Customer Reviews

Earthmate EP085250 8-Watt, Dimmable BR30 2700K Bulb, 6 Pack

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Our situation:
We have six dimmable R30 can lights in our basement. Originally, we had (6) 65W Incandescent bulbs. Those worked great, but burning through 390W every time the family turned on the lights made me cringe. So, I went shopping for replacements. I ran across these bulbs, which takes only 8 Watts per bulb. After installing these, I was able to reduce my max energy usage from 390W to 48W.

I hadn't ever heard of Earthmate before, but the reviews on their other products sounded great, so I gave them a try.


Pros:
* Instant-On: Absolutely no delay when flipping the switch
* Dimmable: Hard to find in a CFL.
* Low Wattage: Most CFL's takes 13-15 Watts for a 60W comparison. These take 8 Watts for a 45W comparison.
* Packaging: I try to recycle everything I can. I find it frustrating if I purchase a product that is designed to help the environment, only to find that I have to throw away all the packaging that came with it. Earthmate was different - easy to open, no need for scissors, simply unfolding a box. I was extremely impressed with their packaging. I love the fact that it's made with 100% post-consumer waste recyclable material and only uses soy-based ink. In my book, this deserves a star by itself.

Cons:
* Lower Lighting: Compared these 45W replacements to my previous 65W Incandescent bulbs, there is a noticeable difference in the amount of light output. I'm really comparing apples to oranges here, but they can both be used for the same purpose, so it is something to consider.
* Flicker: These CFL's will flicker when dimmer is set to the absolute lowest setting. This may be by design, as these only advertise being dimmable to 5%. The lowest setting on my dimmer may be below 5%


Summary:
If you're trying to make the switch from a 45W Incandescent to a 45W CFL, these are a no-brainer. If looking for a 60-65W Incandescent replacement, you need to consider whether a 45W replacement would provide enough lighting. Our basement has low ceilings and an egress window, so our previous 65W bulbs put out too much light. These provide a good (but not great) amount of lighting, it's enough to read a book. More importantly, they got the wife's OK.

I gave this product 5 stars because it does everything it advertises to do, and their packaging design is stellar.

I recently renovated our attic, and used recessed lighting throughout. Keeping the space cool is a challenge, as with any such space. We've done all the extra insulation and crawlspace exhaust fans. Recessed lighting was a necessity to save floor space and head clearance.

The incandescent bulbs on the dimmer, even when dimmed, contributed significant heat to the space. After reading the spotty reviews of the Philips and GE "dimmable CFL" BR30 tyoe bulbs, I was not hopeful that I would be able to replace the incandescents. Finding these (which are even cheaper than the GE/Philips alternatives, with lower power consumption) was a surprise. The few reviews were glowing, so I took the plunge and bought two 6-packs (there are 10 recessed lights dispersed through the finished attic).

The difference is remarkable. None of the typical fluorescent lag. Instant on! Very dimmable, probably close to the 5% claimed on the box. And they consume 8W vs the 65W bulbs they replaced. Much less heat.

Good bulbs and one of the easiest way to save money. Got these to replace the 50W dimmable bulbs I had in the living room.
My tracklighting uses 4 bulbs. Now I am using less wattage (32W) for all 4 than I did for 1 50W bulb. Crazy.

I expected the instant-on to be at least 85-90% of the brightness, but, sadly, that is not the case.
They start off at about 30-40% and then gets brighter, taking upto 1 min to get to full brightness.
Still sticking with them as I'm using far less electricity. Others might not feel that way.

I purchased the 6 pack of these Earthmate dimmable bulbs from Amazon 4 months ago. Since then I've had two of the six go bad within 4 months. Other CFL bulbs in my house have been installed for three years without any issues. The other issue I have with these bulbs is they take a full minute to reach full brightness and full brightness is about a third of what a regular bulb is.

At first I thought these bulbs were a neat idea with the whole environmentally green message, but choose a bulb based on it's performance, not just the packaging. Having to recycle bulbs prematurely has to be worse.

Great lights, highly recommended.
Best of the 3 brands I've tried.
Use in 6 recessed lights, standard height ceiling. They warm up quickly, come on at ~85% of full brightness, dim nearly full range using existing Lutron incandescent/halogen dimmer switch. No buzzing when dimmed. Consistent light from all bulbs- same color and intensity. High marks for the packaging as well - easy to open, recyclable.

This was my third try using CFLs. First were GE dimmables 15w - disappointing performance - slow on warm up, dimmed about 1/2 range, buzzed when dimmed, relatively even color. Returned them, got ecosmart bulbs, 15w - terrible - long warm up, uneven color between the bulbs, packaging said dimmable, but they were almost on/off when attempting to dim.

These 8w are good for general lighting with standard height ceiling. Light is a bit low which works well for my application. Only use 48w versus 90w for the next step up. Light is adequate for reading.

These work great so far. Have not had them in for long but they dim very well. Better than a couple of GE's that we tried and nice color to the light.

The packaging is great - it is nice to not have to take out scissors and risk being sliced by plastic. The bulbs worked well, as you would expect. I put them in less than two years ago and they are all starting to die. This is not the longevity promised on the package.
Because it takes them a while to get going I always set them on maximum brightness and never really used the dimness feature.
The frosting helps make the light more pleasant.

Just installed 6 of these last night to replace some 65 watt lights. The 65 watt bulbs were overkill for the fixtures they were in, so these ended up being perfect. There is a bit of a warm up time with these bulbs (about a min) so they start a little dim. However, once they warm up, the light is great. Much more warm than standard CFLs, but not quite as warm as a standard bulb. The dimmer works great with these as well; I can take the switch pretty much all the way to the bottom. Also, I was a bit worried that I would see the CFL tubes through the bulb, but I can thankfully say this is not the case. These are fantastic, especially considering that I can run 6 of these bulbs for 48 watts total, less than one of the bulbs that they replaced!

I'm not a tree-hugger, but if I can save energy at the same time as saving money I will foot the bill on a multi-year investment. I bought 12 of these bulbs and figured it would take 3-5 years to get my money back. Even if I broke even I would have thought they were worth it, as less energy means a better world. I am disgusted at the failure rate of these bulbs. A majority of the bulbs failed after 3 months, while it took less than a year for the rest to give up. The light is poor. They never dimmed well. Now they don't work and off to the recycling center they go.

Earthmate is sham. I give them a less than zero. Why would I even return these? I don't want loser products in my home.

I'd love to give this product a good review, but one of the bulbs stopped working within 3 months. We didn't use them for anything unusual, just lighting the family room. We dimmed them a couple of times, but mostly just had them on or off. For something this expensive, I expected them to last years under normal use, not months. A regular spotlight bulb would have worked fine, and saved me a lot of money. (Most of my other lights in the house are compact flourescent, and they seem to work fine, so I blame this specific product)