LED light bulbs. They are better than they used to be, but they are still awful compared to incandescent bulbs.
They are also inescapable, which means we are cursed with ugly, unpleasant lighting basically everywhere.
Are people really still mad about this?? In my country we switched to LED lights like… 10 years ago, maybe more? It’s not a big deal, we had light, we still have light. I don’t see what makes it "awful, ugly, unpleasant", is it really that bad? That just sounds like a gross overreaction to me but maybe I’m missing something?
I am. LED lights are too bright, wrong colours, etc. I will want incandescent lights (including incandescent Christmas lights). We don't need to be very bright, nor does not need to be on all the time (especially, Christmas lights can be made flashy and don't need on all the time). But, often, they are using LEDs that are too bright and wrong colours. (Actually, I had also heard on CBC radio that some scientists also say so, even the ones that they try to make more red than blue, are still wrong)
My house is about 55 years old, originally it had 3 x 60W bulbs in the living area. So dark. Now it has LED downlights and 2 pendant lights - I added it up to just over 60W, and much brighter. I'll take the modern lighting thanks!
LEDs with a low color rendering index (CRI) make everything look "flat" and even "fake". It's hard to describe.
Part of the issue is that if you go to a hardware store this is what it will be.
A couple of years ago I looked through all the bulbs at my hardware store, they had Chinese brands and name brands like Philips and Osram. None of the bulbs had a CRI higher than 80.
Yes! LEDs are the wrong color, flicker, and are directional plus they burn out in just as much time as a good old incandescent but cost more than 10 times the price and when that happens you can't just dispose of them in the regular household garbage (actually one could). They are only better than the compact fluorescent that were all the rage for a while.
Err LEDs do not burn out at all in the same timeframe as incandescents. If this happened to you, the LED bulbs were defective.
Or the use case. LEDs are quite sensitive to heat, so use in closed or inverted fixtures will decrease their lifetime dramatically.
Well that's the problem. There are a lot of low-quality, defective LED bulbs being sold. Consumers don't have an easy way to find good ones. Just paying more or looking for a trusted brand name is no guarantee of quality.
This is true of all consumer products, not LEDs specifically. LED lighting has been mainstream long enough now that you can find plenty of information on which specific brands and models are decent.
My personal anecdote is that I have yet to have any Philips LED bulbs die on me. The oldest ones I have are from 2012.
>> this happened to me
> no it didn't
Whatever.
Light bulbs once had a cartel making them worse. LEDs probably do too but now we have fewer manufacturers.
>> this happened to me
> no it didn't
If this is how you think the conversation went, I suggest you reread both your own initial comment as well as my reply.
I switched my entire home back to incandescent lights, and put dimmer switches on everything to make them as dim, and warm as possible. High quality incandescent bulbs last effectively forever when dimmed.
Our bodies do so much better when it is dark near bedtime, that the idea of “efficient lighting” to save energy just makes little sense. A person only needs about 20 watts of warm incandescent lighting to read or talk to family after sunset- which costs essentially nothing. We overlight everything because it is so cheap to do, but harms us.
I would like to do this. Are you able to find filament bulbs? What dimmers are you using?
I usually buy them by the box on eBay... but any hardware store will have "special purpose" bulbs even in places where they are banned for general lighting sales, some of which are still basically regular bulbs but labeled for "appliances," "marine," or "rough service." You can also get old fashioned edison bulbs on eBay. Any standard dimmer switch will work.
Low color rendering index (CRI) is often the culprit. Quality LEDs absolutely exist, one must simply do a bit of research in enthusiast forums.
https://budgetlightforum.com/c/other-light-types/led-light-b...
I bought about 20 halogen ceiling lights for my housei last year when we remodelled. The electrician installing them could not understand why I didn't go for LED. I mumbled something about CRI and R9, but it seemed to just confused him more.
Best decision ever. The lights are dimmable and they have such a beautiful glow. It's so noticeable that guests comment.
I also now buy halogen on sight from the hardware store and stockpile, as their days are surely numbered.
I doubt that is the reason I tend to hate being subjected to bright LED lights for more than about 20 minutes a day.
Most agree that the light from most LED light bulbs (i.e., having a pronounced spike in intensity in the blue wavelengths) is bad for you in the evening and in the night time, but I'm saying I don't even like it in the morning if my exposure is too long (and when I'm having a bady day "too long" might be as short as 10 minutes).
CRI should actually somewhat capture that. If your spectrum looks drastically different from daylight, it will affect color reproduction.
https://www.crslight.com/images/kelvin_cri_comparison_chart....
CRI cannot be the issue with GGGP because he writes that LEDs "are still awful compared to incandescent bulbs" and we know that incandescents (being very low in the blue part of the spectrum compared to its output in the orange and the red) have worse CRI than even the crappy LED bulbs.
CRI is also not why I dislike most LED light bulbs either.
very happy with my waveform lighting LED bulbs:
https://store.waveformlighting.com/products/superwarm-1700k-...
Eh. I agree that there are a lot of shitty LEDs out there, but any of the Philips bulbs that say "EyeComfort" are actually pretty decent. I have replaced tons of incandescent bulbs with them and it has pretty much always been a noticeable upgrade. No weird shadows, no flickering (I'm super sensitive to this, unfortunately), and their CRI numbers seem legit.
Not sure what you expect from your light. But from all the random bulps I've seen and tried I still very much like all my WiZ bulps, their light and also that I can control them with a HTTP API without awkward hacks our cloud weirdness.
IKEA bulbs are cheap and 2700K, and have also had good results with the Feit electric.
For bed time applications, a guy here was selling the "bed time bulb." I got one and liked it.
