![]() ![]() For instance, a traditional 60-watt incandescent lightbulb will add about $7 to your energy bill each year if you use it, on average, for three hours a day. You need to factor in the cost of using the bulb - and the great thing about LEDs is that using them doesn't cost very much at all. Thankfully, several years of development and competition have brought prices down to the point where you'll find plenty of LED options in the lightbulb aisle available for $5 or less.īut the dollars and cents don't stop there. Then, LEDs came along - most of them costing a lot more. It used to be that you could grab an incandescent bulb at the hardware store for a buck or so. LED bulbs are like hybrid cars: More expensive upfront, but cheaper to operate. You'll pay more for an LED bulb (but you'll save in the long run) The two most popular colors available for LEDs are soft white (also called warm white) and bright white (also called daylight). For the home, however, you're likely looking for something similar to the light that incandescents produce. Incandescent bulbs typically put out a warm, yellowish hue, but LEDs come in a range of colors.Īs shown off by Philips Hue, LED bulbs are capable of displaying an impressive color range, from purple to red, to a full spectrum of whites and yellows. Get a sense of the brightness (in lumens) you need before heading to the store, and throw away your affinity for watts. For reference, here's a chart that shows the watt-lumen conversion for incandescents and LEDs.Īs you can see in the chart above, an incandescent can draw up to five times as many watts for the same number of lumens. The lumen (lm) is the real measurement of brightness provided by a lightbulb, and it's the number you should look for when shopping for LEDs. It is absolutely possible that the 8-watt bulb will be brighter than the 12-watt bulb, which is why you should essentially ignore the wattage when you're looking for brightness from your LED bulbs.įortunately, there's a better way to talk about brightness, and that's the lumen. One draws 8 watts, the other draws 12 watts. Imagine you see two LEDs sitting on the shelf at the store, each of them branded as a 60-watt replacement. That's because LEDs are designed to be as efficient as possible without compromising the quality of the light - and some LEDs are better at the job than others.įor example, an LED bulb with comparable brightness to a 60-watt incandescent will typically only draw 8 to 12 watts. ![]() For incandescents, there is an accepted correlation between the watts drawn and the brightness produced, but for LEDs, watts aren't a great predictor of how bright the bulb will be. Lumens, not wattsįorget what you know about incandescents your watts are no good here.Ĭontrary to common belief, wattage isn't an indication of brightness, but a measurement of how much energy the bulb draws. So before you go shopping, there are five things you need to know. And if the cost and environmental benefits aren't enough to sell you, LED bulbs have many interesting and worthwhile features, including bulbs that change colors, and bulbs that sync with your home security system or voice assistant of choice.īuying the right LED is different from buying incandescent bulbs, though. In fact, the Energy Department projects that this new policy will save US consumers almost $3 billion on their utility bills, all while cutting global-warming carbon emissions by 222 million metric tons over the next 30 years. ![]() That's great for the environment, and it can save you money on your electricity bill in the long term, especially if you're upgrading a whole home's worth of bulbs. For starters, LED bulbs last much, much longer than incandescent bulbs, and they put out the same amount of light using significantly less energy If you haven't switched to LED bulbs, now is the time and the reasons why are compelling. Anything else will no longer be produced, which is essentially a death sentence for all incandescent lights. After years of rising standards, President Joe Biden's Department of Energy finalized a new efficiency rule that states lightbulbs must emit a minimum of 45 lumens per watt. Not only are incandescent bulbs high-energy and costly for your monthly energy bills, but they're also being phased out. Still use incandescent bulbs? The time has come to flip the switch to another option. ![]()
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