ecosmart Dimmable Flourescent R30 Flood
Bulb Color – Harsh OK. Dimmable CFL – Bad. Heat – Good.
Update 12/23/08
The color is acceptable, but now that it’s been in use for a while, the bulb takes a few minutes to brighten up. It will only light up with the dimmer fully ‘on’, and even just a bit off, and it’s dark. I think a better term is ‘dimmer compatible’ as opposed to dimmable.
Reviewing the ecosmart 16 watt dimmable flood. Costs about two dollars more than more than an incandescent R30, so I have high hopes. Label says it is soft white 2700K. 75 watt equivalent. 750 lumens.
It is marked as good for ceiling cans, as well as flood fixtures. It is also marked as good for wet weather if the base is up (light shining down). It is about half an inch longer than the R30 incandescents, and looks the same in the ceiling can.
The dimmer we have is current technology (2 years old), and is driving just the one bulb. The bulb drops out early when the dimming starts.
The color starts out very good, and after several minutes takes on the classic CFL Death Pall.
Robert Townsend said,
November 16, 2009 @ 11:54 am
this bulb did not make me happy it only lasted one year not the 7 years that the warranty states. #785 283 R30 flood soft white dimmable
diane richter said,
January 13, 2010 @ 4:14 pm
Dimmable compact florescent bulbs (CFB) require a dimmer switch specially made for CFBs. I found them in Home Depot for about $90 each, but ordered them online for about $25 each. I have 5 of them installed in my house, each dimming 2 or 3 bulbs each. On the inside of the dimmers, there is a “screw” that allows you to preset the lowest dimmable level for the line of bulbs you have on that switch so that when you lower the dimmer level to the lowest setting, the bulbs will not go off, but just down to their lowest point. The less bulbs you have on one switch, the dimmer they will go. So, my 3 bulb switches will not dim the lights as much as my 2 bulb switches. Hope this helps someone out there cut their costs and/or installation time down.
Adam said,
January 23, 2010 @ 10:34 pm
Menards has a CFL dimmer plus a “Free Dimmable CFL Bulb” for only 14.99. I really thought that it was most likely not going to work, but sure enough its awesome. It even has a blue LED in the switch so you can see it at night. Highly Recommend. Its perfect for the bathroom for when I need to see what I’m doing, or those mornings after a “good night” that I just need some nice dim lighting.
RSweeney said,
January 27, 2010 @ 1:15 pm
Had 4 of these bulbs used in a dimmed bedroom lightbridge… one failed within 1 month, 1 in 6, the other two in less than a year.
Put the old Philips back in… still running after 3 years in same service.
Texas Homeowner said,
April 19, 2010 @ 6:09 pm
Bought a “120 watt equivalent” Ecosmart floodlight bulb to replace a regular 120 watt GE Reveal bulb. Used the Ecosmart bulb for 5 minutes and am now throwing it in the trash. It puts out less than a regular 65 watt bulb. Thanks US Congress.
Larry said,
May 15, 2010 @ 9:35 am
I am so sick of these light bulbs. I haven’t had one last longer than six months so far. I tried to call the 800 number on the bulb today and it’s disconnected. I’m starting to feel like this is nothing but a big scam.
Jack Garner said,
May 21, 2010 @ 8:05 pm
Bought 2 soft white R30 flood(15 watt- 65 watt equivalent) bulbs today. Supposed to be dimmer compatible.
After approximately 10 minutes on dim, the bulbs go out.
Replaced with old bulbs with no problems with dimmer switch.
arnold wong said,
September 8, 2010 @ 4:32 pm
I purchased 15 of these dimmable bulbs for my newly remodeled kitchen and family room. I was surprised that these bulbs do not last and they dim very little. I purchased the best fluorescent dimmers by Levitron but they simply do not dim. I’m really dissatified with these bulbs.
DoNot Contact said,
September 19, 2010 @ 7:06 pm
Bought five GE R30 CFLs, model 47478. Will be taking them back. They take EIGHT MINUTES to reach full brightness, and put out no usable light for at least the first 90 seconds. Ninety seconds! Until then nothing in the room is really illuminated, you just see the slowly increasing glow of the bulbs themselves. And yet they have the “energy star” label on them. These things are absolute garbage.
Hormone Replacement : said,
October 29, 2010 @ 9:31 am
light bulbs these days are getting replaced by compact fluorescents and LED based ones, original incandescent bulbs are power h “
Igor said,
November 22, 2010 @ 3:29 pm
I’ve had two of the EcoSmart CFLs’ outter envelope EXPLODE! And one came unglued and fell off. Good quality, huh?
Lighbulbman said,
January 17, 2011 @ 11:43 am
I hope this will help some of you out there. CFL bulbs are not meant to be dimmed and doing so greatly reduces their lamp life. There have been several “dimmable” CFLs on the market over the years and they are normally garbage. The lamps you buy @ Home Depot and Wal Mart are residential grade bulbs and not necessarily made with the best materials thus they extinguish before the average life printed on the box however they are much cheaper than the commercial grade bulbs. I sell commercial grade spring lamps for around $6 dollars apiece not 4 for 9.99 such as the retail stores and I do not have the amount of complaints that I see on here. Find yourself a good lighting store that has employees that know their product and you should find a happy medium with the CFL lamps. Some people will generally hate them no matter what as they are considerably higher than incandescent, take too long to warm up etc etc. Good Luck
Tony B said,
March 22, 2011 @ 7:11 am
Just bought Utilitech dimmable CFL soft white 1100 lumen spiral bulbs at Lowes. Using them with a Lutron dimmer designed for CFL’s (Dival C-L DVWCL-153P), 2 bulbs in once enclosed ceiling fixture. So for after 1 week they are working pretty well — nice soft white light, turn on at about 80% light strength, dim down to about 40%.. They cost $5.46 each.
Note they were not listed on Lutron’s website as one of their recommended bulbs but the Sylvania CF14EL/TWIST/DIM bulb is and it was total CRAP.
Hope this helps.
Bill Ford said,
December 31, 2011 @ 3:33 am
These bulbs ARE a big scam. At first Home Depot sold them under the Commercial Electric brand, but tens of thousands of them were coming back and the sales dropped off. So the manufacturer started branding them TCPi and selling them through Home Depot and tens of thousands of them started coming back, with more and more complaints about reliability and lifespan. Now, the SAME manufacturer is selling the bulbs under the brand name Ecosmart. Same crappy product, same results, same lifespan.
To top it off, here in Tennessee the government is subsidizing the purchase of ONLY these bulbs in Home Depot by consumers in a 4 pack for 1 cent if you fill out a form. The price on the bulbs for a 4 pack is supposed to be $6.99.
With a little digging, you can find a 4 pack of GE CFC bulbs in the store for the same price of $6.99, but those bulbs are not offered on the deal at Home Depot.
Want to know why? The reason is that the Ecosmart bulbs are manufactured in China (as are the other two brands) and distributed exclusively via Home Depot. As such, Home Depot makes about 3 times as much money on the Ecosmart bulbs than on the sale of the GE bulbs.
Put all these factors together….Home Depot is using a federal program designed to spur use of CFC’s to make huge profits by selling their proven crappy Chinese bulbs instead of promoting US jobs by including (or, better yet selling exclusively) the sale of the GE bulbs under the federally subsidized program.
Bottom line for Home Depot: it’s ALL about the profit and keeping the stock price up. Sell the sheep the crap Chinese stuff and don’t worry about US manufacturing jobs.
12/31/2011
Scott said,
December 31, 2011 @ 8:30 am
Bought 10 Ecosmart 25 watt equivalent dimmable CFL bulbs with the candlelabera (small) base yesterday. (5 twin packs for just under $14 per pack, about $7.00 per bulb.) One bulb did not work at all. A second one burned out after about an hour. Initially, they have very low light output and they take an extremely long time (several minutes, not exaggerating) to “warm up” to full light output. I am not throwing away the incandescents I removed. They have the usual limitations for dimmable CFLs which was expected so I am ok with that. Not impressed with the failure rate for a $7.00 bulb though!