New LED Lighting classifications.

[Andy in Germany]

I'm dipping a toe into the Brave New World of LED Domestic lights and my goodness but it's confusing. How is the brightness of LED lights measured, and how does that compare to the old incandescent/fluorescent bulbs?

For reference I've got a one room apartment with five sockets. The apartment wasn't well thought through and I've only got two switches for these, and I noticed some LED lights have a remote control feature which would make them more flexible. Also, I will want to have some bright lights partly because it is a basement apartment so it will be dark in winter, but also because I will hopefully have a model railway at some point which I'll want to take pictures of.

I have a vague plan of using three "normal" lights and two LED flootlights which I can dim or turn on and off using the remote control as additional bright light or for photography, but for this I need to know what is a "bright" light in LED terms?

 

[bikingdad90]

With LED’s you need to consider the angle of the throw, must LED spotlights are around 60 degrees which is pretty much downwards only but if you want a wide angle to throw the light outwards and cover a large area you need to find ones with an angle of around 120 onwards.

The wattage is generally a 1/10 of a normal bulb so 5w is equivalent to a 50w, 6w for 60w etc. the bigger the wattage the “brighter” the light.

You may also need to look at the colour. There is clinic cool daylight which is very white through to warm which is more yellow.

 

[chriswoody]

When we renovated our house about 10 years ago, we swapped all of the bulbs for LED bulbs which are direct replacements for the old style light bulbs.

https://www.obi.de/e27-led/philips-...orm-e27-6-5-w-806-lm-warmweiss-matt/p/8486359.

As biking dad mentions above, there is the power in watts to think about, so where you might use 60w normally, say in the lounge, you can replace that with a 6w LED.

Then there is the colour of the light, which is measured in Kelvin. Old fashioned Halogens would be about 3000K, and newer LED's can be found in quite a wide range of Kelvin. The ones I've fitted in our house are 2800K and give off a nice warm light. There's a short article here giving a quick overview of light and the Kelvin scale:

https://www.lumens.com/the-edit/the-guides/understanding-kelvin-color-temperature/

A couple of our rooms (Kitchen and bathrooms) have suspended ceilings with flush LED spotlights in, so here, as well as the power and temperature, you need to consider the angle of the throw, as biking dad mentions above. This information can be a lot trickier to find, but is really relevant, you want to illuminate a room, not just the area immediately under the light. I've found Paulmann to be a good company for LED spots, with a wide range and really high build quality.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

Also I seem to recall that you need special "dimmable" LED bulbs if you want to dim them. Not sure why, or what the difference is, just remember my electrician telling me so.

 

[bikingdad90]

Also I seem to recall that you need special "dimmable" LED bulbs if you want to dim them. Not sure why, or what the difference is, just remember my electrician telling me so.

To be honest, I’d forget about dimmable; the LEDs don’t turn on if there isn’t enough voltage unlike traditional filament bulbs which will light even with minimal voltage. I’d never found a workable LED for low lighting, only at medium to high.

 

[Arrowfoot]

Test the type of bulb you want as well as the brightness. So need to find a store that can swap.
I found 2.7K, the best - homely feeling.

 

[Over the Ord]

Done all of above, 2 years later all went into the bin because the light was so low we couldn’t read a book in winter.

We choose light bulbs by lux and purchased the following GLS LED DIM 7w ES Clear 2700k £7.00 x 6.

 

[Mike_P]

To be honest, I’d forget about dimmable; the LEDs don’t turn on if there isn’t enough voltage unlike traditional filament bulbs which will light even with minimal voltage. I’d never found a workable LED for low lighting, only at medium to high.

I have a dimmable LED in the spare bedroom allowing it be used for other purposes with the LED brightly illuminating the whole room or being subdued. Had problems with a buzzing noise initially which changing the dangling bulb holder failed to resolve. Changed the bulb, still a buzz, refitted the original bulb and no buzzing. Eh? Puzzled how it seemed to self resolve itself.

 

[newts]

Lower temp lamps (warmer colour) tend to be used for living/bedrooms & higher temp (cool white/daylight) for kitchens/bathrooms.
We went from 200w down to 27w on kitchen lighting when swapping to led lamps (2600 lumens)
Short payback on initial lamp cost & large energy saving long term.
When the UK first banned incandescant lamps, the alternative was flourescent lamps that had very poor light & halogen lamps that would also heat the house with their inefficiency. LED's have come along way in receny years & cost reduced dramatically.

 

[Daninplymouth]

It us much easier to dim leds these days, most self contained fittings are dimmable and colour switchable then just look for an LED dimmer. I’d recommend Zano or a Click MD9014 work really well

 

[Andy_R]

I have a dimmable LED in the spare bedroom allowing it be used for other purposes with the LED brightly illuminating the whole room or being subdued. Had problems with a buzzing noise initially which changing the dangling bulb holder failed to resolve. Changed the bulb, still a buzz, refitted the original bulb and no buzzing. Eh? Puzzled how it seemed to self resolve itself.

You need to make sure the dimmer control is compatable with led lights

 

[Mike_P]

You need to make sure the dimmer control is compatable with led lights

The one I used was from Screwfix - British General 900 series , cat no 65335

 

[Andy_R]

The one I used was from Screwfix - British General 900 series , cat no 65335

What wattage was the bullb? If it was less than 5 watts,that would be the issue.

 

[Mike_P]

What wattage was the bullb? If it was less than 5 watts,that would be the issue.

12 watt. Toolstation 54833.

 

[icowden]

An alternative to "dimmer" compatible is to go with smart bulbs like Hue or Lifx. You can dim just by talking to your Alexa or Google Assistant.
My daughter has hers set up to "blast off" - with a suitable sound effect before they light up. Older daughter has LED strips which she uses "lumos" and "Nox" to turn on and off.

Plus you can set nice colours and scenes.