LED v Halogen
What is the difference?
LED lights use a diode rather than a heated filament.
Halogens are similar to incandescent light bulbs. Halogen lights use halogen gas in order to produce light. This means halogen lamps are extremely hot (can reach around 100 degree Celsius) compared to an LED lamp or light.
Why use LED instead of Halogen?
The majority of the energy that an LED bulb uses is converted into direction light rather than heat, which makes them much cooler to touch. With halogen bulbs, most of the energy is turned into heat, which is why they require so much more energy to produce the same amount of light as a much lower wattage LED.
How safe are they?
Halogen lights have the potential to cause fire in some cases as they do run hotter than other lights. If they come into contact with the wrong surface for too long they have been known to cause fire. As LED lights operate at a lower temperature, they are considered a safer alternative than other systems.
https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=709
Are LEDs cheaper to run?
Generally, LEDs (running at 100% brightness) are much more energy efficient and eco-friendly than halogen lights.
LED lights use somewhere between 7 – 20 watts per hour compared to Halogens that use between 35 and 500 watts per hour.
The average life span of an LED bulb is around 50,000 hours of life compared to Halogen’s life span of around 1200 hours.
Do they cost more?
A halogen bulb is cheaper to buy than an LED however, halogen lights are quickly becoming an obsolete product and therefore harder to obtain.
A good quality LED lasts 5-10 times longer and consumes approximately a quarter of the energy. Overall LED is by far a much cheaper product.
