I’m noticing this trend quite recently where I go to view the specs on a light and I can’t find the LED used. Neither in the instruction manual, nor in the company advertisement of vendors do I find this information, leading me to have to send an email to the manufacturer.
Perhaps they want to keep the option open to use different LED suppliers and types without breaking the customer's guaranteed properties or contracts, depending on the availability on the market to an attractive price. There is something similar with controllers for SSDs, for example, where the chip and memory are sometimes changed very often, which is not so cool for the customer because the performance of the different models may vary significantly.
Manufacturers like outdated American ones such as Streamlight and Surefire and Maglite have been doing that for years as they’ve turned their back on enthusiasts and chased $$$ through volume. It is just an indication of who can not keep up with the cutting edge, and hence to start ignoring.
Do car manufacturers tell you the brand of headlights they use?
There is more to a light than just the LED.
The Convoys and Sofirns of the world need to grab you attention by listing internal parts. The better brands that have been around for some time have built a reputation and don’t need to do that.
My opinion of course which may be different then yours but nonetheless equally valid.
That's exactly the problem! To the average consumer, vague phrases or uncheckable claims like "high power LED" sound more attractive than technical data like "CULPM1.TG".
Plus, why buy a 5000lm light when there are 999,999,999,999,999,999 lumen lights listed for a lower price!
Early on one cared about LED model - just how many 5mm LEDs were shoved into that showerhead. Then Lumileds introduced the power LED to the public with the Luxeon at which point some OEMs glommed onto including them in the specs and even manufacturers still using 5mm LEDs would make a point to mention that they were using Nichia. Then it was something that came and went as the innovating LED manufacturers were making significant performance gains in years past.
For the brands that are consistent I think it’s a technical enthusiast thing . Otherwise, marketers want to build up their brand so they’re reluctant to disclose which supplier they use for but a mere component in their wares. Conveniently this makes it so some weenie can’t look up the spec sheet to see just how alarmingly hard the LED would have to be driven to hit claimed output then contrast it to the Ah of the battery to hit claimed runtime in order to conclude that the performance claims are highly suspect.