[mikestorrent]

IDK if you've noticed but we are all lighting our house with bulbs that use 1/10th the amount of electricity as incandescents did. I like the color spectrum of a real lightbulb better, too, but not enough to pay 10x in power. I make up for it by using all kinds of random bulbs all over the place so that the aggregate light in the room fills more of the spectrum than if I coordinated them all to be the same.

[aliher1911]

Did you try using high CRI LEDs with color remperature of 2700K–3000K? When I switched from halogen to LED I did just that and the difference is not noticeable, you'll have the same yellowish tint and very natural looking colours. Even with expensive bulbs, extra longevity covers for higher cost.

[anymouse123456]

Not sure if I'm doing something wrong, or just living in a place where the power is so bad, it causes premature failures.

The claimed extra longevity of LED bulbs has not materialized for me.

They seem to fail at roughly the same frequency that incandescent bulbs did in my home, which makes them about 10x to 15x more expensive.

[adrian_b]

Many complain about this, because they have been fooled into buying low-quality lamps, with bad cooling or bad electronic components.

I have many Philips LED lamps bought some 10 to 15 years ago, which were put in Edison sockets for incandescent lamps, and none of them has become defective during all these years.

However, even at that time, it was not their cheapest model, but one that was claimed to be long-life and I believe that later they have discontinued that model in favor of cheaper lamps.

I have no idea which vendor of LED lamps might sell good LED lamps today, because I never had to search for replacements. I assume that good LED lamps must still be available, but one must not impulse buy them, but one must check carefully the specifications of the lamps and the credibility of the vendor, before making a purchase decision.

[anymouse123456]

I did choose very expensive options (high CRI and ~$14/ea), but I think the problem is that I have enclosed glass lamps from the 60's that don't ventilate heat properly for the LEDs, so they fail every year or 2, just like the incandecents used to.

[dotancohen]

2700 is really cool. To the GP, if you're looking for something more like daylight but not noticeably yellow, try 3600k or thereabouts.

The actual temperature of the sun is over 5000k (yes, the k in lightbulb temperature corresponds to the Kelvin scale of temperature) but after being scattered by our atmosphere it appears cooler. And where did all that extra light go? It was scattered around, making the sky blue!

[adrian_b]

The color of the solar light depends on the proportion of yellowish direct solar light and bluish sky light that fall on an object.

When the sky is covered by clouds, which mix the direct Sun light and the sky light, you get a color much closer to the true color of the Sun.

[Forgeties79]

3700-4500 is my range I like these days

[dotancohen]

If I could run different lighting after sunset, I'd run something high-CRI in your range during the day and a low-CRI 3000 after sunset.

As it is, I compromise.

[jacobolus]

There are LED lamps which have a "warm dim" feature so that the appear oranger as you reduce the brightness.

[dotancohen]

Thanks, that's great to know! However, I also had to remove the high-CRI lights from some lamps because I found that they disturb my sleep if I have them on in the hours before bedtime.

I live in a 240-volt country, though, and I've never seen a dimmer switch here.

[duskdozer]

Personally I find 2700k-rated LED to not even be low-k enough to match incandescent.

[adrian_b]

I do not like 2700 K to 3000 K lamps, which are obviously yellowish and regardless how high their CRI may be they distort the colors of clothes or any other objects.

I also do not like the bluish cheap 6500 K lamps.

I consider optimum the 4000 K lamps. This appear white with only a very-slightly yellowish hue, which allows the perception of the natural colors of most objects, but it still provides a warmer sensation than a strictly neutral white color (i.e. one around 5500 K).

[foobarian]

The really awesome thing about the 1/10 power consumption is that the existing circuits/wiring/sockets now suddenly support 10x the light without burning down your house. I'm a sucker for well lit space and these lights are just heaven for me.

[adrian_b]

For indoor lighting, LED lamps are indeed the right solution.

I have also been using for more than a decade 13 W LED lamps that produce the same luminous flux as the 100-W incandescent lamps or the 23-W compact fluorescent lamps used in the past.

However, the requirements for an outdoor night lamp are very different. Low-pressure sodium lamps have about the same energy efficiency and lifetime as LED lamps, so those are not arguments for replacing them. The only thing that matters is whether you prefer yellow light or white light in a night environment. I definitely prefer yellow light, for reasons already mentioned by others, i.e. much less interference with night vision, sky light, nocturnal animals, or with my street-directed windows at home.

If energy efficiency would really matter, one could produce monochromatic amber LED lamps with efficiencies at least double over the current white LED lamps.

[cucumber3732842]

>but we are all lighting our house with bulbs that use 1/10th the amount of electricity as incandescents did.

Yeah I know. I love it in my house.

On the industrial side, sodium vs LED is a much closer comparison generally than LED vs incandescent. LEDs kinda suck for high bay applications.

[6510]

Depending on where you live the heating might be nice.

In the US people use roughly 10 000 kwh per year.

Say we have a 40 watt bulb, say it burns on average 5 hours per day or 200 wh. In 365 days that would be 72 kwh which at 16 cents per kwh is $11.52 or 0.73% of the annual power consumption.

Say one uses 5 light bulbs. Something around $57.60. Say leds use only 25% of the power = $14.40 for $43.2 saved.

Well over 10 cents per day.

What are you going to spend your 10 cents on? lol

[Spooky23]

The problem is we went from a market that consisted of cheapo/good bulbs at various brightness levels to a market where Walmart and Home Depot have like 60 linear feet of bulbs.

There’s no standards and people are clueless and confused. There are awesome LEDs, but more often you see have harsh, terrible light.

[nine_k]

Cluing in is really easy. Look for "CRI ≥ 90", or at least "full-spectrum" for the lamps that are easy on the eyes. Pick 2700K for softly lit spaces, 4000-4500K for brightly lit spaces.

[throwaway27448]

How many life forms do we have to kill before cost savings aren't worth it?

Besides, we can have LEDs in better spectrums for under 1/5th the costs of incandescents. We just hired stingy motherfuckers and don't care about the repercussions of our decisions.

[duskdozer]

I question the cost/energy savings. Seems to me for the most part any efficiency gains are being spent on making everything 5x as bright and expansive.

[XorNot]

I hate incandescents and am glad they're gone. People chronically under light their homes at the best of times.

My whole house is neutral white LEDs except the bathrooms where we go to cool white to make it easier to clean and be sure it's clean (even if it's not spotless, there's a huge psychological benefit to not feeling like dim light is masking even more grime).

Oddly enough I'm otherwise pretty light sensitive - my current office at work has been a nightmare of trying to manage glare from badly places overheads and windows.

Going from 500w for my living room to 80w also helps a lot (and way more light and a lot less heat).

[adrian_b]

High-quality white LED lamps are indeed optimal for indoor lighting.

That does not make them the best choice for outdoor night lighting.

The replacement of the outdoor lighting appears to have been motivated in most cases by the desire to divert taxpayer funds towards the private companies selling such lamps, instead of by any technical reasons.

[yawnr]

Cool white lights are tacky, offensive to the senses, and disruptive to circadian rhythms at night.