Dirt cheap T8 led hybrid replacements at lowes
 

Item 0778115
Single T8 led replacement uses ballast or 120v power.
$4 each
They're on clearance so get them whIle they last.

I tested them up for 120 and 240 volt operation, they work great. They draw 17 volt-amps.
The T8 tubes out there now are drawing on average for the fixture 35w each.

First test will be just shoving them in wired for the ballast power and see how much less efficient they are.

Do you have a link to these?

I did option 1 on installing the leds.
Power consumption went up to 21.6 volt-amps.
That's like a 26% increase in power consumption.
But a third less than tubes.

I pulled down my 6 tube light fixture and ripped out the ballasts and rewired it for option 2, powering the tubes directly off 120v power.
If I can rewire something to make it 26% more efficient I'm going to.
The original light fixture was drawing almost 2.1 amps, now it draws 0.84 amps and is brighter.
Next step will be to install a timer switch.

So for around $40 I will reduce garage lighting consumption by 2/3 to 3/4 just by installing leds and a timer switch so the lights don't get left on.

They are still 7.98 here bummer

I have been using the LED strip light tape for the same type of applications. I did the stairwell to the basement this holiday season. The tape was stuck to the bottom of the handrail. Looks fabulous. I'm not exactly sure how much power the stuff draws, but I had the stairwell rigged up to a 9 watt wall wart for a few days and it ran hot. I stuck a 15 watt wall wart on the strip and it runs much cooler.
http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...2&d=1514770031
The can light at the bottom has a 15 Watt cfl bulb in it, soft white. The strip light is bright white 5050, 60 per meter. It is said to have a power draw of 15 watts per meter, and a luminosity of around 1000 lumens per meter. So my 5 meter strip should be drawing close to 75 watts and delivering 5000 lumens.

Total cost: $7.99 for 10 meters ( 2 each 5 meter strips) and I only used half on the handrail. A 4 lamp 4 foot ceiling fixture would come out about the same.

Compared to the T8 lamps, I would throw 5000 lumens instead of 10000, and use 75 watts instead of 128. Not counting wall warts or ballasts or whatever power supply, I'm happy with a quarter per foot.

The two pack is $7.50 at my store. Item # 778114 (apparently ELECTRONIC BALLAST ONLY)
The single bulb unit is $3.99 at my store. Item # 778115 (•Hybrid-works with or without ballast)

I highly recommend not using the ballast.

I just took a number samples of some of various size LED floods, they are rated from 60 to 70 lumens per volt-amp.
My regular T5 tube do about 100 lumens per volt-amp
My T5 high output do 92 lumens per volt-amp, but these are supe bright and start at 0°F, since my T5 HO lights are out side or in building's that are unheated this is kind of important.

I'm using low-watt T8 tubes still at work, 100 lumens/watt. Not sure what the performance is in the fixture.

I can't justify switching to LED until I get both better efficiency AND comparable output - I'm at the bottom of the OSHA workplace lighting scale as it is.

I do have a couple of integrated LED fixtures, but I have my qualms about those too - how easy is it to replace the emitters when they fail? No idea.

The LED fixtures where I work, we have 4 different styles. None are able to have just the leds replaced.
The ones that have quit, I don't think it's the LED that failed, it appears the power supply burned out.

^^
I have several Lithonia OLW wallpacks, 60-70 lm/w is about where they land. And I have had three fail in three years. That's crap performance. There are no replaceable parts inside, either, so it doesn't matter what's gone wrong inside, I have to replace the whole thing.

I didn't specify those fixtures. And there's no way in hell I'm ever going to recommend them to anyone, either. You listening, Lithonia!? NO. WAY.

We have had (check back for the brand name tomorrow) about 10 led light fixtures go bad with in a few months out of nearly 300, these stay on all the time.
Then we put up nearly 200 T5 high bay auto dim motion sensor lights. The tubes have burned out on 2 or 3 of them, because they are always turning on and off because the contractor forgot to turn up the on timer.
So new T5 are are more reliable than new LED.
Because we can replace the T5 tube on the ones that burned out.

I saw the bulbs referenced by the OP at our local Lowes but they also said "Electronic Ballast Only" so I passed.
I purchased some of the Toggled Brand at HD that require bypassing the ballast and I'm very impressed. They still cost too much but they work very well and bypassing the ballast got rid of some RFI that was causing problems for our OTA digital TV.

16 pack of t8 replacements being clearanced for $17.95
 

I stumbled upon this thread, and went to the lowes site to see what the current pricing on their t8 replacements was, and found that they have 16 packs they are blowing out for $17.23!

They are also selling 4 packs for $4.95.

They come in what they call "bright white" (4000K), and "daylight" (6000k) versions. The 6000K versions will have a lot more harsh "blue" light in them which I don't like, so I went with the 4000K version, which will be close to the light that "cool white" fluorescent bulbs produce.

WARNING!!!!
An issue with these is that they are not set up to run off of 120v AC line voltage and will only work with an electronic t8 ballast. This reduces the efficiency a bit, but, heck, for about $1.11 a tube, it's hard to pass up on it.

I recently put out a wanted listing on Craigslist asking for commercial 48" fluorescent troffers that had been replaced during renovations, and got lucky and got 8 3-tube 24" x 48" troffers that a commercial remodeller was planning on scrapping. I was planning on gutting them of their ballasts and using T8 LED tubes that would work on 120V AC, but now I won't bother -- I'll just wire them up and use them as-is in my 2 bay garage with these LED tubes.

WARNING!!!!! I say again:
1. THESE WILL *NOT WORK* WITHOUT AN ELECTRONIC T8 BALLAST.
2. THESE WILL NOT WORK IN T12 FIXTURES BECAUSE THEY USE THE OLDER "NON-ELECTRONIC" BALLASTS.
3. THE REVIEWS STATE THAT THESE DON'T WORK WITH "BRIDGED" TOMBSTONES.

I grabbed a bunch of cases in the Portland Oregon area, but there are still more local Lowes stores carrying them. Maybe they will also be available in your area too. I plan to re-sell a few cases worth of these tubes at $2.00 each to pay for the cases I am using.

Here are links:
16 pack of tubes:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-1...ulb/1000264765
4 packs of tubes:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-4...ulb/1000264747

I did find some strange pricing differences depending on which store I selected. Most showed the clearance pricing, but some didn't. YMMV.

Enjoy,

Philip