Does anyone else still prefer incandescent/halogen lighting over LED?

[mrceolla]

Is there a word for lighting connoisseur (aka snob). Like audiophile for audio? Lumiphile? Photophile?

Is there anyone else out there that can't bring themselves to using LED for general area lighting?

This reminds me of when digital photography first went mainstream. The masses were like, "Ooh, cheap pictures." Professionals were like, "I can't use this." Eventually that changed and digital caught up. I know LEDs have come a long way since the beginning, but they're still nowhere near incandescent/halogen yet.

From the low CRIs, to missing the mark with warm white color, to the potential health concerns, to the eye-piercing nature of their light output. I feel like I'm the only one bothered by these things. Perhaps I need to join a support group?

Also, can someone please explain to me why some in my neighborhood think it is a good idea to put daylight bulbs on the outside of their house? Daylight lighting has been around for decades and never widely used. Why is this changing with LEDs? Most consumers have zero use for daylight bulbs since they shouldn't be used at night anyway. Are manufacturers placing these bad suggestions on their boxes? Are my foolish neighbors just choosing the bulbs with the highest lumen output? Is it because, as they look at the lit up bulbs in a display at a store which is completely lit by daylight lighting (as most stores are), everything else looks too yellow or red? I feel like there needs to be a public information campaign on proper use of light.

When higher wattage incandescent bulbs were getting phased out, and 60w was becoming scarce, I bought a lifetime supply of bulbs. That's not as many as you'd think. My incandescent bulbs last a very long time since they are rarely on at 100% and always ramp on and off. The two combined prolongs their life significantly. I've been in this current house for over 6 years and may have had 2 or 3 bulbs die so far. That means the vast majority have been going strong for over 6 years.

OLED lighting looks promising but likely won't be displacing LEDs anytime soon. All I know is there needs to be some breakthrough in technology before I switch to digital lighting because it's not there yet, at least for me.

Did you know some researchers figured out how to make an incandescent bulb nearly as efficient as an LED, 5 years ago? I want that!!!
https://news.mit.edu/2016/nanophoton...ght-bulbs-0111

/rant

[Uncle Michael]

Some people like MUZAK. Some people prefer heavy metal. Some people enjoy 12-tone. Some prefer the pentasonic Asian musical scale. For some, 'real' music ended in the 18th century.

With light, there's also the ability of the brain to 'adjust' for lighting effects. Many people are not even aware that colors look different in daylight vs. incandescent vs. fluorescent lights. Obviously, some people are acutely aware of the effects of lighting, but my guess is that it is not a large fraction. (I wonder, though, if there are any who are fans of low pressure mercury vapor lighting.) While I share some of your wonder about the choices some people make in selecting light sources, I suspect that most people just don't give it much thought beyond thinking that candle light is more romantic than electric lights.

I have noticed that choices for LED lighting are improving, and there are some options that work pretty well for me. I am encouraged by the inclusion of CRI ratings when comparing different products. The key to 'improving' the quality of LED lighting will probably hinge on better spectrum extending phosphors, and circuitry that allows LED sources dim over a larger range and to become warmer at low output settings. But, in the end, some of the disagreement about lighting will probably come down to personal taste (or the lack thereof).

[langenet]

Picking the right LED bulb has always been an issue for me. The temperatures and dimming have always been an issue. Then there's the lower half of the bulb incased in plastic shadowing that part of the light. However, I did find that GE Warm LED checks all the boxes against incandescent bulbs at 2700k temperature.
I hate the daylight or high intensity bright lights.

We have a 3 bulb light in our kitchen which I always wanted to install LED bulbs but my wife would not have it. One of the incandescent bulbs just died and I put in the GE bulbs - side-by-side the LED bulbs looked exactly the same. I got total buy in and closed the deal...

[puma]

Using incandescent bulb nowadays is like using a rotary telephone dial or film camera. The only thing worse than that is using Luminescent bulbs :-) LED is the future and LED is here to stay. LEDs made great progress in recent years. Of course there are still LED bulbs that die on the second month of their 25 years alleged lifespan but overall they managed to deliver on the promise of long life, various color temperatures, various designs for various sockets. Compatibility with older electronic switches/dimmers is a problem that we all have to address sooner or later. I'm nostalgic too about the yellowish light of the incandescent bulbs. Fortunately LED with color temperature of 2,700 K come close to it.

[Alex_W]

There are absolutely "lumiphiles" and they don't buy bulbs at big box stores. I know this because I am now one of them. After years in the electronics industry I took a job working for a friend who owns a lighting manufacturing and distribution company. For decades they had specialized in high-quality bulbs and fluorescent tubes. I joined them as they were making the switch to LED. I know my electronics, but I had a lot to learn about lighting. The learning curve was steep but the experience was illuminating .😉

The first lesson came in their light lab where they demonstrated the difference between typical fluorescent tubes and high-end commercial tubes. The technology and chemical process is completely different, and the difference in light quality is amazing. You've probably seen "lumiphile" tubes if you've ever been to a dermatologist, an art gallery, a furniture store, a car dealership, or a high-end auto body repair/paint shop. They make all standard tubes look "green" by comparison (more precisely the standard tubes make everything they illuminate look green). They are also 3-4 times the price of standard tubes and are not sold in retail outlets.

The shift to LED was like a Wild West Show. Boatloads of crap hit the market and the consumer supply chain started a "race to the bottom" that resulted in inferior products (and lower prices). Many manufacturers make claims about the life of LED lighting based on the reliability of LED's. The problem is that it isn't the diodes that fail. What fails is the components in the drivers. There was one failure point in an incandescent bulb; There are 80 failure points in an LED bulb. Most LED bulbs don't look very good. The ones that do are, again, produced by specialty manufacturers and rarely find their way into residential applications. There are LED bulbs that look (and dim) as well as any incandescent bulb and that are warranted for 50K hours, but they aren't available at The Home Depot and they can't be has for $5 a bulb.

LED tubes are even worse. Most look awful and many are dangerous. The only right way to upgrade to LED tubes from fluorescent is to refit the fixtures and use tubes with an ASCI smart switch integrated into their circuitry. I can tell you from experience that the reasons credible commercial lighting companies were "late to the game" vis-a-vie LED tubes was safety, lighting quality, and reliability, in that order.

As an aside, If you really want to see what cutting-edge LED lighting is capable of, drive by a Mercedes or BMW dealership at night and look at the colors of the cars.

[mrceolla]

Thanks for the input. It has been enlightening :-) I'm feeling a tiny bit validated. Here are some of my thoughts, on your thoughts.

Some people like MUZAK. Some people prefer heavy metal. Some people enjoy 12-tone. Some prefer the pentasonic Asian musical scale. For some, 'real' music ended in the 18th century.

I'm not sure music is a fair comparison. There's not much in music that you can point to, to say one is better than the other. I'd compare this to perhaps the LCD TV vs OLED TV question where there are numbers you can point to that says one is better than the other, or at the very least, this one is better in this area and that one is better in that area. In other words, you can compare them with scientific data.

While I share some of your wonder about the choices some people make in selecting light sources, I suspect that most people just don't give it much thought beyond thinking that candle light is more romantic than electric lights.

You're probably right. Many may not even notice a difference, others may just not care much.

I am encouraged by the inclusion of CRI ratings when comparing different products.

I wouldn't touch an LED bulb that doesn't have a published CRI rating. BTW, I've read that two LED bulbs with identical CCT and CRI can still produce different results. There are a few alternative light quality metrics out there that aim to address that discrepancy. One is called Average Spectral Difference. I forget the other one(s).

Picking the right LED bulb has always been an issue for me. The temperatures and dimming have always been an issue. Then there's the lower half of the bulb incased in plastic shadowing that part of the light. However, I did find that GE Warm LED checks all the boxes against incandescent bulbs at 2700k temperature.
I hate the daylight or high intensity bright lights.

Those looks to be LED filament bulbs encased in frosted glass. I bet those do look nice in comparison. LED filaments cross one of my complaints off the list (eye-piercing light output), but how is their dimming performance? Do they shift redder as they dim lower? Can they reach white at 100%? The human brain and eyes expect light to be a certain temperature at a certain brightness, otherwise it looks "off". This is one of my main problems with LED bulbs. Most that I've seen, aside from color changing bulbs with poor CRI, maintain the same color no matter how they are dimmed.

LED is the future and LED is here to stay.

LEDs themselves are of course here to stay. Best indicator light and button backlight ever. As far as LED bulbs and area lighting, which I assume is what you meant...I just hope something better comes along, or they make more significant advances.

The first lesson came in their light lab where they demonstrated the difference between typical fluorescent tubes and high-end commercial tubes. The technology and chemical process is completely different, and the difference in light quality is amazing. You've probably seen "lumiphile" tubes if you've ever been to a dermatologist, an art gallery, a furniture store, a car dealership, or a high-end auto body repair/paint shop. They make all standard tube look "green" by comparison (more precisely the standard tubes make everything they illuminate look green). They are also 3-4 times the price of standard tubes and are not sold in retail outlets.

I used to work in TV and the studio had a few lights with 4-6 of these high end tubes in them.

The shift to LED was like a Wild West Show. Boatloads of crap hit the market and the consumer supply chain started a "race to the bottom" that resulted in inferior products (and lower prices). Many manufacturers make claims about the life of LED lighting based on the reliability of LED's. The problem is that it isn't the diodes that fail. What fails is the components in the drivers. There was one failure point in an incandescent bulb; There are 80 failure points in an LED bulb. Most LED bulbs don't look very good. The ones that do are, again, produced by specialty manufacturers and rarely find their way into residential applications. There are LED bulbs that look (and dim) as well as any incandescent bulb and that are warranted for 50K hours, but they aren't available at The Home Depot and they can't be has for $5 a bulb.

......

As an aside, If you really want tot see what cutting-edge LED lighting is capable of, drive by a Mercedes or BMW dealership at night and look at the colors of the cars.

Yup, the marketing around LED bulbs gets 3 Pinocchios. The other electronics will likely fail before the diode itself, and you won't save as much money as the box says you will. Regarding these LED bulbs that look and dim as well as any incandescent, can you please share what they are? Do they fit into an E26 or other consumer socket? I'm aware there are some high quality and very expensive LED lights for photography and videography, but those will not fit in any lamp you have at home. What do you use?

[Alex_W]

This is where to go:

https://hxlightinginc.com/

Search for "A" bulbs.

There is no pricing on the website because they typically sell only to commercial accounts. Call the number on the website and ask for "JW". He is the most knowledgeable person in the industry regarding LED lighting quality and the products he designs are exquisite.

Cheap, they are not. But I can tell you that an EcoHx light bulb was one of the few "techie" things that I have brought home that has impressed my wife. As a result our house is now full of them.

Happy wife, happy life.

[billt]

No. I used to be a lighting snob; I don't like flourescent tube lighting for various reasons and CFLs used to be pretty bad, poor colour rendering and slow startup, though you can get acceptable ones now.

But LEDs have got to a stage where the CRI is acceptable and you can find colour temperature to suit you requirements and the saving in power consumption over many light fittings is substantial. The difficulty is establishing if the device that you are interested in is good enough, as there's a huge variety of sources with unknown qualities. Trail and error can get quite pricey.

[ewkearns]

I don't really have a preference, aside from dimmer usage. In that application, incandescent lights outperform all others with respect to the smoothness of dimming and lack of flicker. Flicker (whether I can actually see it or not) gives me headaches. I've never bought a LED light that didn't flicker somewhere along the ramp continuum. This isn't an old tech vs new tech thing either. I worked in a camera center in the 60's and they had one location that had flickering fluorescents (you couldn't see it) that gave me a pounding headache until they mercifully replaced them with fresh tubes. I doubt I will ever buy anything but an incandescent for a reading light.

[Alex_W]

I don't really have a preference, aside from dimmer usage. In that application, incandescent lights outperform all others with respect to the smoothness of dimming and lack of flicker. Flicker (whether I can actually see it or not) gives me headaches. I've never bought a LED light that didn't flicker somewhere along the ramp continuum. This isn't an old tech vs new tech thing either. I worked in a camera center in the 60's and they had one location that had flickering fluorescents (you couldn't see it) that gave me a pounding headache until they mercifully replaced them with fresh tubes. I doubt I will ever buy anything but an incandescent for a reading light.

It's important to use a trailing-edge dimmer with LED's. This will alleviate most of the problems but as you said, some people are very sensitive to any type of flickering and since all modern dimmers work by turning the load off for a portion of the waveform all loads will eventually flicker if "dimmed" far enough. Incandescent lights are more immune from this effect because the filament tends to glow after the wave is cut, but they do pulse and sometimes even emit and audible buzz when dimmed. They also tend to be more immune from the flickering caused by the spikes produced by leading-edge dimmers, which are getting hard to find anyway. Most modern dimmers are now trailing-edge with a low limit set to the dimming (often 5%) because LED had pretty much become the standard and LED will not "dim" much beyond 5%. Even incandescent bulbs don't dim like they used to with resistive dimmers. Of course resistive dimmers offered no energy savings, and as far as I know are no longer being made.

So, allow me to qualify the statement that the best LED's dim as well as incandescent bulbs to include the caveat that the same trailing-edge dimmer with a low-level cut off is used for both luminaires.

[Guest]

I think I am sensitive to flickering.

If ‘’traditional’’ dimmers turn the Voltage down, How do led bulbs like philips hue or lifx works to adjust the dimming level?

[Alex_W]

I think I am sensitive to flickering.

If ‘’traditional’’ dimmers turn the Voltage down, How do led bulbs like philips hue or lifx works to adjust the dimming level?

Modern dimmers do not turn the voltage down. They clip the trailing edge of the waveform. The same is true of the bulbs, the circuitry is just in a different location. Essentially they turn the light off for a portion of the cycle. The old resistive dimmers that limit voltage are no longer being made because they are inefficient. As the light is dimmed they produced heat in place of luminosity.

[mrceolla]

But LEDs have got to a stage where the CRI is acceptable and you can find colour temperature to suit you requirements and the saving in power consumption over many light fittings is substantial. The difficulty is establishing if the device that you are interested in is good enough, as there's a huge variety of sources with unknown qualities. Trail and error can get quite pricey.

I suppose "acceptable" is subjective, but I agree CRI has gotten better. And so have the non-daylight colors. But to some, better isn't good enough. And as you mentioned, finding those better bulbs can be a challenge in itself.

I'm curious how your power savings translates to dollars. Is that observed savings or calculated? How many years to recoup bulb costs?

And then there's the dimming...

I don't really have a preference, aside from dimmer usage. In that application, incandescent lights outperform all others with respect to the smoothness of dimming and lack of flicker. ... I've never bought a LED light that didn't flicker somewhere along the ramp continuum.

Only my garage and storage room have lights on on/off switches instead of dimmers. None of my lights turn to 100% by default. I believe that brightly lit and well light are not necessarily the same thing. I like using many lights in a room for even illumination, and most of the time having them all on at 100% would be too bright. Dimming performance is paramount to me and that includes the shift in color.

It's important to use a trailing-edge dimmer with LED's. This will alleviate most of the problems but as you said, some people are very sensitive to any type of flickering and since all modern dimmers work by turning the load off for a portion of the waveform all loads will eventually flicker if "dimmed" far enough. Incandescent lights are more immune from this effect because the filament tends to glow after the wave is cut, but they do pulse and sometimes even emit and audible buzz when dimmed. They also tend to be more immune from the flickering caused by the spikes produced by leading-edge dimmers, which are getting hard to find anyway. Most modern dimmers are now trailing-edge with a low limit set to the dimming (often 5%) because LED had pretty much become the standard and LED will not "dim" much beyond 5%. Even incandescent bulbs don't dim like they used to with resistive dimmers. Of course resistive dimmers offered no energy savings, and as far as I know are no longer being made.

So, allow me to qualify the statement that the best LED's dim as well as incandescent bulbs to include the caveat that the same trailing-edge dimmer with a low-level cut off is used for both luminaires.

I recall reading that trailing-edge vs leading-edge dimmers matters in regards to LEDs and some low voltage lighting transformers. What do you use to dim those fancy LED bulbs? I have Insteon here and I think it's leading-edge. Of course, that doesn't matter with incandescent/halogen. Insteon users have still been able to find at least some brands/styles of LED bulbs that supposedly work fine.

[billt]

I'm curious how your power savings translates to dollars. Is that observed savings or calculated? How many years to recoup bulb costs?

Primarily calculated, but backed up by observation. For example, we have a long, narrow hall way with little natural light. In order to make it less depressing I've fitted 8 downlights which are on most of the day. 50W halogen vs 6W LED costs about £3 a month more to run; the downlights were quite pricey so it will take about 5 years to recoup the cost.

The total energy used for fixed lighting here in January was 31kWh, almost entirely LEDs. That is a saving in energy of about 250kWh, or £30.

Financially it doesn't make sense to replace working fittings with LEDs, but it's a good idea for new fittings.

And then there's the dimming...


Only my garage and storage room have lights on on/off switches instead of dimmers. None of my lights turn to 100% by default. I believe that brightly lit and well light are not necessarily the same thing. I like using many lights in a room for even illumination, and most of the time having them all on at 100% would be too bright. Dimming performance is paramount to me and that includes the shift in color.


I recall reading that trailing-edge vs leading-edge dimmers matters in regards to LEDs and some low voltage lighting transformers. What do you use to dim those fancy LED bulbs? I have Insteon here and I think it's leading-edge. Of course, that doesn't matter with incandescent/halogen. Insteon users have still been able to find at least some brands/styles of LED bulbs that supposedly work fine.

I agree about brightly lit |= well lit.

A lot of our LEDs are zigbee, like the IKEA GU10s, which are easy to automate and seem to dim well.

Most of the ceiling fittings don't have dimmers, but I use these https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/QURW01.html on 3 lights. They have the advantage to me of being usable without automation and without added wiring, but with option of integrating with Homeseer. I think they're UK only though. Dimming performane depends on the fitting. They work well on some dimmable ceiling lights, but poorly on allegedly dimmable E22 bulbs, they dim but only use about 20% of the dimming range, so it's next to impossible to get a repeatable light intensity.

I'm going to try some Shelly dimmers on other dimmable LEDS. They are supposed to be configuarble to suit the fitting, but I haven't tried them yet.

[Alex_W]

I suppose "acceptable" is subjective, but I agree CRI has gotten better. And so have the non-daylight colors. But to some, better isn't good enough. And as you mentioned, finding those better bulbs can be a challenge in itself.

I'm curious how your power savings translates to dollars. Is that observed savings or calculated? How many years to recoup bulb costs?

And then there's the dimming...



Only my garage and storage room have lights on on/off switches instead of dimmers. None of my lights turn to 100% by default. I believe that brightly lit and well light are not necessarily the same thing. I like using many lights in a room for even illumination, and most of the time having them all on at 100% would be too bright. Dimming performance is paramount to me and that includes the shift in color.



I recall reading that trailing-edge vs leading-edge dimmers matters in regards to LEDs and some low voltage lighting transformers. What do you use to dim those fancy LED bulbs? I have Insteon here and I think it's leading-edge. Of course, that doesn't matter with incandescent/halogen. Insteon users have still been able to find at least some brands/styles of LED bulbs that supposedly work fine.

I have two older Leviton Zwave dimmers that are leading edge and they work well with HX bulbs. I can't speak to the performance with other brands. The rest of my dimmers are trailing-edge.

Keep in mind that LED's do not shift in color as they dim. The intensity decreases but the temperature does not.