The Cost Of LEDs (1 Viewer)

[SCUBAFreaky]

i think about this sometimes. All the stuff we have running in out tanks, high intensity lighting at all hours of the day, online orders for high accuracy scales, lab grade powders and ingredients… I am surprised that aquarium people don’t have raids happening on a regular basis. Isn’t high energy usage a tell? A 150g reef tank must use at least half of what a grow room uses. maybe 2 150g tanks? We probably have 50-75% of reefers ready to jump into hydroponics at a moments notice

And we call ourselves...reefers too.

 

[BigRick]

I agree that $1000 is high and feels like a cash grab and it is probably marked that high since that is what people will pay. I was just pointing out that the markup is probably closer to 2x instead of 20x.

I just hope most the profit goes into r&d and not sports cars for execs.

Definetly more then 2x..3-5 atleast. At wholesaling pricing fpr these big guys to build these units is already another 30-40% less then what the avg Joe buys his own DIY kits. The reason high cost is because so much more R&D money was spent that has to be recovered. R&D that was probably way over budgeted cause like Cody said. These light really ain't much off the grow lights. And they're a lot cheaper.. a lot.. the Vectra lights started from a grow company. Our old MH and T5s were also from grow companies. All them started making reef lights since they were same but were able to market them more with fancy brainwashing lingo. As an investor I'd never invest for a return like that.

 

[decimal]

“ As an investor I'd never invest for a return like that.”

And yet…. Here we are. Guess you can’t really call it an investment unless you are ok with investing in yourself and your own gratification

 

[BigRick]

“ As an investor I'd never invest for a return like that.”

And yet…. Here we are. Guess you can’t really call it an investment unless you are ok with investing in yourself and your own gratification

I dont quit understand what you mean? Most investments fail.

 

[decimal]

I mean I keep a reef tank for myself. The reef money I spend is on myself hence I am investing in my own well-being. It’s a long walk but hey, how else am I going to be able to justify spending $1000 on a light that will be available for $350 as soon as the next gen comes out

 

[foos]

Somehow I missed this thread when it started last week. $1000 certainly seems outrageous for a LED light especially when you compare it to other electronics that do way more than just make things shiny and turn on and off. You can buy game consoles, a descent laptop and a pretty good flat screen LED TV for less than $1000 these days. All three of these are FAR more complicated than a reef aquarium LED light. Something DEFINITELY doesn't add up other than consumers are willing to pay the price and not educate themselves that this price is actually pretty ridiculous. Not sure how to address this @Cody other than to show people that there are far cheaper Chinese black box options. And to further complicate the market, big warehouse companies such as BRS and Saltwater Aquarium refuse to sell anything like that with the claim that they are too cheap. I believe there's a double meaning in that last statement.

Smart TV's and game consoles are sold at a loss. Game consoles make it back in games and smart TV's advertise to you and/or sell your data. Look at diff gen Roku stuff, netflix and what have you buttons change, they are paid for those. Netflix will pay good money to be on the remote and pre-installed on the tv.

 

[RobertP]

@Cody let me know if you are building a new light...I am interested. Years ago I played around with LEDs building a few for the garage and often thought about building an entire light just because I could. The catch is those knockoff reef lights can do it better than I can even if their power supplies were not Mean wells and could be replaced if needed. I know my T5 bulbs will need to be replaced and always weigh the option of switching to LEDs, build my own, or just buy the bulbs again...

 

[BigRick]

Smart TV's and game consoles are sold at a loss. Game consoles make it back in games and smart TV's advertise to you and/or sell your data. Look at diff gen Roku stuff, netflix and what have you buttons change, they are paid for those. Netflix will pay good money to be on the remote and pre-installed on the tv.

So what happens when Netflix losses 60% in 2 days and 50Billion in loss... are we gonna be paying 10x for TVs again?

 

[soymilk]

we're paying 10x for everything else so why not