User Reviews

I had the opportunity to test out this light very briefly thanks to Vinnie at Ferguson. The light appears to be extremely well constructed, on par with other high end LED's.

 

The genius or achilles heal of this light , depending on which side your on, is that it replaces your entire recessed light baffle and trim kit (its plain white on this light). I assume this was to allow the manufacturer to get the actual light emitting portion closer to the edge of the recess (but I'm just spit balling). This wouldn't bother me, but if you are partial to black baffles or a fancy gold trim kit, you'll have to go with out.

 

The light and heatsink are huge, especially compared to a standard LED floodlight. On the back of the unit, it has 3 fins that can be folded out to help secure it in the recessed light can (they seemed pretty sturdy).

 

I tested this light in a normal receptacle, not in a recessed light can, but this still allowed me to assess the color temp and fill capability. Its rated at 2700k and I'd say thats pretty accurate. Its has that warm glow you'd expect from an incandescent bulb, not that harsh blue hue you get from some cheaper LED's. The light seemed to "flood" really well, emitting a good blanket of light.

 

I only had about 5 minutes with this light and was testing it in my garage, not in the home, but based on the color temp and construction and compared to other LED floodlights, I'd say this is a pretty good LED solution if you are looking to spend the money. The rep said they sale for around $90. If I were to make the LED investment, this would probably be the light I'd go with. That said, $90 is a little high for me (I have 32 recessed light cans), so I'll have to wait for the cost to drop a bit.

 Hi  guys , want to welcome back to planet sanity,$90 bucks for a light bulb?com-mon lets get serious.
while I applaud companies like Cree et al for their advancement in this field We need to scale back by a factor of 10 before any of this stuff makes any kind of fiscal sense...Please dont give me the old" but they will last 20 yrs and I be giving them  to my children argument. right now we are jamming a bunch of newly designed LEDs into as small a package as possible and shoving as much power as they can take to get those big lumens (er sales) 
The only guys that should be exited about buying these things should ex pentagon procurement guys who bought the $90 hammers and $2500 toilet seats .
So in closing if you wish to be an early adopter,on the bleeding financial edge thats great, but just remember guys its just alight bulb ...

I bought 6 of these bulbs for my kitchen back before LLF was bought by Cree. Installed them and was amazed. I did not like my incadescent kitchen lights...too wasteful. Tried CFLs, but quality of light was poor and they gave me headaches. I am sensitive to light for some reason (get migraines). But used these guys and it doesn't matter how bright I set them, I do not get headaches any longer. they offer an excellent spectrum of light. I got the RC6 2700 wavelength version. They are easy to install and worth the high price. Although, they are now around $88 a peice online now... getting better. But would never trade them in. Have them all setup on dimmer and they work nicely. Uniformly dim.

This  gives off great light, better by a little than the best cfl. Its is just too expensive at the time. It is also significantly brighter than the 65 watt br30 that it replaced.Since it the only light on a circuit, it does not draw enought electricity to use a dimmer.

as an addendum to my earlies review, It will dim as a only light on 1 circuit. Thanks diddler for the info, I only wish Cree had given me the same in my email conversations with them. Light is now perfect, but for price. I am sure it will come down as all new technologies do and I will be on it for all of my recessed lighting.

I bought 15 of these lights and I'm very happy with them. There are really NO drawbacks  other than the initial capital outlay. Even with the current cost, you will save over $300 per bulb over 20 years (the effective lifespan of the product) in just electricity costs alone (assuming your kw/h cost stays the same over 20 years; it will no doubtedly go up though). This doesn't include using less of your AC because the bulbs give off less heat, or your time and auto costs going to the store to buy 10-20 replacement bulbs, dragging out the ladder and replacing them. To me, this is worth thousands of dollars over 20 years. Also, even after 20 years, the bulb will just be 70% the brightness of when you bought it. That's how the lifespan of LED lights are rated. The bulbs are solid state, dropping them won't hurt them. They take about 5 minutes per bulb to install. The lighting quality is EXCELLENT! This is a totally different animal than most LED products the majority of the public has seen. This is a single super bright LED chip with a high quality optical lense to diffuse the light. These bulbs also contain no harmful and toxic chemicals when you dispose of them, unlike CFL. Also, the lifespan ratings on CFL's are total BS. They probably only last half of their rating. These bulbs can be dimmed, but only to about 25-35% brightness and unlike the other review, I can dim a single light just fine. I only wish they made these in swivel mounts for my high angled ceilings.