I've never had this happen to me and, now, in a span of 1 month, it's already happened 4 times... The following 3 LED bulbs and 1 LED strip have become unusable:
- An Ikea Ledare 600lm spot LED buld (supposed to last 25000h; failing after less than 2 years)
- An Ikea Ledare 1000lm LED bulb (supposed to last 25000h; failing after a bit more than 1 year)
- A Lomatee 310lm candle bulb from Amazon (supposed to last 30000h; failing after less than 2 years)
- A LED 12VDC strip bought from Aliexpress (having been in use the longer, for about 3)
All them are over 1 year old but but no more than 3. They're not from the same batch, obviously, nor even bought in the same country. But they're all used in the same apartment, only in different rooms. However, in the lapse of 1 month they're all flickering and ceasing to work. It's important to note that they're not actually burning out, that is to say, the diodes aren't burning out and not working any more; they're only flickering or, at least, they're still flickering before dying completely, if that is the case.
The big Ledare is in my bedroom, and it simply flickers off more than it's on. It may turn on for a couple of seconds or even a couple of minutes, but then it turns back off for 15 minutes, 30 mins, etc.
The Ledare spot is one of 3 in a hallway and it simply flashes on and off all the time, rhythmically, even as if it had a microchip set to make it act like the flickering light of TV static.
In the case of these 2 I don't think it's the actual diodes but rather something to do with the transformer from AC to DC.
In the case of the candle-like bulb, which is in my living room, I can see one of its strips of LEDs is the one that's flickering on and off when I turn on the bulb; after a couple of minutes, it just remains off.
And in the case of the LED strip, which are also in my living room, it's one or 2 LEDs on at the beginning of the series that's flickering, almost constantly.
As you can see, whereas the first two bulbs completely turn on and off, the candle-like bulb and the LED strips are only partly affected, the rest of them work fine.
All the bulbs are connected directly to the AC mains, of course. The LED strip is connected to a 12VDC transformer.
The only thing I can think of is that it may have something to do with surges... Last year my Mac's transformer blew up all of a sudden and I had to get a new one. The iStore's damage assessment was a probable surge. So I bought a surge-protected extension for it and I noticed some months back that the green light which says it's protected has gone out, so I'm assuming that the surge-protection was burnt.
Nonetheless, I find it really weird that these LEDs are dying at the same time, instead of having been dying one by one all these 2 years I've lived in this apartment if, in fact, it's due to surges. Moreover, none other of my appliances (nor our computers' transformes) have burnt out around this time.
I really don't trust that this apartment has a good ground connection (or any ground connection, for that matter)... I'm assuming it probably has something to do with this. It does have thermal switches; and once they were tripped when we were using the oven, the washing machine and the vacuum at the same time, so they're not decorative... But that's about as much as I know, except that the electrical wiring is probably rather old, as it is an old building.
So what could be going on? And, more importantly, how can I solve it? Some of these LED bulbs are pretty costly, and one invests in them because they're supposed to last a long time but, in this case, they're lasting about as much as a normal incandescent bulb! At first I thought it might be faulty bulbs, so I called up Ikea, but then, some days lates, another, and another started failing... so to me it clearly has something to do with the house's electrics, right?
Thanks in advance for your input!