It's been a busy 12 months in the lighting aisle, with the debut of new, low-value LED mild bulbs that promise to chop your home's power draw with out breaking the bank. The most recent, from GE, is the Brilliant Stik LED, which bucks the bulb altogether in favor of a push-pop-shaped build. The associated fee: $10 for a three-pack (a GE consultant tells me that they don't plan on promoting the energy-efficient bulbs individually just yet). Like the other main participant on the cheap finish of the spectrum, the Philips 60W Alternative LED , the Shiny Stik presents a reasonably compelling value proposition. Whereas a 60W incandescent will add about $7 per 12 months to your energy invoice, energy-efficient bulbs the 10W Shiny Stik will add simply $1.20. Spend $10 on that three-pack and EcoLight solar bulbs use them for a 12 months, and your complete cost is $13.60. Spend a buck on three incandescents, and you may find yourself spending another $21 over the course of the 12 months -- and then you may have to change them, since that's about as long as they final.

The Brilliant Stiks will last well over a decade. There are just a few trade-offs, though. The Shiny Stik isn't quite as bright or as efficient as other LEDs and, like the Philips bulb, it is not an option that'll work with dimmer switches. Nonetheless, it is a very solid match for basic lighting setups, and at a value of about $three per bulb (or, um,"Stik"), it is a really solid worth, too. If I simply needed to substitute one mild, I'd most likely stick to Philips, but if I'm replacing my bulbs in bulk, I'm going to provide the Vibrant Stik some severe consideration. The GE Vivid Stik isn't the first huge model LED that desires you to think outdoors the bulb. For over a yr now, the flattened-down Philips SlimStyle LED has been promoting on Residence Depot shelves, and its success would possibly serve as proof of concept for the odd-wanting Vibrant Stik LED. You'll soon see the 2 promoting aspect-by-facet in the home Depot lighting aisle.

Nonetheless, the SlimStyle LED at the very least attempts to approximate the overall silhouette of a mild bulb (from sure angles, anyway). With the Bright Stik LED, you're all in on newfangled design, no incandescent nostalgia necessary. Whether or not or not that's an excellent factor is solely as much as you. We're probably lacking the purpose, although. Bulb or no bulb, the Vivid Stik remains to be, properly, a mild bulb. Normally, you're not going to see the factor after you screw it in and decrease the lampshade. The form factor actually doesn't matter a lot in and of itself. What does matter is how that form factor impacts the standard of gentle, which is where my issues lied as I prepared to check the Brilliant Stik out. None of that cylindrical plastic is angled downward, EcoLight brand the way the bottom half of a spherical bulb is. I puzzled if which may keep the Vivid Stik from casting the sort of downward mild people usually choose to read below.

Fortuitously, that wasn't the case. With the LED hidden underneath a lampshade, I couldn't distinguish the quality of the Brilliant Stik's mild from some other customary, omnidirectional bulb. That applies to the feel and appear of the light, too. At 2,850 K, it's as warm and yellowy as you'd anticipate from a standard, household gentle (a 5,000 Okay "daylight" version is offered, too, for an extra buck). The 760-lumen light output -- whereas a bit in need of the best 800 lumen benchmark for a 60W replacement -- is lots shiny for most fundamental wants. Really, energy-efficient bulbs the one distinction this design makes is on GE's finish -- the slimmed down figure makes it a breeze to package deal the Bright Stik, and easier for energy-efficient bulbs GE to ship them in bulk (especially when packaged three at a time). All of that helps shave cents off the upfront price, and EcoLight products there's nothing to not like about that.