Doesn’t seem very smart to me:

Home Depot later this year plans to carry a Philips LED bulb designed as a replacement for the common 60-watt incandescent.

The bulb, now called the 12-watt EnduraLED, will be available by the beginning of December and will cost between $40 and $50, representatives from Philips and Home Depot said today.

Home Depot started selling a line of LED bulbs under the EcoSmart label earlier this year, which includes both spotlights and general-lighting LEDs. The Philips bulb will likely be sold under a different name than 12-watt EnduraLED, Philips representative Silvie Casanova said.

[…]

In terms of efficiency, the lumens per watt on the 12 watt EnduraLED comes in at 67. That’s slightly better than EnergyStar-certified CFLs, which put out 800 lumens with 13 watts to 15 watts for an efficacy of between 53 and 61. But, this LED is rated to last 25,000 hours, about three to four times that of CFLs. The EnduraLED is also dimmable.

As commenters on the review point out the bulb uses almost the same amount of energy as CFLs of similar output, and trades off four times the longevity for ten times the cost. The benefit is that these bulbs aren’t filled with dangerous levels of mercury like the CFL bulbs the greens want you to use. So soon consumers can either pay $50 for a light bulb or bring toxic mercury into their house.

I’ll be using oil lamps first. I’ll never bring a CFL in my house or drop $50 on a bulb. Make arraignments for your lighting needs now before it’s too late.