The Light Fair convention kicks off in Las Vegas this week so there will be any number of related announcements coming soon. Lighting giant Philips is starting things off early with the announcement of their 100W-equivalent LED bulb, the AmbientLED 23W. The model produces 1700 lumens, putting it at a very respectable 73.9 lm/W.

The unveiling comes shortly after Philips’ L Prize bulb was made available to consumers. That bulb currently sells for about $60 and is a more efficient light source, capable of 94 lm/W. The two use similar designs, for example both take advantage of remote phosphor, but the AmbientLED 23W (it will be called the EnduraLED in non-consumer applications) is brighter and lacking in some of the performance characteristics of the L Prize winner, including luminous efficiency and color accuracy.

While it’s not the first 100W-equivalent LED bulb to be produced, the new AmbientLED will be an early release into this segment of the market and it marks the clearing of a major hurdle for the company. One of the limits to LED bulb adoption has been the lack of availability of high lumen bulbs — it’s easy enough for consumers to replace a 40W or 60W bulb with an LED-powered model, but replacing a 75W or 100W incandescent with an efficient light source still requires a CFL. With this release Philips will have 40-, 60-, 75-, and 100W-equivalent LED bulbs available.

The bulb will be dimmable and the color temperature will be 2700K (warm white), making it a reasonable choice for household lighting. The color accuracy (rated by the color rendering index, or CRI) will be 80, which is a reasonable number, but not particularly high. It would be fine for general use but too low for times when high color accuracy is needed, as in an art gallery or photography studio. This is the same CRI as the company’s popular 60W AmbientLED, so they likely share a phosphor material and LED setup, while the L Prize winner has some subtle tweaks to it. For example, it uses a mixture of red and blue LEDs, as opposed to just blue ones.

Philips has not announced the lifetime of the AmbientLED 23W, but it has noted that the bulb will last “up to 25 times longer than a traditional incandescent” which can be taken to mean 25,000 hours. That’s a standard number for LED bulbs and the requirement for Energy Star qualification, which Philips expects the new bulb to achieve.

Philips’ 100W-equivalent bulb will be available some time in the fourth quarter. Pricing has yet to be announced, but it will likely be well over $30.