Good query!
First, a bit of about me: I am not a lighting engineer, however I’ve examined and reviewed gentle bulbs for CNET for over 5 years. That features tons of of hours in our home made lighting lab — a climate-controlled room geared up with a spectrometer and an integrating sphere that lets us run essentially the most scientific and correct gentle bulb checks we will presumably run. I’ve additionally visited and written options about main North American lighting producers resembling Cree and GE to get a greater understanding of their strategies and requirements. That is one in every of quite a few LED shopping for guides and roundups that we attempt to replace as usually as doable.
A peek inside our integrating sphere.
We load every bulb we check into the middle of our integrating sphere — a giant, hole ball with particular, reflective paint coating the within. Our spectrometer peeks in by means of a tiny gap within the aspect of the sphere, with a “baffle” that blocks it from trying instantly on the gentle bulb. As an alternative, the bulb’s gentle bounces round inside, which lets our spectrometer take dependable, calibrated measurements for issues like brightness and coloration temperature.
We log these brightness measurements each 10 minutes for 90 minutes, then take a remaining studying on the finish. At that time, I plug the sphere’s energy twine into a wide range of dimmer switches, then measure for the typical most and minimal settings throughout all of them whereas additionally holding an in depth lookout for flicker or buzz.
As soon as a bulb we’re testing is completed within the lab, we take an in depth have a look at issues like gentle unfold, tone and coloration high quality. Our photograph and video workforce (Tyler Lizenby, Chris Monroe and Vanessa Salas right here in Louisville) have been an enormous assist, with standardized pictures that lets us take a extremely shut have a look at these metrics. They’re additionally simply actually damned good at taking footage of sunshine bulbs.
All of that stated, crucial factor is not what I believe once I’m taking readings in our lighting lab — it is what you and your loved ones assume after screwing the bulbs in and turning them on in your front room or different space. As I stated, LEDs like these are designed to be sturdy and waterproof and final years, so it is nicely price shopping for ones that you will really like dwelling with. You’ve got received quite a lot of good choices today, so there’s actually no have to compromise. I am simply right here that can assist you discover these “excellent” bulbs a bit sooner — or extra effectively, you would possibly say.
This new floodlight LED from Sylvania is not out there exterior of California but, but it surely’s environment friendly, placing out 93.7 lumens per watt. It will be one of many subsequent bulbs I assessment.