The world’s longest burning light bulb has already outlived three webcams

In the fire station of the small Californian village of Livermore, the sturdy Centennial Light Bulb has been burning almost without interruption since 1901. The bulb has its own fan club and the so-called bulbcam keeps the Centennial Bulb ‘on the air’. And contrary to the famous everlasting bulb itself, the webcam has been replaced several times.

So did light bulbs last a lot longer in the old days? Quite the reverse, actually: modern low-energy and fluorescent lamps have a life expectancy of several tens of thousands of hours. LED lamps lasts a minimum of 15,000 and as much as 50,000 hours, or up to 50 times longer than the average 1,000 hours of the original light bulbs.

Has your low-energy, LED or fluorescent lamp quit on you? Then take it to the container park or your local Recyclepoint.

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