Let's talk LED bulbs.

[Ri22o]

During my journey to wherever in the hell it is I am going, I have exchanged the lighting around my house. However, I have found that not all bulb specs are comparable or to a set standard.

When someone recommends using a "100w" LED bulb in exterior light fixtures, what criteria do you use to select your bulb?

• Equivalent to claim?
• Claimed Lumens?
• Rated LED wattage?
• Something else?

I ask because I replaced my driveway coach light bulbs with typical 5000K 15W 100W 1500 Lumen bulbs. I then replaced the light fixtures but did not like the look with the typical bulbs. I replaced those bulbs with Edison Style 5000K 10W 100W 1100 Lumen bulbs. To the eye the output looks similar but from the camera you can see a slight difference with the amount of light on the ground (not enough for me to be angry about).

Yet, there were other options for 100W Edison bulbs with 8W 1400 Lumens. It does not seem there is any consistency with what it takes to be 100W "equivalent."

I have seen to x10 the LED bulb wattage to get the equivalent incandescent wattage, but that doesn't check out with the above. I have seen data that says a 100W bulb should have a certain Lumen output (1500-1600), but, again, that doesn't check out with the above.

Why does LED wattage math seem to be on par with toilet paper math?

 

[fergenheimer]

I just bought some 12w dc LEDs that claimed 100w equivalent. They quoted 900 lumens. The 100w is a power usage so even in incandescent bulbs, the lumens would vary. Most of the power in an incandescent is wasted in heat. My 12w bulbs measured out to 10w. I would guess they are closer to 60w incandescent. I am sure there are standards but doubt the manufacturer would adhere to them knowing that us laymen have no way to do verify.

 

[ludshed]

Comparing output of Edison to a regular bulb is like apples to almonds.

 

[Ri22o]

Comparing output of Edison to a regular bulb is like apples to almonds.

Possibly, but lumens are lumens.

 

[ludshed]

Possibly, but lumens are lumens.

Decor bulbs are meant to look cool over illumination. Kinda like pushing mono through all 5 channels of Dolby .

 

[wittaj]

They all lie about their rated lumens knowing most cannot verify the claim LOL.

The biggest issue I have with LED is that they look bright when standing looking at them, but the dispersion/range of light is not very far.

I put a supposed 1500 lumen LED bulb in and it looks much brighter standing on the sidewalk looking at the house, but from the camera view looking out, the 800 lumen incandescent lights up the yard more than the LED. But standing at the street looking at the light, the LED looked brighter.

 

[CanCuba]

As I continue to research illumination for my property, I have learned to disregard wattage and depend on claimed lumens. As others have pointed out, claimed lumens is probably very different than actual lumens but it gives you something to work with.

I prefer natural light or cold white output over warm white. Cold/natural seems brighter per lumen compared to warm.

Yes, LED doesn't appear to throw as much light as incandescent, etc but is so much more efficient than its hard to justify not using it.

I can't justify investing in a light meter that I would only use a couple times. An installer is a different story but a good meter is the same as a couple decent cameras so....

 

[Ri22o]

For reference:

Old fixtures, 1500 Lumen typical bulbs. (This is skewed because I made adjustments after installing the new fixtures.)


New fixtures, 1500 Lumen typical bulbs.


New fixtures, 1100 Lumen Edison bulbs.

 

[Ri22o]

As I continue to research illumination for my property, I have learned to disregard wattage and depend on claimed lumens. As others have pointed out, claimed lumens is probably very different than actual lumens but it gives you something to work with.

I prefer natural light or cold white output over warm white. Cold/natural seems brighter per lumen compared to warm.

Yes, LED doesn't appear to throw as much light as incandescent, etc but is so much more efficient than its hard to justify not using it.

I can't justify investing in a light meter that I would only use a couple times. An installer is a different story but a good meter is the same as a couple decent cameras so....

I think at this point I will be going off of Lumens, but was curious what others did or if they even paid attention. Lumens is the only consistent link between LED and incandescent output.

I also am a fan of 5000K as it is a good white and not too blue. Not a fan of standard 2700-3000K "warm" bulbs.

 

[Old Timer]

I am going for 4,000 to 5,000K lights also. They seem to hit the right spot.

There are apps for phones and tablets to measure Lumen and even color.

 

[Ri22o]

I am going for 4,000 to 5,000K lights also. They seem to hit the right spot.

There are apps for phones and tablets to measure Lumen and even color.

When we originally built our house I bought a bunch of bulbs from Menards, all 4000K. My house was hit by lightning 2 years ago and it took some of them out. I had some extras, but not enough to replace all of the dead. Well, it turns out Menards no longer carried that brand and everyone else had settled on 3000, 5000, and 6000K. I'm not opposed to 5000K but it forced me to change out all of my bulbs so the color temps would match.

 

[Timokreon]

There are LED light bulbs with a switch that allows changing the color of the light. I've never used one, so can't comment on how well they work.
I use 5000k lights myself.

 

[Ri22o]

There are LED light bulbs with a switch that allows changing the color of the light. I've never used one, so can't comment on how well they work.
I use 5000k lights myself.

Yea, more hassle than I want to mess with. It is what it is. I went with Sylvania for the replacements hoping they will stick around. That being said, I just replaced some of my flat LED can lights and the ones Sylvania offers now aren't the same as what I have and I needed to juggle some around to make them match.

 

[CanCuba]

I think at this point I will be going off of Lumens, but was curious what others did or if they even paid attention. Lumens is the only consistent link between LED and incandescent output.

I also am a fan of 5000K as it is a good white and not too blue. Not a fan of standard 2700-3000K "warm" bulbs.

I have warm LEDs on my Colour4K-X and I hate them. May consider having someone switch them for 5000K LEDs (b

I am going for 4,000 to 5,000K lights also. They seem to hit the right spot.

There are apps for phones and tablets to measure Lumen and even color.

Never considered that there may be an app. Just downloaded Lux off of Google Play. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

 

[Ri22o]

I have warm LEDs on my Colour4K-X and I hate them. May consider having someone switch them for 5000K LEDs (b

I don't use the onboard LEDs with my 4K-X, so it's not that big of a deal to me.

 

[wittaj]

Never considered that there may be an app. Just downloaded Lux off of Google Play. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

Keep in mind that the app would be highly suspect. Just as we have seen with these security cameras, a slow 1/3 shutter gives a bright image at night; whereas a 1/120 shutter will be darker.

So the same thing using the camera of the phone - who knows what it is doing to shutter and gain and that would directly impact the lumen measurement.

Uunless you can manually set parameters on the phone camera, it could be making the shutter faster for a higher lumen light and thus giving a false lower lumen rating.

Now some of them will use the light sensor like what is used to adjust screen brightness automatically, so that might be a little more accurate, but I would say it is probably more of a relative thing between two different light sources.

I would consider it another tool in the toolbox, but your own eyes could probably tell which one was more brighter or even looking back on your own camera video and seeing which light the camera responded better to.

 

[CCTVCam]

Never had this in the UK. LED bulbs are always far brighter in my experience. My entire house is on 8w LED's and has been for nearly 6 years. These are supposed to be the equivqlent of 60w Edison, but in fact in brightness they're nearer to 100w with over 800 lumens.

There are 2 issues with LED's potentially:

1. Depending on where you source them from the claims of lumens may be accurate otherwise

2. There's a very similar story with colour temp although more so. One manufacturers 5000K "daylight" can be quite yellow, whilst another's can be quite white. I always err towards 6000-6500K for outdoors as a slightly cooler lamp seems to have less adverse effect than a warm one. Inside, for general lighting, I go for daylight rated bulbs because I have found a UK suppliers bulbs that definately are white and not yellow.

For outdoors generally I tend to use floods with separate PIR sensors except for a single lantern that stays on all night, albeit that's only a 4w bulb and not very bright. It's simply intended to raise the base brightness. Floods tend to offer much greater brightness and in a package that spreads the light much more where you want it.I currently use very small floods - largest is 30w but as I'm not currently running CCTV, I may adjust that later although with a 5442 or 4kx you may find such a flood mroe than enough to be able to run colour at night judging on others videos which look great in far darker conditions.

 

[looney2ns]

I've always been happy with the LED's that Philips sell. They in general are good at color rendering, and Lumens seem to equal or exceed an Incandescent equivalent.

 

[CanCuba]

Keep in mind that the app would be highly suspect. Just as we have seen with these security cameras, a slow 1/3 shutter gives a bright image at night; whereas a 1/120 shutter will be darker.

So the same thing using the camera of the phone - who knows what it is doing to shutter and gain and that would directly impact the lumen measurement.

Uunless you can manually set parameters on the phone camera, it could be making the shutter faster for a higher lumen light and thus giving a false lower lumen rating.

Now some of them will use the light sensor like what is used to adjust screen brightness automatically, so that might be a little more accurate, but I would say it is probably more of a relative thing between two different light sources.

I would consider it another tool in the toolbox, but your own eyes could probably tell which one was more brighter or even looking back on your own camera video and seeing which light the camera responded better to.

This app is using the light sensor for screen dimming. This will be handy for baselines and comparing different lighting configurations with certain lights on and others off.

It would interesting to see Wildcat incorporate this into his review videos where he shows different samples with different lighting scenarios.

Yes, not absolute but to give us an idea how a camera behaves with 25% or 75% more light, for example.

 

[fenderman]

Some of the brightness differences we may perceive between bulbs or fixtures rated for the same output level are related to the beam angle.