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KWdCqpXB7A
> Sometimes new design phenomena slip past even those of us who are most in tune with the happenings of the built environment.
I went to Wayfair and searched ceiling fans and holy moly this space has changed! I thought to myself, "I don't see these when walking through my local bigbox hardware store?" So I went to Lowe's website and fandeliers are an entire category now.
The bigger issue I see in new construction is that all the recessed fixtures are replaced with flat LED modules that are not serviceable.
I refuse to own a home built after ~2015 due to this and other factors. Electricity on my kitchen island, toilets that can flush human sized shits, and proper lighting fixtures are non-negotiable for me.
They are serviceable in the sense that you simply replace them when they fail. Given that they cost so little now and have a service life of decades, it's more cost effective than a traditional fixture. Older fixtures with LEDs jammed into them were always an interim solution, and more prone to failure simply because of the design.
Growing up in Texas, I have always had a fan up and running. When living in apartments and houses that didn’t come with them I’ve put them up (likely breaking a stupid lease rule). At this point I’ve installed dozens of fans and have enough strong opinions on ceiling fans that I could write a lengthy blog post on the subject.
Don’t buy any of these junk fans. Get a normal looking fan, with a quiet DC motor, that takes standard light bulbs with a medium base (e26 in the USA).
Skip modern AC motors, nobody today can seem to build one that doesn’t whomp when it runs. Older AC motors weren’t so cheaply made and don’t usually suffer this problem.
If you have an older fan 25+ years old, you can often rebuild them and end up with a better fan than anything you can buy today.
If you’re building a new house (or doing a rewire) put two light switches in every bedroom, one for the fan the other for the light kit.
If you’re getting a fan with a remote, get one that will let you change the spin direction from the remote.
Get the correct size fan for the room.
Friends don’t let friends buy Hunter Fans, they are all hot garbage. Though they do follow through with their warranties.
Modern fan company .. I’ve take a few of them apart. They’re built from a different era — really thought out and quality build. It’s just a rare product that when you get your hands on it, you appreciate the craft and engineering that went into manufacturing it.
Funny thing... if we decided to add a ceiling fan to our apartment (we never would - we loathe them) we would have to commission an engineering study to make sure it doesn't affect our neighbors. The sound, the resonance... if we just put one in and the neighbors could hear it we'd have to remove it.
This kind of reminds me of the “Island” situation on Magic: the Gathering cards. An island is a piece of land, surrounded by water. However, due to 30+ years of needing to draw new versions of islands, Wizards of the Coast has expanded what it means to be an island, ending up with things that are… not that: https://imgur.com/a/xVnyP
I was taken aback by how few of the fans had replaceable lightbulbs! In the entire store there were maybe three or four options with a replaceable bulb!
Call me crazy, but a nonreplaceable LED is a complete dealbreaker. I go through so many LED bulbs! I don't know if my electricity is like particularly bad or if that's just normal? The first LED bulb I ever bought (Shout out EarthLED) in 2008 for like $30 is still going strong, but every bulb I buy these days lasts like two years tops.
Anyway, we did not buy a fan.
Lights with non-replaceable bulbs can actually be far better, because they can be designed for their environment. Recessed downlights with built-in LEDs for example can thermally couple the LEDs directly to the metal housing, so the heat can be dissipated into the surrounding air, instead of into the recess.
I’ve looked at a product called Bond that seems to facilitate it. But haven’t yet tried it.
There's no clean mechanism to control a fan's speed in-band on a normal AC wall switch.
I wish it caught on to have LED lights powered by a barrel jack DC plug like you have for most electronics. It would be a huge win for longevity. Sure it's not backwards compatible with fixtures designed for light bulbs, but the cases we're discussing here are complete light fixture replacements anyways... The fixture could have a barrel plug that you connect to an inexpensive commodity DC power brick which you then hide away in the ceiling.
"LED bulbs" die because they have to rectify 110VAC (hot) into LEDs (hot) into an enclosure that was designed for incandescents.
In a proper enclosure, with cooling (it's a fan), they will actually live their fully-stated lifetime - assuming the fan's upstream power supply makes it.
But in an "old school" hardware, you'd then replace the bulb and get a new "lifetime" out of it, here you have to throw everything away.
An AC motor has basically nothing inside that can fail (maybe the capactitor, but that can be replaced), and can work for a hundred years and more if properly maintained (mostly cleaned).
On average ~6 hours per day (living room with night owls living there), is ~2000 hours per year... 5 years at 10.000hours expected lifetime for the leds, 10 if the stated lifetime is 20k hours... that's not really that long.
Lightbulbs came in sockets because they were meant to fail. First by accident, later intentionally. They were also quite breakable because they were made of glass. LED lights don't have these problems unless they're designed to. Which is the meta-problem - how do you know which ones are planned obsolete?
Forcing an LED system into a lightbulb from factor has quality and cost implications though. A good LED light has a separate power brick inside the enclosure. Which is what you see in these fan lights.
I would hope that at least some of this would get standardized over time
Let me know how the non-replaceable sealed bearing packs in these AC or DC fans fare after 10,000 hours.
In a proper/high-end DC fan, the bearings are failing before any motors or LEDs.
Regardless, in a Big Ass Fans Haiku, the downlight is a completely separate/replaceable module - and it isn't going to fail before the bearings or motor.
Edison screw LED bulbs are the inferior design by every objective measure.
It also prevents the user from changing the bulb if they want a different color temperature or better CRI. Most of the built-in lights I see are in the 3000-3500K range, which is cooler the warm white I’ve chosen for the house. If I could swap the bulb it would be an easy fix, but if it’s built in then I’m stuck with it.
Me - I have the exact same bulbs in my off grid property, and in my on-grid property. On grid, it's about 18 months MTBF. Off grid - it's been seven years and I haven't had to replace a single bulb yet. On-grid our power is anywhere between 205 and 235v, often has spikes up to 260+, and has like 99% uptime. Off grid, it's 230v, day in, day out. Grid power is terrible in most places.
I have this issue as well, of burning thru LED lights.
So, a ducted fan! That would be a sensible and practical design if your ceiling needed extra thrust for takeoff.
Cheap and stupid goods with threatening auras, indeed. Possibly a step up from the 90s when it was cheap and stupid goods with a Memphis Group primary school aesthetic. Hard to choose.
I had to look that up and found some pretty cool articles. I like that the vapourwave trend from the 2010s created a lot of focus on the different aesthetics of software and everyday things on the internet.
The latter two links are from a dedicated "aesthetics wiki". I tend to like the detailed user-created content on fandom.com wikis, but I loathe the site itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Group
https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Memphis_Design
https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Memphis_Jr.
LEDs integrated into fans are the worst idea. If they're not bright enough, you're hosed. You generally can't change the color. Just stick to proven fixtures, and let me put my own choice of bulbs in it!
The other problem is just how houses/apartments are designed in the US. You should always have a separate wall switch for fan and lights! Why they couple the two - I can't fathom.
LED retrofit bulbs (Edison screws) are just shit no matter what - your choice will basically almost always be inferior to something that can be integrated into a fan by virtue of the technology.
Down-facing light from ceiling fans is also just bad, even on a $2000 Big Ass Fans Haiku. Central-point overhead lighting is displeasing.
And how many of them can I control with SmartThings, etc?
With my own bulbs, I can have it how I want it. I pick the fan based on the fan's capabilities, and not worry about the light.
> Central-point overhead lighting is displeasing.
No arguments there, but most houses/apartments in the US are built in this brain dead way. When I lived abroad, it was much better. The lights were always on the walls - often opposing walls. This way, light is coming more at an angle downwards, and you can position chairs/beds/couches such that the light is behind you, and if you're reading a book, the pages are being lit up by it.
What a testament to the manufacturing advances that have made it profitable to cater to every possible taste, budget, and architectural layout. It’s incredible actually.
This is why my "fancy" lighting fixture is an old track (whose proprietary lights died a long time ago) wrapped with an extension cable with 5 standard sockets on it, and some standard light bulbs in it. We dress it up with ribbons and stuff for the seasons. It doesn't look as nice as any of the things in that article, not even the gaudy and tasteless ones, but when a bulb burn out, I put a new one in and get on with life, I don't throw out an entire fan and buy a new one.
I'm old enough to remember when I was promised LEDs would last approximately forever without having to be replaced.
Don’t waste your time or eyeballs with “driverless” devices. Get a chip-on-board LED, e.g. Bridgelux’s products, along with a matching driver (I like Luminus Devices’ small drivers - they have good startup and dimming behavior).
Aside from usual electrical safety, anyone designing what is effectively a luminaire needs to make sure that the driver matches the LED and that the driver is compatible with the dimmer in use. Matching the LED means that the driver produces an amount of current that that LED’s datasheet data is acceptable and that produces the amount of light that is desired and dissipates an amount of heat that can be managed. And that the LED’s voltage drop at the design current is in range for the driver. These LEDs are constant current devices, so you’re thinking about current first and voltage second. Read the datasheets!
Unfortunately many cheap luminaires are based on modules that are either driverless LEDs (which are terrible due to essentially unavoidable flicker and lack of regulation) or are line-voltage-supplied integrated devices. These are likely to be hard-to-find modules. There may not be room for a discrete driver and separate LED.
In either case, learn to do hot air rework?
Replacing a bulb is a trip to my stash of bulbs in the laundry room, then throwing the old one in the trash.
I don't have time in my life for one of a fan with non-replaceable bulbs.
Yep, I remember that when Obama banned most incandescent lights because 'LED lighting is the future and 100 year lifespans blabla'.
Mind you, we used CFLs in the warm season, and incandescent in cold seasons. Incandescents are 100% efficient in cold seasons (heater AND light).
As much as I deign to admit, Trump reversed Obama's ban. And Biden reinstated it. I don't think Trump reversed Biden's reinstatement though. He's been way too busy with wrecking the country for shits and giggles.
But what the LED manufacturers figured out is they could overdrive LEDs and use substandard electronics for driving them. So sure, LEDs are more efficient, but they're the same old burnout cycle that's forced on us.
And we know all of this by the fact that Phillips makes "Dubai Lamps", and you can't buy them at any price. https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li...
I will say I've had a number of Hue bulbs starting back in about 2018 and have yet to lose one except for a surge that got an unprotected strip. Otherwise, plenty of white and color bulbs have worked steadfast for nearly a decade while costing a fraction in energy. That said, I do miss the warmth of incandescent lighting, but I don't miss replacing bulbs multiple times a year
All of the stuff available is basically a mix of the elements the author puts on his 8 images on the beginning of the article. Where only 2 of them have fans that can actually vent a room.
Except "traditional" it seems.
> In the sky a huge sign appeared, replacing the catalogue number. It said, Whatever your tastes, Magrathea can cater for you. We are not proud.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Imagine clear blades with each blade displaying cat hairballs spread out on the edges, spinning them above your head. It will harass you, give ammo to your in-laws to harass you, create marital strife (when are you going to clean that?) and then death as you fall off the ladder and break your neck on the coffee table, despite surviving four frontline deployments...
https://youtu.be/_KWdCqpXB7A
And of course complains.
But they are technologically informed complaints.
I went to Wayfair and searched ceiling fans and holy moly this space has changed! I thought to myself, "I don't see these when walking through my local bigbox hardware store?" So I went to Lowe's website and fandeliers are an entire category now.
I refuse to own a home built after ~2015 due to this and other factors. Electricity on my kitchen island, toilets that can flush human sized shits, and proper lighting fixtures are non-negotiable for me.
Don’t buy any of these junk fans. Get a normal looking fan, with a quiet DC motor, that takes standard light bulbs with a medium base (e26 in the USA).
Skip modern AC motors, nobody today can seem to build one that doesn’t whomp when it runs. Older AC motors weren’t so cheaply made and don’t usually suffer this problem.
If you have an older fan 25+ years old, you can often rebuild them and end up with a better fan than anything you can buy today.
If you’re building a new house (or doing a rewire) put two light switches in every bedroom, one for the fan the other for the light kit.
If you’re getting a fan with a remote, get one that will let you change the spin direction from the remote.
Get the correct size fan for the room.
Friends don’t let friends buy Hunter Fans, they are all hot garbage. Though they do follow through with their warranties.
https://youtu.be/_KWdCqpXB7A
1. Almost all are "appified", aka proprietary crappy BT protocol with required corporate spy/app.
2. Non-replaceable LEDs means burnout = e-waste.
3. LEDs are overdriven meaning they're intentionally ran to burn out sooner.
4. Many of the "fans" are indeed blades on a motor. For they blow? Nope. But they do indeed suck.
5. Many are just hideous and garish pieces of garbage. But "in matters of taste, the customer is always right".
Meanwhile, making products for the tasteless: $$$