I have couple Phillips bulbs that are great, but I can’t find them anymore.
A heated filament will always give a very specific color distribution called the black body spectrum. For any temperature, the spectrum is perfectly know. At higher temperatures the peak of the spectrum shifts in the blue direction. At lower temperatures in the red. The sun is a black body at about 6000 degrees. Space between coals in a fireplace is closer to 1500 or 2000 degrees. The spectrum is smooth with a specific shape and no spikes or gaps. A led struggles to replicate this smooth shape. The closer you get to the bb spectrum the better it looks, and the better and more consistent is the color rendition. They are doing much better than years ago, but we evolved to live in black body light, and you can always tell the difference.
@Dakota
Thank you so much for this explanation, I’ve been having to justify my feelings on this for years!!!
@Dakota
Any tips on home or bedroom lighting that best aligns with BB spectrum?
Yes. Lookup 2700k or 3000k led bulbs
I absolutely agree. I’m constantly struggling with different kelvins to no avail. Right now I have a supposed 100 W equivalent LED Edison style daylight bulb that is just making me ill. I have to turn it off! I’m going to try another brand I got at Home Depot. But the good news is I just ordered several incandescent bulbs on Amazon. They come tomorrow. …Oh as I wrote this, I tried the other LED bulbs.
@Avery
I bought those too from Amazon. Had dark shadows too of bulb and got soooooo hot and then basically exploded. You have better luck? If so, can you provide the brand? Thank you.
@Avery
A “daylight” bulb will give off a cooler colour than what you are wanting. I would suggest looking at bulbs with 2700k or lower Kelvin rating. Daylight is around 5600 to 6k.
Incandescent Appliance bulbs are available that are 40 watts and lower. 2400k led bulbs are more tolerable then 2700k. Led still sucks no matter what.
You want less blue light. Look at the Kelvin setting. 2200K is warm. 2700 is soft white - still too blue for me, but most are 3000K and that is bad for your eyes. There’s a reason people are wearing blue light filtering glasses and turning on their PC windows settings to ‘night light’. You can read more about the harmful effects of excessive light, esp. blue here: https://darksky.org/
What I’m looking for are:
A. 3-way LED bulbs at 2200K. Something like 50-100-150W. Have a fantastic reading lamp from Grammy and the old bulb blew. Live in CA and cannot order incandescent replacements.
B. Recessed ceiling lights, LED floods to replace old “can” floods. 100W or less. 2700K or less - prefer 2200K
The 2200K is the hard thing to find, and when you find it, often the wattage equivalent is way too low, like Edison lights.
If and when I find a low kelvin alternative, I’ll post it here. Welcome suggestions.
Feit makes some nice bulbs.
Drew said:
Feit makes some nice bulbs.
I have seen so many failures with feit.
Drew said:
Feit makes some nice bulbs.
I have seen so many failures with feit.
I gotta agree, but I only tried them when LED bulbs were still new
Try these. A19 Bulbs by Waveform Lighting
Or these Feit “enhance” variants Feit Enhance A19 E26 (Medium) LED Bulb Soft White 60 Watt Equivalence 4 pk Mfr# A1960927CAFIL4 - Ace Hardware
Nothing beats a carbon filament, in terms of cost, look and CRI. Lamp life, efficiency and efficacy is another story.
May want to try a smart bulb. You can dim and change their color with an app. Can program them to change automatically as well and do some fun things with them for different occasions.
Greer said:
May want to try a smart bulb. You can dim and change their color with an app. Can program them to change automatically as well and do some fun things with them for different occasions.
Baffled that we let it progress to this point. The simple, thoughtless process of changing a lightbulb is now as complicated as using an app and blue tooth as part of the process. lol
It seems that the more technology advances, the more we take a couple steps back and make once simple processes difficult.
@Lee
I like my smart lights. If you don’t then don’t get them lol. Both are readily available
Greer said:
May want to try a smart bulb. You can dim and change their color with an app. Can program them to change automatically as well and do some fun things with them for different occasions.
Never could get the light to replicate incandescent. Threw them all away