When I first started in the IR LED supply business back in 2012, one of the most common questions I got from new customers—whether they were designing a smart home motion sensor, a industrial barcode scanner, or a medical pulse oximeter—was “How long will this IR LED actually last?” Back then, I’d be lying if I said I could give them a straight, concrete answer. Like most tech components, IR LED lifespan isn’t a one-number figure; it’s a puzzle of variables that depends on how you use the part, not just the part itself. Over the last 11 years of sourcing, testing, and working directly with engineers and small manufacturers, I’ve learned that demystifying that number is one of the most valuable things I can do for someone trusting my company with their component needs. Let’s break this down, from the science of how IR LEDs fail to the real-world scenarios that change their life expectancy. IR LED
First, let’s start with the basics: what is an IR LED, and how does it wear out? Unlike visible LEDs that emit red or blue light, IR (infrared) LEDs run on a semiconductor material, usually gallium arsenide (GaAs) or indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs), that’s engineered to emit light at wavelengths invisible to the human eye—typically between 700 nm and 1,600 nm for most commercial applications. When you apply forward voltage to the LED, electrons and holes combine in the active layer, releasing photons (in this case, infrared ones) instead of heat like a standard incandescent bulb. But just like any semiconductor device, over time, this active layer degrades. The main form of failure for IR LEDs isn’t a complete burn-out like an old bulb; it’s what engineers call “lumen maintenance” or, for IR specifically, “radiant power maintenance.” That means the LED’s ability to emit consistent infrared light gradually drops until it’s no longer functional for its intended use. For most of our customers, that threshold is when the radiant output drops to 70% of its original, measured value—this is the industry standard for “end of life” for LEDs, including IR types.
Now, that standard 70% threshold brings us to the numbers. If you’re looking at a datasheet for a quality IR LED (which is what we exclusively supply here), you’ll usually see a rating of L70 lifespan, measured in hours. For standard IR LEDs operated at their recommended current (usually 20 mA for low-power parts, 500 mA for high-power ones used in industrial applications), that L70 lifespan is almost always between 50,000 and 100,000 hours. Wait, let’s put that in perspective—50,000 hours is more than 5.7 years of continuous operation. 100,000 hours is over 11 years of being on 24/7. That’s a big number, but it’s only a baseline. A lot of customers will read that number and assume it’s the same no matter how they integrate the LED into their product, and that’s where confusion sets in.
Let’s talk about the variables that can cut that lifespan short, or even extend it, because this is where real-world use changes everything. The first and biggest variable is current drive. IR LEDs are diodes, so their current is directly tied to how much voltage you apply. Push too much current—like running a 20 mA rated LED at 30 mA to get a brighter output—and you’re cramming more electrons into the active layer, creating excess heat that speeds up semiconductor degradation. I’ve seen this happen time and again with small startup teams that are in a rush to hit prototype goals: they skip the current-limiting resistors or use a driver that’s not calibrated for the LED, and suddenly an IR LED that should last 70,000 hours dies in 6 months. On the flip side, if you run the LED at less than its rated current, say 15 mA instead of 20 mA, you can actually extend its lifespan significantly—sometimes doubling that L70 number to 150,000 hours or more. I had a customer last year who was building outdoor wildlife cameras; they were running their IR LEDs at 12 mA to avoid overheating in Arizona’s 110°F summers, and those units have been running reliably for 3 years with zero LED failures.
Next is operating temperature. Semiconductors hate heat, and IR LEDs are no exception. The junction temperature—meaning the temperature of the active semiconductor layer inside the LED, not just the surface of the PCB it’s mounted on—is the single biggest driver of lifespan after current. Every 10°C increase in junction temperature above the manufacturer’s recommended maximum roughly halves the LED’s lifespan. Let’s use an example: if a datasheet says the maximum junction temperature is 125°C, and your LED is operating at 105°C, that’s 20°C above a “comfortable” point, so its lifespan is cut by roughly a factor of 4. That’s a huge difference. I’ve worked with industrial automation customers who mount IR LEDs in enclosed control panels with no airflow; by adding a small heatsink to every LED, they dropped the junction temperature by 30°C, and their LED lifespan went from 30,000 hours to 120,000 hours. That’s the kind of practical, cost-saving insight that comes from 11 years of working with these parts day in and day out.
Other factors that matter are the quality of the LED packaging and the ambient environment. Cheap IR LEDs often use poor packaging materials that degrade when exposed to UV light, moisture, or chemicals—especially in outdoor or industrial settings like factory floors, chemical processing plants, or marine equipment. Those cheap packages can turn yellow or crack over time, blocking infrared light even if the semiconductor itself is fine. The IR LEDs we supply use high-grade, hermetically sealed packaging (for high-power parts) or UV-stabilized epoxy (for low-power ones) that resists degradation from environmental elements. I once had a customer test a batch of cheap IR LEDs from a competitor for their outdoor parking garage license plate scanners; after 2 years, 40% of the LEDs had lost over 30% of their output, compared to 1% failure rate for the same model from our line. That’s the difference between spec’ing a component and understanding how it will hold up in the real world.
Now, what about edge cases? For example, pulse-width modulation (PWM) operation, which is super common in IR LEDs used in cameras, sensors, and remote controls. A lot of people assume that pulsing an LED (turning it on and off very quickly) will shorten its lifespan, but that’s mostly a myth—when done correctly, PWM doesn’t harm the LED at all, and it can even extend lifespan because the average current is lower than if the LED were on continuously. The only caveat is the peak current during the pulse; if the peak current is too high, that can damage the LED, so you have to make sure your driver is calibrated to keep peak current within the LED’s rated limit. Most of our customers use PWM for IR remote controls, for example, and those LEDs last 10+ years just fine, as long as the peak current is within spec.
Another edge case: very low power operation for short-range devices, like TV remote controls. Those IR LEDs are only on for a fraction of a second every time you press a button, so their average current is extremely low. The L70 lifespan for these parts is often cited as 100,000+ hours, and in real use, most of them will last the entire lifespan of the device they’re in—10 years or more. I’ve had customers send me old remotes that stopped working, and when we test the IR LED, it’s still emitting over 80% of its original power; the failure was usually a dead battery or a broken button, not the LED.
So, to circle back to the original question: “What is the lifespan of an IR LED?” The short answer is that for a quality, properly applied IR LED, you’re looking at a minimum of 50,000 hours (just over 5.7 years) of continuous operation, and up to 150,000+ hours if you run it at lower than rated current and keep junction temperatures low. But the real answer is that it depends on how you use it, and that’s why working with a supplier who understands these variables is so important. Too many companies just pull a number off a datasheet and spec an LED that’s wrong for their application, leading to premature failures, costly downtime, and unhappy customers. Over the years, we’ve helped hundreds of customers adjust their design parameters or swap to a slightly different LED from our line that’s a better fit for their operating conditions, and that’s the value we bring beyond just selling parts.
If you’re working on a new product design, troubleshooting existing LED failures, or just trying to spec the right IR LED for your next project, don’t rely on generic datasheet numbers. Reach out to our team to walk through your application, operating environment, and performance requirements—we can help you pick an IR LED that will meet your lifespan needs without overpaying for features you don’t need. We’ve supported startups, Fortune 500 industrial companies, medical device manufacturers, and everything in between, and we know that the right component can make or break a product’s long-term reliability.
SMD 1206 LED References
- Fukuda, M. (2006). Optical Semiconductor Devices. John Wiley & Sons.
- International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). (2018). IEC 62384: Light-emitting diode modules – Performance requirements.
- Narendran, N., & Gu, Y. (2005). Life of LED-based lighting systems. Journal of Display Technology, 1(1), 167-175.
- Kim, J., et al. (2019). Reliability of infrared light-emitting diodes for automotive sensing applications. IEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability, 19(2), 289-295.
Dongguan Zhiding Electronics Technology Co., Ltd.
Dongguan Zhiding Electronics Technology Co., Ltd. is one of the most professional ir led manufacturers and suppliers in China, specialized in providing high quality customized products. We warmly welcome you to wholesale bulk ir led in stock and get free sample from our factory.
Address: No. 8, Xiaqiao Yinling Industry Zone, Dongcheng Dist., Dongguan, Guangdong, China
E-mail: sales@zhidingled.com
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