This site was made to help people like you buy LED light bulbs, armed with actual data and personal impressions.
Have you tried to buy LED bulbs at Amazon? At HomeDepot? It's a royal pain.
Too often you get home and find you don't like the look or performance of the bulb. Which isn't a great feeling when you just paid 10x more for the bulb than you're used to paying for lightbulbs. Unlike the lightbulbs we grew up with, buying an LED bulb is (supposedly) a 20 year commitment. You should feel confident that you'll like the bulb, and not just because of the amount of light it makes.
This site will be a repository for data and opinions of LED light bulbs that I test myself. I'll try to make the data easy to use, the information standardized, and the next step to purchasing easy.
How it works:
1. I buy a bulb
2. I test and photograph a bulb
3. I write up the results
If this works, we'll make changes to make this even more useable for you and others. So if you like what you see, let me know.
Some FAQs:
What bulb sizes are you testing?
So far, we're only testing "regular" sized (so called "A19") lightbulbs that can go in a lamp, and PAR/BR/R type bulbs that are designed to go into a recessed "can" type ceiling fixture. We'll add more as we see the need.
Btw, when it comes to LEDs, when a manufacturer is describing their bulb as "A19" or "PAR38" or "BR30", the letters don't really matter. "A" means a "normal" shaped bulb like you see above a cartoon character when they have an idea, and "BR", "PAR" and "R" are all different versions of the same basic "flower" shape for a recessed can bulb. They do actually stand for real technical terms, but those terms aren't very relevant to LEDs... However, the number does matter, because it's the diameter of the bulb IN EIGHTHS OF AN INCH. So a BR30 is, for example, 3 and 3/4 inches wide. If you're trying to figure out which bulb will fit snugly into a particular socket, keep that in mind.
Where is the Lightzy global test facility?
The test facility is currently the guest room in my basement. At least to get started. I thought it would be a good place to find a real-life situation but with only one bulb lit at a time and little extraneous light, so you are seeing the performance of one single bulb at a time. I've draped a white blanket over the bed, so you can also get a sense of the "warmth" (or yellowness) of the light produced by each bulb.
What should I know about the setup of the test site?
The room I'm using has two "cans" (recessed fixtures) but I only use one at a time for these tests. The cans are 5 inch cans. The depth of the can is standard at around 5.5 inches (all the way to the base, so not including the edison screw socket). The ceiling is slightly under 8 feet. When I give light measurements in lux, that is measured on the floor using a standard light meter. I don't change the depth of the can for each bulb, but will try to note when a very short or very tall bulb will affect the light dispersion.
And yes, it's a fairly blue-green room. It is what it is. Consider it a conservative approach to determining if any bulbs are too harshly "cold".
Where did I get the bulbs?
The same place you did. Either Amazon or Home Depot or Lowes. Sometimes manufacturers will send me bulbs directly.
Your results will vary. Conditions will be different in the rooms you have or the fixtures you have or even bulb by bulb. This is intended to be a field guild and not a definitive promise of product performance. Don't rely upon these ratings for anything legally-related, these are mostly subjective and your results will not match mine.
How did I choose the criteria and pictures for the reviews?
One of the problems with buying a lightbulb that's different from what we're used to is that it turns out there are a lot of different factors we care about. What does it look like when it's on. What does it look like when it's off. What shape is it. What color is it. What is the "warmth" of the light it makes. How bright is it right in front of the bulb. How much light does it throw to the sides. Will it fit into my particular fixtures. Does it dim, or will a dimmer lightswitch make it flicker.
The reason I've started this site is that I got tired of ordering or bringing home LED bulbs and then having to send them back for one reason or another. I'll keep doing that... but hopefully you won't have to, if this site can help.
So I picked four different standard pictures of the bulb, including both standalone and installed. Such as a shot of what it would look like if you looked at the recessed fixture or lamp while entering the room. And such as a shot of what it would look like if you looked directly up at it while it was on. And also a shot of what the room looks like, so you can get a sense of how warm or cold the light is.
And I marked out on the floor at 0 foot, 4 foot, and 8 foot intervals from dead center under the bulb, and measured light (in lux) at those precise points.
And I'm providing an overall rating for each bulb. This is tricky, because different people will care about different factors in different ways, but I've tried to capture most of what people care about. In informal testing with other people, these ratings seem to roughly fit their in-person impressions as well, so far.
Products are rated in the following way, with some subjectivity involved:
Claimed lifespan (10%), 1-5 scale. Generally speaking, 50,000 hours gets a 5, and 25,000 hours gets a 4. 15,000 hours gets a 3. I can't verify these claimed lifespans are at all accurate. I'll try to update as we learn more about whether these manufacturer claims are valid or not. And I've tried to note whenever I find indications they might be overstated. But for many of these bulbs, it's not like the old school incandescents -- they're expensive, but they should last until your kids are in college.
Brightness at floor level, 0 feet from center (15%) and 8 feet from center (15%), 1-5 scale. This is measured using a handheld lux meter as described above. I don't give credit in this rating for any advertised lumen output, or for that matter "wattage equivalent" marketing language. A 144 lux measurement at 0 feet from center got a 5 rating. A 12 lux measurement got a 1 rating. A 3 rating is roughly equivalent to what you would get with the 65w incandescent benchmark. I give equal weighting to dead center and 8 feet out from center because light dispersion matters -- just review the photos of the full bedroom to see what I mean, as some "bright" bulbs still make the room look dark because their beam is too focused.
I would weight brightness more heavily except that I've found people tend to have very misleading (or misled) perspectives on how bright a room is, when they walk in. If it's truly a dim bulb, you notice. But there appear to be plenty of bulbs that are "good enough", and in fact many of the bulbs tested here far outperform the incandescent benchmark bulbs on a lux basis, and yet I've gotten complaints that they're "not as bright". Color temp seems to matter just as much as actual lux in terms of how the average person perceives brightness, unless they're trying to do a detail-oriented task. So it's important... but not treated as all-important, in these ratings.
Non-lit appearance (20%), 1-5 scale. This is a subjective rating based upon my impressions of what it looks like when turned off, when you walk in the room and notice the bulb. The ideal here is something that looks very much like a traditional bulb. No obvious LED chips, no obvious wiring. More white metal/plastic, less shiny silver. Does it look cheap or does it look like something that will last 20 years... So if you're the type that wants your LED bulbs to look radically different and modern from traditional bulbs, you'll disagree with these ratings. But for most people, I've found they tend to share these general impressions. A shiny metal "shower head" bulb with very obvious LED chips gets a 1 rating. No LED bulb has yet gotten a 5 rating, but some have done fairly well to get a 4 rating.
Lit appearance (10%), 1-5 scale. Another subjective rating, based upon my impressions of what it looks like when turned on. Is it very obviously a collection of a few different light sources, or does it look like a single light source? Does it simply look "weird" when you walk in the room?
Color quality (20%), 1-5 scale. This is tied to color temperature -- a 2700K color temperature is supposedly equivalent to a traditional bulb, and so that kind of performance merits a 5 rating. But emphasis on performance... If you start testing a bunch of LED bulbs it becomes obvious that manufacturers often "fudge" a bit with their color ratings. Not all 2700K bulbs look alike, and 3000K bulbs are often much "colder" than you would expect for such a slight difference in claimed rating. So I've assigned ratings based upon my direct impressions of the bulb, as somewhat informed by their claimed color temperature. NOTE: Brightness and color temperature account together for 50% of the rating. This isn't your standard lightbulb spec sheet website...
Other factors (10%), 1-10 scale. One of the fun things about these bulbs is that, in the early days of these products, every one is different. Rather than try to create a very specific all-encompassing ratings system, this final category allows me to adjust for general impressions or other factors. Lack of dimming capabilities, for instance, merits a deduction in this ratings category. But generally speaking, most bulbs will get a 5 rating in this category, all things being equal.
You may well disagree with my ratings of bulbs per performance / aesthetic category, and you may weight these categories differently as well. But these ratings and weightings are designed to fit one basic goal: Helping you find a bulb that matches what you're expecting in terms of both performance and appearance, when you're making a 20-year purchase.
I haven't adjusted ratings to account for price. Because prices may change, and also because these are performance / appearance ratings only. I look forward to noting which highly-rated bulbs appear to be for sale at a reasonable price. Stay tuned...
Too often you get home and find you don't like the look or performance of the bulb. Which isn't a great feeling when you just paid 10x more for the bulb than you're used to paying for lightbulbs. Unlike the lightbulbs we grew up with, buying an LED bulb is (supposedly) a 20 year commitment. You should feel confident that you'll like the bulb, and not just because of the amount of light it makes.
This site will be a repository for data and opinions of LED light bulbs that I test myself. I'll try to make the data easy to use, the information standardized, and the next step to purchasing easy.
How it works:
1. I buy a bulb
2. I test and photograph a bulb
3. I write up the results
If this works, we'll make changes to make this even more useable for you and others. So if you like what you see, let me know.
Some FAQs:
What bulb sizes are you testing?
So far, we're only testing "regular" sized (so called "A19") lightbulbs that can go in a lamp, and PAR/BR/R type bulbs that are designed to go into a recessed "can" type ceiling fixture. We'll add more as we see the need.
Btw, when it comes to LEDs, when a manufacturer is describing their bulb as "A19" or "PAR38" or "BR30", the letters don't really matter. "A" means a "normal" shaped bulb like you see above a cartoon character when they have an idea, and "BR", "PAR" and "R" are all different versions of the same basic "flower" shape for a recessed can bulb. They do actually stand for real technical terms, but those terms aren't very relevant to LEDs... However, the number does matter, because it's the diameter of the bulb IN EIGHTHS OF AN INCH. So a BR30 is, for example, 3 and 3/4 inches wide. If you're trying to figure out which bulb will fit snugly into a particular socket, keep that in mind.
Where is the Lightzy global test facility?
The test facility is currently the guest room in my basement. At least to get started. I thought it would be a good place to find a real-life situation but with only one bulb lit at a time and little extraneous light, so you are seeing the performance of one single bulb at a time. I've draped a white blanket over the bed, so you can also get a sense of the "warmth" (or yellowness) of the light produced by each bulb.
What should I know about the setup of the test site?
The room I'm using has two "cans" (recessed fixtures) but I only use one at a time for these tests. The cans are 5 inch cans. The depth of the can is standard at around 5.5 inches (all the way to the base, so not including the edison screw socket). The ceiling is slightly under 8 feet. When I give light measurements in lux, that is measured on the floor using a standard light meter. I don't change the depth of the can for each bulb, but will try to note when a very short or very tall bulb will affect the light dispersion.
And yes, it's a fairly blue-green room. It is what it is. Consider it a conservative approach to determining if any bulbs are too harshly "cold".
Where did I get the bulbs?
The same place you did. Either Amazon or Home Depot or Lowes. Sometimes manufacturers will send me bulbs directly.
Your results will vary. Conditions will be different in the rooms you have or the fixtures you have or even bulb by bulb. This is intended to be a field guild and not a definitive promise of product performance. Don't rely upon these ratings for anything legally-related, these are mostly subjective and your results will not match mine.
How did I choose the criteria and pictures for the reviews?
One of the problems with buying a lightbulb that's different from what we're used to is that it turns out there are a lot of different factors we care about. What does it look like when it's on. What does it look like when it's off. What shape is it. What color is it. What is the "warmth" of the light it makes. How bright is it right in front of the bulb. How much light does it throw to the sides. Will it fit into my particular fixtures. Does it dim, or will a dimmer lightswitch make it flicker.
The reason I've started this site is that I got tired of ordering or bringing home LED bulbs and then having to send them back for one reason or another. I'll keep doing that... but hopefully you won't have to, if this site can help.
So I picked four different standard pictures of the bulb, including both standalone and installed. Such as a shot of what it would look like if you looked at the recessed fixture or lamp while entering the room. And such as a shot of what it would look like if you looked directly up at it while it was on. And also a shot of what the room looks like, so you can get a sense of how warm or cold the light is.
And I marked out on the floor at 0 foot, 4 foot, and 8 foot intervals from dead center under the bulb, and measured light (in lux) at those precise points.
And I'm providing an overall rating for each bulb. This is tricky, because different people will care about different factors in different ways, but I've tried to capture most of what people care about. In informal testing with other people, these ratings seem to roughly fit their in-person impressions as well, so far.
Products are rated in the following way, with some subjectivity involved:
Claimed lifespan (10%), 1-5 scale. Generally speaking, 50,000 hours gets a 5, and 25,000 hours gets a 4. 15,000 hours gets a 3. I can't verify these claimed lifespans are at all accurate. I'll try to update as we learn more about whether these manufacturer claims are valid or not. And I've tried to note whenever I find indications they might be overstated. But for many of these bulbs, it's not like the old school incandescents -- they're expensive, but they should last until your kids are in college.
Brightness at floor level, 0 feet from center (15%) and 8 feet from center (15%), 1-5 scale. This is measured using a handheld lux meter as described above. I don't give credit in this rating for any advertised lumen output, or for that matter "wattage equivalent" marketing language. A 144 lux measurement at 0 feet from center got a 5 rating. A 12 lux measurement got a 1 rating. A 3 rating is roughly equivalent to what you would get with the 65w incandescent benchmark. I give equal weighting to dead center and 8 feet out from center because light dispersion matters -- just review the photos of the full bedroom to see what I mean, as some "bright" bulbs still make the room look dark because their beam is too focused.
I would weight brightness more heavily except that I've found people tend to have very misleading (or misled) perspectives on how bright a room is, when they walk in. If it's truly a dim bulb, you notice. But there appear to be plenty of bulbs that are "good enough", and in fact many of the bulbs tested here far outperform the incandescent benchmark bulbs on a lux basis, and yet I've gotten complaints that they're "not as bright". Color temp seems to matter just as much as actual lux in terms of how the average person perceives brightness, unless they're trying to do a detail-oriented task. So it's important... but not treated as all-important, in these ratings.
Non-lit appearance (20%), 1-5 scale. This is a subjective rating based upon my impressions of what it looks like when turned off, when you walk in the room and notice the bulb. The ideal here is something that looks very much like a traditional bulb. No obvious LED chips, no obvious wiring. More white metal/plastic, less shiny silver. Does it look cheap or does it look like something that will last 20 years... So if you're the type that wants your LED bulbs to look radically different and modern from traditional bulbs, you'll disagree with these ratings. But for most people, I've found they tend to share these general impressions. A shiny metal "shower head" bulb with very obvious LED chips gets a 1 rating. No LED bulb has yet gotten a 5 rating, but some have done fairly well to get a 4 rating.
Lit appearance (10%), 1-5 scale. Another subjective rating, based upon my impressions of what it looks like when turned on. Is it very obviously a collection of a few different light sources, or does it look like a single light source? Does it simply look "weird" when you walk in the room?
Color quality (20%), 1-5 scale. This is tied to color temperature -- a 2700K color temperature is supposedly equivalent to a traditional bulb, and so that kind of performance merits a 5 rating. But emphasis on performance... If you start testing a bunch of LED bulbs it becomes obvious that manufacturers often "fudge" a bit with their color ratings. Not all 2700K bulbs look alike, and 3000K bulbs are often much "colder" than you would expect for such a slight difference in claimed rating. So I've assigned ratings based upon my direct impressions of the bulb, as somewhat informed by their claimed color temperature. NOTE: Brightness and color temperature account together for 50% of the rating. This isn't your standard lightbulb spec sheet website...
Other factors (10%), 1-10 scale. One of the fun things about these bulbs is that, in the early days of these products, every one is different. Rather than try to create a very specific all-encompassing ratings system, this final category allows me to adjust for general impressions or other factors. Lack of dimming capabilities, for instance, merits a deduction in this ratings category. But generally speaking, most bulbs will get a 5 rating in this category, all things being equal.
You may well disagree with my ratings of bulbs per performance / aesthetic category, and you may weight these categories differently as well. But these ratings and weightings are designed to fit one basic goal: Helping you find a bulb that matches what you're expecting in terms of both performance and appearance, when you're making a 20-year purchase.
I haven't adjusted ratings to account for price. Because prices may change, and also because these are performance / appearance ratings only. I look forward to noting which highly-rated bulbs appear to be for sale at a reasonable price. Stay tuned...
