Demystifying the LED Bulb

Prenote: Kelvins, watts, CRI, CFLs, LEDs. What does it all mean? After reading this very informative post (or before), go take a listen to the Podcast ‘True Tales from Old Houses‘ Episode #8: Devyn Knows A Thing or Two About Light Bulbs. Co-hosted with Stacy Grinsfelder of Blake Hill House Blog. In this episode, I give a history of the light bulb starting with the incandescent and ending up with the LED bulb. (It’s true!) Memory lane is real, and we go there.

From the time I was a small child, I have always been obsessed with light bulbs and light fixtures. I remember being at grandma’s house sitting under a sheet tented over some chairs playing with light bulbs, sockets, and extension cords. As I grew up, I collected various types of bulbs and fixtures, I was especially fond of Christmas lights and vintage light sockets. By the time I was in high school, I was hanging out at flea markets collecting early 20th century light fixtures on the cheap, usually under $10. Miraculously, I still have a half dozen or so of those fixtures acquired some 35+ years ago, even after schlepping them through life in six different states.

So, it should be no surprise that I still have boxes of bulbs of varying types. I treasure my collection of quirky, yet woefully inefficient, incandescent light bulbs, but all of the 40/60/75/100 watt standards have long been tossed in the garbage. Now my collection is burgeoning with LED bulbs. I remember the excitement of getting my first LED bulb back in 2004. It was a color changing bulb by Color Kinetics. It fit into a standard light socket, it wasn’t very bright, but I knew it was the beginning of something big.

 

So, just what is an LED bulb? LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) have been around for a lot longer than most would guess. They first came about in the early 1960’s as electronic components used for commercial purposes. By the early 1970s, they began to appear in consumer electronics (think home audio products as indicator lights). They were also developed into digital number displays for calculators and digital watches (remember the red LED watch craze in the mid 70’s? Not old enough to remember that? I forgive you).

 

In the early years, LEDs were limited to red, then green, and later a yellow. They were fairly dim and their use was limited. By the 1990’s, two things happened, first was the development of blue LEDs, followed by the development of high intensity LEDs. Both of these two innovations changed everything. This led the way for the development of RGB (red/green/blue) color changing technologies which allowed for the ability to have a virtually infinite number of colors. This is what was in my first LED bulb of 2004. But they still hadn’t figured out how to make white light bulbs which were efficient and the correct shade of white.

Then in 2008, the US Department of Energy created the L Prize competition to spur lighting manufacturers to develop high quality, highly efficient LED bulbs to replace the common incandescent light. It took 18 months, but in August of 2011, Philips Lighting North America won the competition with the first practical, efficient, and long lasting LED light bulb to replace the common incandescent. And boy was it Ugly!

 

This happened just in time because, back in 2007, the US Congress (under President George W. Bush) passed the Energy Independence and Security Act. Key among its provisions was a new series of regulations mandating the gradual phase-out of the manufacturing, importation, and sale of inefficient lighting (read incandescents) First went the 75 and 100 watt bulbs in the beginning of 2012, to be followed by the 40 and 60 watt bulb in the beginning of 2014. When this legislation was passed, there were no LED bulbs, leaving the hideous and potentially dangerous CFL (compact fluorescent) to fill the gap.

 

The first consumer LED bulbs began to come to market around 2010. But they were quite pricy, color rendering was a bit off, and they weren’t dimmable at all. I of course was itching to get my hands on one, so in early 2012, after too many hours or research, I purchased my second LED bulb. It was a PAR 20 LED spotlight bulb intended to be used in track lighting or other spotlight. I paid $37 dollars for it on Amazon, and used it in one of my track light fixtures as a test to see if I could replace all of my track light bulbs in my Hell’s Kitchen apartment. By todays standards, it was only mediocre, but in 2011, I was dipping my toes into the future!

That $37 LED bulb was indeed pricy, but factoring in that they consume 80-90% less energy than an incandescent bulb, I figured I would eventually make it up in energy savings. And as to be expected, over the past seven years, prices have plummeted while, simultaneously, HUGE advancements in quality (along with some setbacks) have come along.

 

By 2012, the use of evil CFL bulbs was already spreading like an ugly cancer across America (and around the world). Fortunately, technology saved the day just in the nick of time to avert the horror of pigtail shaped CFL’s becoming the new standard. In 2013, less than one year before the deadline to stop selling 60 watt incandescent bulbs went into effect, CREE introduced a 60 watt equivalent bulb in a warm white using only nine watts of energy and it was to be sold at Home Depot for only $12.97 each. That was kind of a big deal. It ushered in a whole new era for the typical household… An era of confusion.

Confusion you say? For generations lighting was pretty simple. The incandescent bulb was the primary source of light in our homes. Incandescents have the same warm glow of a candle (only much brighter) and we have come to see the old Edison style bulbs as nostalgic (and now obscenely ubiquitous). Then in the 1980s, the evil CFL bulb came out. It was far more efficient that the incandescent, but CFLs in the home resulted in everyone looking ill and sad.

Okay… Now to the point of this post. Demystifying the era of confusion that has come about since the advent of the LED bulb. There is really little reason to be confused by LED bulbs as long as you know just three things about them.

1: Color temperature (also known as the Kelvin scale)
2: Quality really does matter
3: LEDs are not perfect and have limitations.

 

Learn the Kelvin scale
Color temperature is measured using the Kelvin scale. What is the Kelvin scale? “Scientifically, the Kelvin scale is an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale using as its null point absolute zero, the temperature at which all thermal motion ceases in the classical description of thermodynamics.” (Source: Wikipedia). The full range of warm to cool light falls on a scale of 1,000K (Kelvin) to 10,000K as shown in the image above.

Incandescents are naturally warm white and are what we all know and love. A standard 60 watt incandescent is generally considered to be about 2,700K on the scale. Those nasty CFLs typically have either warm (2,500K) or cool tones (4,000K), neither of which are flattering for anybody (the reason for that is explained further along). LED bulbs come in almost the entire range of the scale from as low as 2,000K to as high as 8,000K. Because of this, it is very important to pay attention to what you are buying unless you like living in a office building or on a factory floor. Not that there is anything wrong with that (OK, well, perhaps there is).

 

YIKES! So much to know! Don’t worry, it’s really quite simple. Here is a quick rundown:

2,200K: This very warm tone and is often used in Edison style bulbs with an emphasis on capturing the warm glow of yesteryear… Think old incandescent on a dimmer. They have their place, but tend to be too warm for me.

2,700K: This is the sweet spot for LED bulbs. 2,700K is the closest you can get to traditional incandescent lights and they are great in living rooms, bedrooms, etc.

3,000K: This slightly cooler temperature is ideal for kitchens and bathrooms when you want just a bit more white to your light. It makes food look extra delicious, and is ideal for applying makeup in the bathroom (not that I have any experience with applying makeup).

4,000K: This color temperature is ideal for utilitarian spaces, especially the garage or basement. The whiter color feels brighter and helps to see all of your crap piled about in your basement or garage.

WARNING: If you choose anything outside the range described above, your house will look like SH*T. I would recommend avoiding anything over 3,000K for your living spaces unless you like living in a harsh blue colored space.

When you are shopping for LED bulbs, read the label and confirm the Kelvin temperature. If its not listed on the package… PUT IT DOWN! and find another bulb. This is important because, the term “warm white” can mean almost anything.

Side Note: There’s another light bulb quality that can be important to making sure your home has the warmth offered by our incandescent ancestors, and that’s Color Rendering Index (CRI). The CRI of a light bulb is basically a measurement of how well the light source shows an object’s color. It’s a scale from 1 to 100 with 100 showing colors at the same level as daylight (considered a perfect color preserver) and lower levels indicating some color vibrancy might be lost when shown in that light.

Now, obviously we all would like our colors as vibrant as possible and one benefit of the incandescent bulb is that it’s CRI is always 100. Repugnant CFL bulbs on the other hand are markedly lower (shocking!), with typical cool white bulbs having a CRI of around 60. This is why fluorescent lighting makes everyone look ill and in need of a makeover.

LEDs admittedly do not measure up to the CRI of an incandescent, but with CRIs ranging anywhere from 80 to 95, they aren’t far behind. Most of us cannot tell the difference between a CRI of 90 vs 100. This will become less of an issue because with time and innovation, LED lighting will come closer than ever to matching the perfect 100 CRI.

 

Quality Matters… A lot!

The second very important thing about LED bulbs has to do with quality. The vast majority of LED bulbs are made in China. But the quality of those bulbs is all over the place and this is where brand loyalty will make a big difference. There are literally thousands of different brands of LED bulbs on Amazon and elsewhere, but there are only a few that have an established track record for quality. I would say that 90% of the time when an LED bulb stops working, it is because of poor quality electronics inside rather than the LED itself.

The top brands I trust are Philips and CREE for standard incandescent replacements, I have also had very good luck with IKEA’s LUMEN bulbs which are very reasonable. I haven’t tried GE, Sylvania, or Home Depot’s Eco-Smart line, but I would guess them to be decent quality too. As for decorative bulbs, I am seeing more and more on the shelves of big box stores, even Target.

Important! Cheap LEDs will not last longer than the incandescent they are supposed to replace. I cannot stress enough about how important it is to purchase quality bulbs from known manufacturers. I have procured many (too many) bulbs via Amazon from all sorts of unknown suppliers and I can tell you that they are not reliable.

 

LEDs do have Shortcomings and Limitations

LEDs use up to 90% less energy, they typically run cool to the touch, and quality ones should give you at least ten years of life. But there are definitely some shortcomings and it is important to know them.

Not all LEDs are dimmable, and many dimmable LEDs require a special dimmer designed for LED bulbs. As somebody who believes virtually every light switch in the house should by default be a dimmer switch, that can add up when you need to spend money on special dimmers. But, keep in mind, if you are dimming a six watt bulb at 50%, you are then only using 3 watts.

 

When dimming an old fashioned incandescent bulb, the color of the light becomes more yellow as the light level goes down. Not so with LED bulbs. We experienced that in our NY apartment with our chandelier. We would dim the bulbs, but the color remained the same 2,700K and it looked kinda odd. This is why I was super happy to find the Philips Warm Glow Series of bulbs. They are designed to change color temperature from 2,700K to 2,200K as you dim them!

Heat is the enemy of LED bulbs. While LED bulbs do not create much heat on their own, they do need to be able to dissipate heat to keep from frying the internal electronics that makes them work. This is why you will not see LED bulbs for your oven anytime soon. (Our oven light is in fact the only incandescent bulb in our house.)

Many LED Bulbs will not last long in enclosed fixtures. While they may be cool to the touch in the bulb area, the bases often run very hot. LEDs need to be able to dissipate heat and when in enclosed fixtures not designed for LEDs the electronics will overheat and they will not last. This is something that I believe will be overcome in the next few years.

I hope this has helped demystify LEDs for you and take away the confusion around them.

A final Tip…

If you have-not already done so, I highly suggest switching our every single non-LED bulb in your house. When we swapped out every single incandescent bulb in our New York apartment, our monthly electric bill went down by $15. So, while we may have spent as much as $150 on bulbs, we more than made up for it in the first year of savings alone. Bottom line, if you have not made the switch from incandescent or even the dreaded CFLs to LED, you are throwing money in the garbage.

One last thing…. Back in 2011 when the Federal Government began to phase out 75 and 100 watt bulbs, several factions of Americans started freaking out and hoarding and warehousing as many incandescents as they could buy. The far right blamed it on Obama (the legislation was in place before he was elected). They saw it as the government overreaching and taking the traditional light bulb away from God fearing Americans. Libertarians saw it as infringing on the rights of people to make their own choices for lighting. And then environmentalists thought the evil CFL was more of a threat to the planet because of the tiny amount of mercury in each one. Ultimately, the joke was on them because they are paying far more to burn their hoarded incandescents than they would had they made the switch. That said, there are still conspiracy wing-nuts who see LEDs as the enemy of the state. They cannot be helped.