Home Depot is selling affordable LED Downlight powered with Cree TrueWhite Technology

Posted by Ginny Skalski

If you don’t have a recessed downlight in your home or office, chances are you know someone who does. An estimated 500 million downlights are installed in homes throughout the United States, according the U.S. Department of Energy. And that number is growing, with an estimated 30 to 40 recessed lights going into newly-constructed homes.

With so many downlights lighting up American homes, there’s a big opportunity to save a lot of energy with LED lighting. But how? Well, today we’re ecstatic to announce that the LED Lighting is officially coming home! That’s right, Home Depot customers can now buy affordable six-inch LED downlights powered with Cree TrueWhite® Technology online at HomeDepot.com. This LED light is also targeted to be available in nearly 2,000 Home Depot retail stores in fall 2010.

Sold as the EcoSmart LED Downlight, this new energy-efficient light retails for less than $50 and features the award-winning technology that sets Cree’s LED lights apart from other LED products on the market — Cree TrueWhite Technology.

This is truly a milestone for the LED Lighting Revolution. Here are six reasons you should be excited about the EcoSmart LED Downlight:

1. Incredible Light Quality: Let’s face it, we love saving energy but we hate it when energy-saving light makes a room look like a dungeon. You truly don’t have to sacrifice light quality with the EcoSmart LED Downlight. This downlight is powered with Cree TrueWhite Technology, which delivers high efficiency with beautiful, warm color by mixing the light from unsaturated yellow and red LEDs.

Cree’s one-of-a-kind approach maintains high color accuracy over the life of the EcoSmart LED Downlight, exceeding even ENERGY STAR® color consistency requirements for LED lighting! That means the light quality is beautiful and can stay that way throughout the long-life of these fixtures.

2. Extremely Long Lasting: What if you didn’t have to haul out a ladder to change bulbs in your ceilings for decades? The EcoSmart LED Downlight is designed to last 35,000 hours. That means this light could last you more than 32 years with three hours of daily use. Install it in a hard-to-reach places such as foyers, high-ceiling kitchens and family rooms and you can avoid the hassle of dragging a ladder into your home to replace burned out bulbs…for years! In fact,  you may never have to buy another light bulb (sorry, Thomas Edison).

3. Big Energy Savings: Imagine this scenario: Swapping out the 65-Watt incandescent light screwed into your recessed fixture with a 10.5-Watt LED light, while still having beautiful light quality. Now, wake up, you don’t have to daydream anymore.

The EcoSmart LED Downlight consumes only 10.5 Watts and doesn’t waste energy as heat like incandescent lights do. That means you can cook in your kitchen without feeling like your downlights are cooking you. Bonus: This downlight is dimmable to 5 percent, so you can rack up even more energy savings while having mood lighting for a romantic dinner or a scary movie. And, unlike, fluorescent lights, LED lights don’t contain toxic mercury. LED lights are also instant-on, which means you don’t have to wait for the lights to achieve full brightness, like you do with many fluorescents.

4. It’s Affordable: The EcoSmart LED Downlight will sell for less than $50. And considering its extremely long life and energy savings potential, you can stand to save a lot of money over the life of the fixture. This is the first affordably-priced and widely distributed consumer product to use Cree TrueWhite Technology. Bonus: Some utility companies are offering rebates. We’ll keep you posted on those, but feel free to inquire with your local utility provider.

5. Easy to Install: How many people does it take to screw in an EcoSmart LED Downlight? Just one. This light installs easily into most standard six-inch recessed insulated ceiling or non-insulated ceiling housings. It’s designed for new construction and retrofit. Need specific instructions? Watch this video.