*geeks

Adding video to channels (Geek) - requested by ant.

I have >6 Feit (cheap from Costco) and 1 Cree (expensive 3-way from Home Depot), that all failed within 1 year.
call me skeptical of LED bulb longevity...

I had a 15w (100w equivalent or something) bulb that I left on in my garage for 3 years straight. It finally stopped working this year. I still like them better than incandescent lights as they definitely save energy and the average cost of a LED bulb has come down significantly over the past couple of years.

So... dead short across the busted LED with some solder and get 11/12ths of the brightness for an additional however long until another one fails?

Yes, if you can either open it less destructively than this guy or can repackage it some other way.

Alternatively you can harvest some really high power LEDs for some other project (if I worked it out right, 4 of the LEDs individually cost more than the LED bulb with 12 of them).