Good query!
First, slightly about me: I am not a lighting engineer, however I’ve examined and reviewed mild bulbs for CNET for over 5 years now. That features a whole lot of hours in our do-it-yourself lighting lab — a climate-controlled room outfitted with a spectrometer and an integrating sphere that lets us run essentially the most scientific and correct mild bulb checks we are able to presumably run. I’ve additionally visited and written options about main North American lighting producers comparable to Cree and GE to get a greater understanding of their strategies and requirements. That is one among quite a few LED shopping for guides and roundups that I attempt to replace as usually as potential.
A peek inside our integrating sphere.
We load every bulb we take a look at into the middle of our integrating sphere — an enormous, hole ball with particular, reflective paint coating the within. Our spectrometer peeks in by a tiny gap within the aspect of the sphere, with a “baffle” that blocks it from wanting instantly on the mild bulb. As a substitute, the bulb’s mild bounces round inside, which lets our spectrometer take dependable, calibrated measurements for issues like brightness and coloration temperature.
We log these brightness measurements each 10 minutes for 90 minutes, then take a ultimate studying on the finish. At that time, I plug the sphere’s energy twine into a wide range of dimmer switches, then measure for the common most and minimal settings throughout all of them whereas additionally protecting a detailed lookout for flicker or buzz.
As soon as a bulb we’re testing is finished within the lab, we take a detailed take a look at issues like mild unfold, tone and coloration high quality. Our picture and video group (Tyler Lizenby, Chris Monroe and Vanessa Salas right here in Louisville) are an enormous assist at this level, with standardized images that lets us take a extremely shut take a look at these metrics. They’re additionally simply actually damned good at taking photos of sunshine bulbs.
All of that stated, an important factor is not what I believe after I’m taking readings in our lighting lab — it is what you and your loved ones assume after screwing the bulbs in and turning them on in your front room or different space. Like I stated, LEDs like these are designed to be sturdy and waterproof and final years, so it is nicely value shopping for ones that you will truly like dwelling with. You have acquired a number of good choices nowadays, so there’s actually no must compromise. I am simply right here that can assist you discover these “excellent” bulbs a bit sooner — or extra effectively, you may say.
This new floodlight LED from Sylvania is not out there outdoors of California but, nevertheless it’s environment friendly, placing out 93.7 lumens per watt. It will be one of many subsequent bulbs I evaluate.
