LED Buying Guide in 2020

It’s been more than 10 years since Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). In doing so, they put the age of inefficient incandescent lighting on notice. The law mandated strict new energy standards designed to kick-start a new era of greener, longer-lasting, more cost-efficient light bulbs — and that meant kicking outdated, inefficient bulbs to the curb.

The rising standards have already long rendered 100W and 75W incandescents obsolete, and in 2014, their 60W and 40W cousins met the same fate. Congressional budget waffling briefly seemed to put the new standards on hold, but it was largely too late — the industry had already moved on, and wasn’t interested in reversing course.

In other words, the age of the LED is here, and you only need travel so far as your local lighting aisle to see the change. With all of the new options out there (not to mention the disappearance of some important old ones), finding the perfect bulb can seem pretty daunting. New lights that promise to last 20 years and save you hundreds of dollars might sound good in theory, but how do you know which one is the right one for you? How do you know the bulb you’re buying is going to be bright enough? What about color temperature? Color… rendering?

Well, fear not, because we’ve got you covered with a handy guide that’s chock-full of all the information you’ll need to make sure that your next light bulb is the right bulb.

What kinds of bulbs are available?

We’ve all gotten to know incandescents quite well over the past 135 years or so, but times are changing. These days, you’ve got more options than ever before, and familiarizing yourself with them is the first step toward finding the right bulb.

By this point, the bulk of the lighting aisle is LEDs, so let’s focus on those for now:

LEDs
Average cost: $3 to $20
Average wattage: 4W to 22W
Average life expectancy: 20,000 hours

Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are the new rock stars of the bulb world. When an LED is switched on, electrons and electron holes come together (and don’t worry, I’m not completely sure I fully understand what a “hole” is in this context, either). At any rate, the result of this process is a release of energy in the form of photons — or light, to you and me.

This process uses a fraction of the wattage required to power an old-fashioned incandescent bulb, and this makes LEDs dramatically more cost-effective over the long run.

For instance, a single 10-watt LED that puts out 800 lumens of light (lumens are units of brightness for a light source — more on that in just a bit) will add about $1.20 per year to your power bill if used for 3 hours a day at an average energy rate of 11 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). Under those same parameters, a traditional 60-watt incandescent bulb that puts out the same 800 lumens will cost about $7.20 per year. That’s more than the cost of replacing it with a basic LED like the one described above. Multiply that by the total number of bulbs in your home, and you’re looking at the potential for some pretty significant long-term savings, especially if you live in area with above-average energy rates.

LEDs are also rated to last for tens of thousands of hours, which can translate to decades of use. Compare that with the year or so you typically get out of an incandescent, and you can begin to see why so many people find these bulbs appealing. With some options now as cheap as $3 per bulb, that 10W LED would pay for itself in energy savings within a few months, then keep on saving you money for years if not decades to come.

Decades? Really?

Yes, really — at least, according to Energy Star and the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), the independent organization that created the testing procedures manufacturers use to rate LED lights. Let’s go ahead and dig a little deeper into those longevity claims.

First, it’s important to understand that LED lights typically don’t “burn out,” the way that incandescents do. Instead, they undergo “lumen depreciation,” which just means that they gradually grow dimmer and dimmer over a very long period of time. The test that the IES uses to determine a bulb’s longevity is known as the LM80, and it calculates how long it will take for an LED to fade enough for you to notice it.

In the LM80 test, engineers run the bulb for 9 months straight in order to get an accurate read of the light’s rate of decay. Using those figures, they can calculate the point at which the light will have faded to 70 percent of its original brightness — the point where you’ll start to notice that things aren’t quite as bright as they used to be. This point, known as “L70,” is the current standard in LED longevity. If an LED says it’ll last 25,000 hours, it’s really saying that it will take the bulb 25,000 hours to fade down to 70 percent brightness.

This isn’t to say that LEDs don’t fail. They definitely do. As with any device relying on tiny, delicate electrical components, things can go wrong. Fortunately, more and more LED bulbs come with multiyear warranties for cases of mechanical failure. Some manufacturers, like GE and Cree, offer affordable LED bulbs with 10-year warranties. Consumers with a healthy dose of skepticism regarding LED longevity claims should look for bulbs like these, made by manufacturers willing to put their money where their mouth is.

What if I don’t want an LED?

I’d argue that LEDs are just about always worth the extra upfront cash (especially now that you can get good ones for just a few bucks per bulb). Still, if you aren’t ready to make the jump, or if you just want something cheaper at the register, then you’ll be happy to know that there are still alternatives, starting with:

CFLs
Average cost: $2 to $20
Average wattage: 9W to 52W
Average life expectancy: 10,000 hours

Before LEDs exploded into the lighting scene, compact fluorescent lights (CFLs to you and me) were seen by many as the heir apparent to incandescent lighting. Despite the fact that CFLs use between one-fifth and one-third the energy of incandescents, and typically save one to five times their purchase price over the course of their lifetime, many people weren’t thrilled at the idea of switching over.

Some find the whitish light output of CFL bulbs less aesthetically pleasing than the naturally warm tone of most incandescents. Others are quick to point out that CFL bulbs that regularly get powered on and off for short periods of time tend to see a significant decrease in life expectancy. There’s also the common complaint that most CFLs aren’t dimmable, and that they often take a second or two after being switched on to fully light up.

Aren’t CFL bulbs dangerous?

Like all fluorescents, CFLs contain trace amounts of mercury — typically 3 to 5 milligrams (mg), although some contain less. This creates the potential for pollution when CFL bulbs are improperly disposed of, something that led to a unique environmental argument against the phasing out of incandescents (although, to be fair, this was before LEDs were seen as such a viable option).

The amount of mercury vapor in a standard CFL bulb is about one-hundredth of what you’d find in an old-fashioned thermometer. Even in such a small amount, mercury merits a degree of caution, as direct exposure can cause damage to the brain, lungs and kidneys. That said, if a CFL shatters on your kitchen floor, you don’t need to panic or evacuate your home. Just be sure to open a window and let the room air out for 10 minutes, then carefully transfer the glass and dust into a sealable container (and don’t use a vacuum cleaner — you don’t want to kick those chemicals up into the air). If you can take the broken bulb to a recycling center for proper disposal, great. If not, there’s a good chance you can dispose of the bulb at your local hardware store.

Incandescents
Average cost: $1 to $10
Average wattage: 40W to 150W
Average life expectancy: 1,000 hours

When I tell you to picture a light bulb, chances are good that you’re envisioning an incandescent. This is the classic bulb of Thomas Edison: a tungsten filament trapped within a glass enclosure. Electricity heats the filament to a point where it glows, and voila, you have light.

EISA didn’t ban incandescents outright, but it’s true that bulbs unable to keep up with the rising standards will be phased out (the majority of incandescents have already met this fate). However, the door is still wide open for non-traditional incandescents to take their place, and we’re already seeing some manufacturers rise to the challenge with high-efficiency incandescent bulbs that manage to meet the new standards. Key among these high-efficiency bulbs is yet another lighting option you’ll want to consider.

Halogens
Average cost: $2 to $15
Average wattage: 29W to 72W
Average life expectancy: 1,000 hours

Halogens are just incandescent bulbs with a bit of halogen gas surrounding the filament. This gas helps “recycle” the burned-up tungsten back onto the filament, making for a slightly more efficient light. And, unlike the mercury in CFLs, this gas isn’t anything that could be classified as hazardous waste.

Due to their relative similarity to classic incandescents — both in light quality and in cost — halogens can work as a good compromise bulb for consumers who need to replace their incandescents, but who also aren’t ready to switch over to CFLs or LEDs quite yet.

What information should I be looking for?

You want to be sure that you’ll enjoy living with whatever light bulb you purchase, especially if you’re choosing a long-lasting bulb that you’ll live with for years. Fortunately, the Federal Trade Commission now requires light bulb manufacturers to put a “Lighting Facts” label onto their products’ packaging, similar to the “Nutrition Facts” label that you’ll find on packaged food.

These Lighting Facts include everything from the estimated yearly cost of using the bulb to more obscure figures, like lumens and color temperature. If you want to shop smart, it will help to understand as much of that terminology as you can.

Lumens

If you’re buying a bulb these days, you’ll be left in the dark if you don’t know what a lumen is. The actual definition gets a bit complicated, involving things like steradians and candela, but don’t worry, because all that you really need to know is that lumens are units of brightness. The more lumens a bulb boasts, the brighter it will be. So, how does this information help you?

Let me give you an example. If you look at CFL or LED bulbs, you’ll see that most all of them are marketed as “replacements” for incandescent bulbs of specific wattages. You’ll probably see the word “equivalent” used, too, as in “60-watt equivalent.” This can be frustratingly misleading, because watts measure energy usage, not brightness, and “equivalent” often means something closer to “equivalent… ish.”

In other words, relying on these wattage equivalencies on the front of the box can lead you to buy a bulb that ends up being far too dim or too bright for your needs.

This is where understanding lumens really comes in handy. With lumens listed on each and every bulb, you’ll always have a concrete comparison of how bright any two bulbs actually are. The bigger the lumen count, the brighter the bulb — easy enough, right?

OK, so how many lumens do I need?

Over the last century, we’ve been trained to think about light purely in terms of wattages, so it isn’t surprising that most people really have no idea of how many lumens they actually need in a bulb. Until you form an idea of how bright is bright enough for your tastes, stick with these figures:

• Replacing a 40W bulb: look for at least 450 lumens
• Replacing a 60W bulb: look for at least 800 lumens
• Replacing a 75W bulb: look for at least 1,100 lumens
• Replacing a 100W bulb: look for at least 1,600 lumens

Color Temperature

After lumens, the next concept you’ll want to understand is color temperature. Measured on the Kelvin scale, color temperature isn’t really a measure of heat. Instead, it’s a measure of the color that a light source produces, ranging from yellow on the low end of the scale to bluish on the high end, with whitish light in the middle.

An easy way to keep track of color temperature is to think of a flame: it starts out yellow and orange, but when it gets really hot, it turns blue. You could also think of color temperature in terms of the sun — low, yellowy color temperatures mimic the tone of light at sunrise or sunset, while hotter, more bluish-white color temperatures are more akin to daylight (sure enough, bulbs with color temperatures like these are commonly called “daylight” bulbs). This is also why a lot of people prefer high color temperatures during the day and lower color temperatures in the morning and evening. Some smart bulbs can even shift back and forth throughout the day.

Generally speaking, incandescents sit at the bottom of the scale with their yellow light, while CFLs and LEDs have long been thought to tend toward the high, bluish end of the spectrum. This has been a steady complaint about new lighting alternatives, as many people prefer the warm, familiar, low color temperature of incandescents. Manufacturers are listening, though, and in this case they heard consumers loud and clear, with more and more low-color-temperature CFL and LED options hitting the shelves. Don’t believe me? Take another look at those two paper lamps in the picture above, because they’re both CFL bulbs — from the same manufacturer, no less.

These days, bulb shoppers will find so many color temperature options that some lighting companies have cleverly begun color-coding their packaging: blue for high-color-temperature bulbs, yellow for low-color-temperature ones and white for bulbs that fall in between. With so many choices available, the notion that the phase-out of incandescents is taking warm, cozy lighting with it is a complete myth at this point.

If you’re confused, just remember to check that Lighting Facts label. For warm, yellowy light, look for 2,700 K. For hotter, bluish-white light, go with anything above 5,000 K. Anything in between will likely be more neutral and closer to pure white.

Color Rendering Index

Unless you live in a disco, you probably want the colors in your home to look somewhat traditional. This is where the color rendering index, or CRI, comes in. The CRI is a score from 1 to 100 that rates a bulb’s ability to accurately illuminate colors. You can think of the CRI as a light bulb’s GPA for colors, as it actually averages multiple scores for multiple shades. Manufacturers aren’t required to list the bulb’s CRI number on the packaging, but many of them choose to do so anyway, so you’ll want to know what it means.

To understand CRI a little better, let’s imagine a basketball game played outdoors on a sunny day between a team in red jerseys and a team in green jerseys. Daylight is the ideal for making colors look the way they should, so it gets a CRI score of 100. Most people watching this game would have no problem telling the teams apart, because red would appear clearly red, and green would look green.

Now let’s imagine that same basketball game — except now it’s being played inside that disco I mentioned earlier. We’re indoors, it’s dim and we’re stuck with multicolored spotlights as the only light source. A purple one shines down on a very confused point guard as he takes a shot. Can you tell if he’s on the green team or the red one? I wouldn’t be surprised if you couldn’t, because the CRI score of lights like those is abysmal.

Now here’s the rub: the CRI is highly imperfect and not always useful. The important takeaway is that CRI scores are most helpful if you’re talking about bulbs that sit in the middle of the color temperature spectrum, in between those yellow and blue extremes. You’ll probably see references to “white” or “natural” light on bulbs like these. In these cases, the CRI score can be a great way to tell a good bulb from a great bulb.

In general, anything over 80 is probably decent enough for your home, but we’re starting to see CRI scores creeping up into the nineties on some very affordable bulbs. The GE Reveal BR30 floodlight LED won our Editors’ Choice distinction for its emphasis on color rendering. There’s even a $5 LED from Ikea that scores in the upper 80s. If accurate color rendering is important to you, look for lights like these. And if you’re buying bulbs on the high (blue) or low (yellow) end of the spectrum, take any and all CRI claims with a grain of salt.

How do I tell if a light bulb is efficient?

In simple terms, a light bulb is just a device that converts electricity into light. The more lumens of light you get per watt of electricity, the more efficient the bulb is. With incandescent bulbs, efficiency is easy to understand because a specific wattage of electricity will always heat a tungsten filament to a specific temperature, which in turn will yield a specific level of light. This means that, generally speaking, one incandescent will be more or less as efficient (or by today’s standards, inefficient) as another.

With LEDs and CFLs, the bulbs still convert electricity into light, but the methodology is totally different. Light output isn’t fixed to the temperature of a filament, which means there’s more wiggle room for differences in efficiency. With good engineering, a bulb can put out more light from the same amount of electricity. Simply put, unlike incandescents, LED and CFL bulbs are decidedly not created equal.

This is another place where it’s essential to understand lumens. A 10-watt LED can easily outshine a 12-watt competitor if it converts watts into lumens more efficiently. All the wattage tells you is how much power the bulb uses. The lumens tell you how much light the bulb puts out. The ratio between the two tells you how efficient the bulb is. The more lumens you’re getting per watt, the better the bulb is at converting electricity into light.

What other factors will I want to consider?

So far, we’ve covered the light bulb basics (and then some), but if you really want to get picky about your home lighting, or if you just want to delve a little deeper into the subject, there’s a lot more to take into consideration.

Bulb shape

As you’re probably aware, light bulbs come in a fairly wide variety of shapes. Sure, it’s easy enough to tell a hardware store clerk that you want “one of those flamey-looking lights,” or “just a normal ol’ bulby light bulb,” but knowing the actual nomenclature might save you some time.

Let’s start with the base of the bulb, the part that screws in. In the US, the most common shape by far is E26, with the “E” standing for Edison and the “26” referring to the diameter of the base in millimeters. You might also see E27 bulbs from time to time, which is the European standard. Those should still fit into common American fixtures, but keep in mind that voltage ratings are different in the two regions, with American bulbs rated for 120 volts compared to 220-240 volts in Europe. For smaller sockets, like you might find with a candelabra, you’ll want to look for an E12 base.

As for the bulb itself, the typical shape that you’re probably used to is an A19 bulb. Increase that number to A21 or A23, and you’ve got the same shape, but bigger. Bulbs made to resemble flames are F-shaped, which is easy enough to remember, as are globes, which go by the letter G. If it’s a floodlight you want, you’ll want to look for “BR” (bulging reflector) or “PAR” (parabolic aluminized reflector). Those bulbs are designed to throw all their light in one direction only, which makes them useful for spot lighting, overhead lighting and the headlights in your car.

Incandescent Lookalikes

You’ll also want to keep an eye out for a growing number of LEDs that go out of their way to mimic the appearance of old-school incandescents. Their trick? Fake filaments of light-emitting diodes strung together in columns or twisted designs.

You’ll often see the word “vintage” throw around with bulbs like these, and a lot of them are pretty neat-looking, especially for exposed bulb setups. Just be aware that, with some of these bulbs, the fake filaments can cast shadows within the pool of light, making them a bad pick to put under a lampshade. Then again, if you’re getting a design-minded bulb like this, then you probably won’t want to hide it under a lampshade to begin with.

Something else to keep in mind: vintage-style bulbs like these often have a bad habit of playing fast and loose with brightness claims. Many of them use terms like “60W replacement” while also putting out far less light than those terms suggest. As always, remember to pay attention to the lumen count, because that’s the number that matters as far as brightness is concerned.

What about those weird-looking LEDs?

While some LEDs go out of their way to mimic the familiar look of incandescent lighting, others take a different approach. After all, those classic bulb shapes were designed to optimize incandescent light output, just like the twisty shape of CFL light bulbs is designed to optimize fluorescent light output. Why shouldn’t we do the same for LEDs?

Well, some manufacturers are doing exactly that. The most notable example is probably Philips, which introduced a flattened down, ping-pong-paddle-esque light called the Philips SlimStyle back in 2013. In 2014, Philips extended the SlimStyle line to include a flattened BR30 floodlight LED, too. Meanwhile, GE introduced us to stick-shaped “Bright Stik” LED bulbs back in 2015.

There’s even more experimentation with design coming from smaller names looking for a way to stand out from the crowd. Green Creative recently introduced its own take on the flattened-down BR30 floodlight. Called the Cloud LED, this light suspends a flat disk of diodes up above the base of the bulb, with a big, hollow area in the middle. Like the SlimStyle BR30, this design helps it manage heat a whole lot better (and looks pretty darned cool, too.)

Some LEDs focus almost exclusively on that cool factor, aiming to provide light sources that double as conversation starters. Take the Nanoleaf Bloom, for instance, which features a 3D-printed jigsaw assembly with the diodes dotted all over the outside of the bulb. You’ll find a lot of these design-centric light bulbs on crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

If that kind of ostentatious approach to design puts you off, don’t worry. Plenty of LEDs tack in the exact opposite direction, and feature builds designed not to stand out, but to blend in. Saffron’s 40W replacement LED is a good example — the design crams LED tech into a classic glass bulb, making it more or less indistinguishable from an incandescent. Or course, with traditional heat sinks left out out of the design, performance suffers a bit, but if you appreciate simple aesthetics, perhaps you can live with that.

Cree’s 4Flow LED is another incandescent imitator that strikes more of a middle ground between performance and design. Its plastic-bodied build has the same silhouette as a traditional A19-shaped incandescent, thanks to cleverly designed convection vents that eliminate the need for bulky heat sinks.

Directionality

Some lights have hardware built into the bulb itself that can block the downward projection of light (BR and PAR bulbs do it intentionally, reflecting that light back upward). These bulbs are fine for something like a recessed light fixture, where they hang upside down and shine straight out, but if you’re buying one for a bedside reading lamp, where downward light is key, it might be disappointingly dim. If you aren’t sure exactly what you’ll need from your bulb in terms of light direction, the safe bet might be to go with a bulb that shines in all directions. The term that you’ll want to look for is “omnidirectional.”

In addition, some non-omnidirectional lights will offer you an idea of just how close to omnidirectional they actually are. 360 degrees of light output is the obvious ideal, but a bulb that offered 330 degrees would probably be close enough.

Dimmability

A majority of modern lighting options now include compatibility with in-wall dimmer switches, and that’s a good thing for anyone who likes the light down low. If this sounds like you, then you’ll want to double check that your bulb’s packaging says the word “dimmable” before you make a purchase.

That said, some bulbs will dim down better than others — and your mileage may vary depending on what switch you’re using, too. Most basic switches dim the light by flashing the power on and off faster than the eye can detect. In many cases, this can cause electromagnetic interference in the bulbs, which can lead to flickering light or a faint buzz from within the bulb.

Testing for these kinds of dimmability concerns is tricky business due to the many variables involved, but we do our best to determine which bulbs are most susceptible. This standard 60W equivalent LED from Philips, for instance, did extremely well on all of the switches we tested it out on, while the Philips SlimStyle LED was noticeably worse.

At any rate, if you’re purchasing new light bulbs to use with dimmer switches, hang on to the receipts until you’ve had a chance to test them out.

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