Just use an LED that produces the same color. They 100% exist.
I agree that incandescent is better than cold LED. A little shopping and consumer research will 100% find you exactly the LED you want.
I agree that incandescent is better than cold LED. A little shopping and consumer research will 100% find you exactly the LED you want.
[1] https://nymag.com/strategist/article/led-light-bulbs-investi...
In other words, I’m agreeing with your article that the fixed bulbs typically don’t hit the mark.
https://www.sevarg.net/2023/04/08/ecosmart-smart-bulb-review... + https://www.sevarg.net/2023/03/11/philips-smart-wifi-bulbs/ + https://www.sevarg.net/2023/02/26/feit-electric-wifi-rgb-bul...
(or something like that)
If you actually dislike LED lighting then you should also notice issues with LED screens not just lightbulbs. Instead you like most people dislike bad LED lightbulbs which are common because most people are buying them without testing em. Which means most manufacturers don’t actually optimize for light quality.
As for LED screens, those are emissive and work great for simulating any color. However, they are not good light sources for lighting objects because they're narrow spectrum.
If the object you're lighting up is broad-band reflective (like paper with broadband black pigments), then everything is good. But as soon as you get narrow-band pigments, colors are going to be distorted.
There is no such thing as non distorted colors because even sunlight is also reflecting off objects in the environment. We are just used to seeing a decent approximation of what stuff probably looks like in full sunlight. It might be an old hack but changing a filaments temperature is only approximating what happens at different times of the day as the sun’s actual temperature and thus black body spectrum is constant what’s actually changing is the amount of atmosphere involved.
The truth is everyone doesn’t make the same corrections, individuals are simply fairly consistently with their approximation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress
A lot of people that use their iPhone’s slow motion video function indoors at night are surprised to see they are surrounded by a disco of blinking lights.
An incandescent has 10-15% brightness flicker at 120Hz. LEDs... vary. Some flicker a lot harder at 120Hz, some (mostly LED Christmas lights) are awful and flicker at 60Hz with a 50% duty cycle because they're a single diode rectifier.
Most LEDs flicker far faster, in the kHz range, which is theoretically beyond human impact, but we don't have many studies on it.
Incandescent flicker is also related to bulb wattage. A higher wattage bulb, with a thicker filament, will flicker less because it has more thermal inertia.
A 240fps high speed is more than enough to observe a variety of LED flickering behaviors. Some flicker none (Bedtime Bulb is remarkable in the lack of flicker), some flicker at high enough frequency you can't really make out details, and others are just... gross.
I like the warm parts of the spectrum more than incandescents, which is really my whole point.
The context of this discussion is incandescent color/perception/experience.
It all boils down to how these measurements work. In practice, the vast vast majority of LED bulbs do not even remotely come close to the color reproduction of halogen. Not to mention the flicker response to 60hz wall power.
There are a handful of companies that produce extremely color accurate LEDs but they're expensive and have limited lifespan.
Check out this resource for more info: https://www.waveformlighting.com/tech/what-is-the-difference... https://www.waveformlighting.com/tech/calculate-duv-from-cie...
The wonderful warmth of incandescent (depending on your color temp prefs) with no wasted IR energy in the form of heat. What’s funny is that your mind will perceive it as hot because we’ve been conditioned to expect it from light at that color temp.
Reasonable price, too, but more expensive than bulbs from the big box store. For something that lasts 10-18 years, it’s worth it to me.
I find the 3700k is perfect for my tastes.
Though the concern seems to be mercury content --- CFLs are also subject to the ban, according to April 2022 accounts:
<https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/3463992-biden-...>
Incandescents were "Deprecated but still available, and not many people worried about it" for about the past 7 years or so, and you could still find them at stores, if you cared.
Trump expressed his dislike for LED and CFL lighting, so, of course, the Biden administration went about actually banning sale of incandescents. I expect a robust black market in them for decades to come.
The overall energy use numbers really depend on how the bulbs are used - in many areas, lights are mostly used in the winter, when the heat is welcome. Saving energy on lighting and having to burn more natural gas or electricity for heat pumps is perhaps some savings over electricity, but not nearly the 5-6x often cited as "savings." In the summer, when the heat is unwelcome, the sun is up longer, so a well run home won't be using nearly as much artificial light.
But in terms of your body's melatonin production and sleep, the Philips smart bulbs can get very peaky in terms of blue, in the range that matters.
https://www.sevarg.net/2023/03/11/philips-smart-wifi-bulbs/
They're not obvious visually when they switch from the white emitter, which has "some blue" to the RGB emitters, which have "lots of blue" as you head out in the red/orange spectrum, but your body's "blue sensors" certainly notice.
Unfortunately, our visual system isn't sensitive to the same things our melatonin inhibiting system is sensitive to, so without a spectrometer, you can't really tell what you're seeing.
I am not switching to LEDs... It would be wasteful to throw away something that works great and replace it with something new that doesn't work as well. I like incandescent, and my 40 year old reading lamp and a few extra bulbs will last forever running a few hours a night dimmed to ~20W.
and
"my 40 year old reading lamp and a few extra bulbs will last forever running a few hours a night dimmed to ~20W."
You resent the laws although they barely affect you. And it's time for me to take a break from discussion threads.
I used to be in this camp before branching out and trying some different LEDs. Unless it is literally the glowing filament that you like looking at, which is reasonable, you can definitely find a bulb that looks and feels the same.
That was my point in repeating myself saying that it 100% exists. If you’re not in a place to financially experiment with a few bulbs that’s different. Stating that LEDs can’t produce the color you want is wrong. I would go as far as to say that you can find an LED that produces a color you prefer over incandescent.
Planning to buy some e26 bulbs that connect to Apple’s home automation. It’ll be the same process of buying all the popular models on Amazon that have fully adjustable color/brightness and settling on what I like best.
The whole problem LED bulb mandates are trying to solve is mostly a problem of unnecessary and excessive lighting which is causing tons of light pollution, interrupting peoples circadian rhythm, etc. If people used a very dim light near their body just between sunset and sleep it wouldn't matter much how efficient it is.
Brightly lighting up our cities and houses is totally unnecessary and terrible for us, and terrible for the planet regardless of how efficient and cheap we can make it. It lowers quality of life for us, and other animals affected by the light pollution.
I would have no problem affording LED lights I don't want, but cannot afford to move someplace with enough land to escape the neighbors light pollution from their cheap LEDs... which makes it harder to sleep, impossible to enjoy the stars, etc.
And I can't help but think my neighbor with literally hundreds of watts of LED bulbs around the outside of their house might not decide to light the night quite as often if they were all incandescents. I can read a newspaper by their lights, which aren't even aimed at me, about 3/8 mile away. It's absurd.
I genuinely hate it.
Sure it's a special order, but it's a special case.