Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

There are mixed review of LED bulbs replacements so to clear the confusion the lights I got were bought at Brightech (fulfilled by Amazon). They are sold in 10-packs labeled as "B009DRF3VW BrightChoice LED Light Warm White Color New". 1. Power Supply: Someone reviewed that they don't work with AC. NOT TRUE. I used the basic Malibu Transformer/Timer (ML88T) which is outputting 12.2V AC measured unloaded. I also tried with twice smaller model ML44T (12V AC 12.6V measured unloaded). Both work without noticeable flicker. 2. Light Output: I did not have equipment to measure exactly the light output but compared side by side with 4W incandescent bulb the LED is much more brighter. I don't know for sure what LED were used but they look like 5050 SMD. Now I will get a bit technical, so if you don't want to follow, just skip to the conclusion. There are 6 LED in one bulb, each is about 15 lumen, so the total light output is 90 lumen. Normal incandescent 25W bulb gives about 200 lumen. So it is save to assume that this LED bulb is equivalent in light output to 12W incandescent bulb using just about 1W (Correction: it is less than 0.5W measured - read the February 2014 update below). One note about the light output. 5050 SMD have "lambertian" direction, that is the most of the light is directed up to 60 degrees from the center. It means the bulb will have "black spots" on edges of the printed circuit board. That is bad, because your garden light will not shine in all directions equally but the good thing is that from the "bright" directions it will look like 20W bulb. 3. Flickering. I am a "FED flickering freak". To the point that I can't drive at night behind the city buss or behind some American cars with LED lights. Flickering red light drives me nuts. To my surprise the flickering of these LED bulbs are not as dramatic. I estimated the light pulse width at about 90% of the full cycle what means the LED goes dark for about 1ms every 8ms here in USA, (and it will be every 10ms in Europe). It feels is almost like CFL. That is not so bad as I thought and so far does not bother me at all. 4. Durability. I can't tell anything yet, but keep in mind that these LED bulbs are not water proof, not even water resistant. Keep them enclosed in dry place (do nut run your sprinklers on lights) and make sure your enclosure does not have "leak in the roof". Rust will eat the electronics for sure. But I remember that incandescent 4W bulb did not last me more than 3 months. I expect much more from LED bulbs. 5. Cost. I don't know what price you will have to pay the at the time you read it, but I bought these lights for $2.20 a piece (I bought two 10-packs paying almost 44 dollars). I'm re-doing my backyard lights so I figured out that paying more for LED bulbs I will save money on low voltage wire. Comparing prices at Home Depot I noticed that 10-gauge landscape wire costs 3 times more than 16-gauge wire. I needed 150ft so the difference pays for LED bulbs. 6. Conclusion It is win-win with LED lights. Overall more light (12W equivalent), less money for electric bills (10 times), cheaper wires (3 times), more durable (expect 10 times longer life), Standard (the cheapest) same old power supply. So far I am happy. Edit: November 8, 2013 Two months past, what means if I have incandescent bulbs one would have go wrong by now. This is not the case with these LED bulbs. I run them on timer which is set to turn them on for about 6 hours every night. So far all is good. Edit: February 18, 2014 Five months and none of 16 bulbs went wrong. They all shine like new. I have a correction to the power they take. I measured with kil-a-wat meter. 16 bulbs take 7.7W. Which makes 0.48W each bulb. Funny thing, my Malibu Timer (40W model) takes 8W just to spin the clock and power the transformer on idle - that's more than these 16 bulbs. Edit: September 4, 2014 Still no signs of wear. All bulbs are running strong (they run 12 hours every day - from 6pm to 6am). Edit: September 4, 2015 Sorry, nothing new to report :-). Still no signs of wear. All bulbs are running strong. Now they run 14 hours every day - from 5pm to 7am as I don't bother to change the timer setting to align with daylight duration. The entire chain takes very little power so few extra hours doesn't make a difference in the energy consumption. Edit: March 7, 2016 I just realized these bulbs come with 5 years warranty, but I can't use it because... all bulbs work flawlessly. They survived the third winter (rainy season in California) without a single glitch. And because my fixture is the cheapest Malibu Set you can buy (all plastic) these bulbs are exposed to dust, spider webs (and all kind of lawn bugs) and moisture (morning dew) . I guess "DESIGNED TO LAST" is not an empty promise.