Candy U-See Ovens
Candy seem to be coming up with innovative ideas at the moment and have developed white LED lights for inside their ovens. They call them U-See, and they say they flood the oven with bright light allowing a clearer view across all oven shelves.
They claim they are much more energy efficient than a standard oven lamp though standard oven lamps typically only use 25 watts anyway, which compared with the thousands of watts the actual oven element will be using is pretty insignificant. Never the less, we live in times when people are attuned to (or even conned into wanting) even very small energy savings. These U-See LEDs use just 4 watts.
Don’t get excited about the energy savings
To put these energy saving figures into context a standard oven bulb using 25 watts running for 100 hours (at 15 p per kWh) would cost a mere 37.5p (call it 38 pence). The new U-See oven lights running for 100 hours would cost 0.06 pence. Clearly a lot cheaper but in 100 hours of use the lights will have saved you just 30 pence. Therefore any energy saving claims, though technically true are insignificant and shouldn’t be remotely taken into account. Using these figures it would be possible to claim the lights cost more than 8o% less to run, I hope they don’t but they’ll probably find it hard to resist. Percentage figures are useless without context. (Calculated using Electricity Running Costs Calculator )
Real advantages?
The U-See oven lights do sound much better if you can see the contents of the oven much clearer without having to open the door. As such they sound great. If they are much more reliable than the standard oven bulb, and they certainly should be, then this is another legitimate advantage. In my experience (as an engineer) the standard oven bulbs are not very reliable and fail quite often. When they do it is inconvenient and not always easy to buy and fit a new one. If these LED oven lights prove to be as reliable as we have come to expect LED lights to be then this alone is a good move forward regardless of anything else.
However, no matter how much of an improvement, it’s not much use unless the actual oven is good and is reliable.
Disappointingly there is more information about these ovens on the Which? website Candy unveils ‘U-See’ oven with LED lights than there is on Candy’s own website, which is one of the worst manufacturer websites I’ve seen. You can’t even search it, and the oven section mentions nothing (at time of writing) about this new U-See feature.
I’m sure we’ll see more about them in the future, maybe it’s early days yet.
Related affiliate links: NOTE: There is plenty of free advice from Which? using the links below but in order to see the top 17 built-in ovens and full reviews with more detailed advice and reports you need to be a member – 30 day trial offer is still available)
Built-in oven reviews
Buying a built-in oven (From Which?)
If you’re thinking of getting a built-in oven, you’ll want it to be the hottest part of your kitchen. Our experts have rated and tested a range of both gas and electric ovens to make sure you don’t find yourself going off the boil.
Choosing the best built-in oven
Free standing cooker reviews
Freestanding cooker reviews: How to buy
Written By - Washerhelp on July 31st, 2009 with
4 comments
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Oliver Shaw
John Rawsterne
#1. July 31st, 2009, at 7:30 PM.
Hi Andy,
Sounds like a con!!!!
Saving a few pence when the element is guzzling electricity! You are right these SMALL energy savings are all a con!! But the information as usual will be misleading, like comparing a modern washer with one from 10 years ago, of course it will be more efficient than the 10 year old one. This is just plain trickery and EXTREMELY misleading!!
All the best,
Oliver.