Cree LED Revolution Blog

Cree and LED lighting are starting a revolution

Posts Tagged ‘downlights’

March LED lighting contest winners already love LED lighting

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011


Rob Gully is an early adopter. The Missouri resident says he has been using LED lights for five years, back when it wasn’t even on most people’s  radar. The first LED lights Rob bought were only bright enough for use in his refrigerator! Five years later, Cree LED lights are now bright enough to illuminate his entire kitchen.

Rob is the winner of the March LED lighting giveaway. He won 5 Cree CR6 LED downlights, and he says they’re the best LED lights he’s found yet.

“I always pick up a few LED light bulbs every year just to see how things have improved and I must say the CR6 bulbs are currently the peak of the LED evolution,” wrote to me in an email.

rob gully march winner

Here's the photo Rob submitted to the contest.

The CR6 LED downlight delivers the same warm incandescent light you’re used to, but consumes significantly less energy. The 10.5 watt CR6 downlight can replace a 65 watt halogen light. And it’s designed to last significantly longer than a halogen. Rob’s new lights are designed to last 50,000 hours, which means he could leave them on eight hours a day, seven days a week and it could be more than 17 years before he would have to change them!

“A friend came over recently and I took him to the kitchen and told him I wanted to show him some new LED bulbs I got.  Only after I pointed out the CR6 could he tell the difference.  The biggest compliment about these bulbs is the quality of light is nearly identical to incandescent or CFL (once they are warmed up),” Rob wrote.

Rob isn’t the only March winner. Massachusetts resident Jonathan Hunt also scored some LED lights. Jonathan was a runner-up, receiving 2 Cree CR6 LED downlights. Our judges just couldn’t pass up a chance to save Jonathan from this bad lighting situation:

Here's the image Jonathan submitted.

Here's the image Jonathan submitted.

Jonathan and his wife are big on saving energy. They blog about ways to live a more sustainable life. We’re eager to see Jonathan ditch the CFL reflector bulbs that he has been using in the kitchen.

If you think your lighting is bad enough to catch the eyes of our judges, then submit a photo in our June LED lighting giveaway. One lucky winner will receive 5 Cree CR6 LED downlights. We’ll be announcing the April and May winners soon. Stay tuned.

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December Cree LED lighting contest winner wants to save energy and money both at home and at work

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

Rusty Ponder is always looking for ways to save energy and money. As the Energy Management Coordinator for the third largest school district in Mississippi, Rusty was recently researching new lighting technology for work. In fact, it was his quest to find ways to save energy and money that led him to our website and our LED lighting giveaway.

Rusty is the December winner of our monthly bad lighting photo contest. He wins five Cree CR6 LED downlights for his home. In his entry, Rusty submitted this photo and wrote:

dec 2010 winner

“This house has very little foot candles in every room. Actually it is like living with candles and no electricity!”

Well anyone who talks in foot candles gets a shining star in the lighting geek book. And we couldn’t let Rusty feel like he was living in the dark. Turns out he has bigger plans for his new Cree LED lights. When I wrote Rusty to tell him he won, I asked him why he entered the contest. Here’s what he wrote:

“I thought if I can win these, I can show my bosses the LED technology and do some light meter readings and demos, so they can see firsthand how good they are. Then I can install them in my house and enjoy them for years to come.”

I think that makes Rusty a true LED Revolutionary. Because he’s going to spread the good word about high-quality LED lighting before enjoying them himself. And indeed, these lights could keep Rusty’s home lit for many years. They’re designed to last 50,000 hours, which means he can leave them on eight hours a day, seven days a week for 17 years. The lights are also dimmable, which means he can bring some mood lighting home. And since they only consume 10.5 watts, Rusty will be saving energy and money, which was his goal all along.

“I believe I will have a lot more evenly-spread light with better color and use a lot less energy, which will help me save money and help save the planet at the same time,” Rusty wrote.

This will be the first time Rusty has used an LED light. We’re pretty sure it won’t be his last.

If you want to try to win five Cree LED lights of your own, hurry up and enter our February LED lighting contest. Simply submit a photo of bad lighting in your home, office or business here. Next month, you could be joining Rusty in the LED Lighting Revolution.

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Idaho resident wins Cree LED lighting contest, will finally turn on his living room lights

Monday, August 30th, 2010


You know the lighting in your home isn’t working for you when you intentionally avoid turning the lights on. That’s what Jerry Saltzer has been doing in his home’s living room and office for some time. Instead, he relies on floor and table lamps to illuminate the areas. How come?

“The living room (and office) in our house is equipped with incandescent downlights in 16.5 foot ceilings,” Saltzer told me in an email. “The light they produce is fine, but replacing those light bulbs is such a big production that we are inclined to leave them off as much as possible and use floor and table lamps instead.”

Jerry is the winner of the Cree’s July LED lighting giveaway. He submitted this photo of his problematic lighting situation:

July Contest Winner

Jerry wins five Cree LR6™ LED Downlights, which he plans to install in his living room. The LR6 downlight consumes only 10.5 Watts and delivers the warm light of a 65 Watt incandescent light. And Jerry’s new LED lights are designed to last 50,000 hours, which means he won’t have to deal with the hassle of swapping out his living room lights for years to come.

“Installing LED lights with an expected lifetime of 50,000 hours means that we can turn them on every evening and yet probably won’t need to change them until 2050,” Jerry wrote.

There are only a two days left to enter the August Cree LED Lighting giveaway. Just upload a picture of bad lighting in your home or office to Cree LED Lighting Revolution and you could be featured here next month.

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Country Living House of the Year lit with Cree LED lights

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

If you think a two-story house with shutters and a wrap-around-porch looks a little out-of-place nestled between the skyscrapers and marina in New York City’s World Financial Center, you’re not crazy. The Country Living 2010 House of the Year was airlifted in to show Manhattan what a high-end, well-built green home could look like.

HOY

The Country Living House of the Year as it's being set up in Manhattan.

The historically-inspired green modular home is on display through Thursday, so you can see for yourself how a home can consume 50 percent less energy and save thousands of gallons of water a year compared to a standard code-built house, according to Country Living.

Among the ways this home is saving energy is through the use of energy-efficient Cree LED lighting. Cree provided our LR6™LED downlights for this year’s Country Living House of the Year to demonstrate the beautiful light quality and major energy savings that can be achieved through the use of LED lighting.

We constantly hear from skeptics that LED lighting isn’t ready to light your home. But that’s simply not the case, and we’re glad that the Country Living home in Manhattan (of all places) will be yet another public demonstration of LED lighting.

The LR6 downlights that are in the house consume only 10.5 Watts of energy and are designed to last 50,000 hours. That means the lights in this house could stay on for 8 hours a day and run more than 17 years. Could you imagine not changing a light bulb for 17 years? What’s more is at the 50,000 hour mark, these LED lights shouldn’t just burn out. Instead Cree’s LED lights are designed to provide at least 70 percent of their initial light output at the 50,000 hour mark. So, depending on your lighting needs, you could still be using them 50,000 hours later.

If you would like some LR6 LED recessed lights of your own, you can try to win our monthly photo contest. Each month we giveaway five Cree LR6 downlights to one lucky winner.  Just submit a photo of bad lighting in your home or office to qualify for the June contest.

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