LED light bulbs buying guide How to choose the right lamp

09/09/2016 LED light bulbs buying guide: How to choose the right lamp?

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LED LIGHT BULBS BUYING GUIDE: HOW TOCHOOSE THE RIGHT LED LAMP?

LED and how it diers fromincandescent bulbs and CFLs?

LED lighting is highly-ecient and most eco-friendly

lighting source in the market; what’s more, it oers so

many varieties to choose from. We are here presenting

helpful guidelines to help you make the perfect choice.

For years, people have only one style of light bulb – the

incandescent. Over the time, there was need of energy-

ecient lighting, and CFL bulbs came onto the scene, as

a cheaper, more energy-ecient lighting option.

One step ahead, now we have LEDs oering bene鴖홈ts like

low energy usage, low heat emission, and low impact on

the environment when discarded.

Do you know lighting accounts for 10%-30% of a typical

household’s energy bill in India? So, this is right time to

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make change, and go for highly ecient lighting – LED –

and save money, energy and also our environment.

There are many types of LED bulbs are available in the

market today. So choice is dicult and people generally

wonder, how to choose the right LED bulb? We will solve

your confusion, but let 鴖홈rst have an overview of what is

an LED lamp?

For over 150 years, 100-watt incandescent light bulbs

have been in use to light up hallways and bedrooms

while 60-watt Incandescent have been used in reading

lamps and closets. They are well-known for producing

yellow glow and became the most prominent electrical

lighting choice for generations after generation.

Problem was that they were unproductive, and were

wasting lots of energy as heat. It’s really sad that only

about 10% of the electricity used is actually converted to

light while 90% is given o as heat. They soon became

obsolete as energy-ecient competition arrived.

CFLs have been around for a while, and become an

energy-ecient alternative to incandescent bulbs. In its

寃uorescent technology, electricity is used to exciteجح

mercury gas inside the tube to produce ultraviolet light,

which then passes through a coating of phosphor on the

insides of glass tubes, giving o visible light based on

the principle of جح寃uorescence.

CFLs use much less energy compared to incandescent

bulbs – about 75% less to produce the same amount

light, but the main disadvantage to CFL lights is that CFLs

contain toxic mercury in the bulb. Mercury is very

dangerous heavy metal. Generally, this is not a problem,

but if the bulb breaks, then proper cleanup and disposal

of CFL bulbs is critical.



It’s time for making the best choice with the advent of

new LED technology. LED bulb is next generation option

in energy eciency. LED bulbs are made out of clusters

of small light emitting diodes instead of 鴖홈laments,

harmful mercury, or gases.

This technology has been around for decades and most

commonly, it has been used as the small indicator lights

on electronic devices. For now, LED bulbs are grouped in

clusters with diuser lenses to expand its adoption for

home, oce, and commercial use.

If you compare cجح寃 and led bulbs, LEDs are highly energy

ecient and use very little energy than incandescent

bulbs and CFLs. LED technology is advancing rapidly with

modern bulb styles available. They are more expensive

than other lighting options, but the price of LED bulbs is

going down every year as its manufacturing technology

continues to improve. The main advantages of LED

bulbs over cجح寃 are low energy usage, low running cost

and longest life time.

Performance of LED bulbs vs.Incandescent bulbs vs. CFLs:

First important thing to consider in comparison is

performance.

LED light bulbs use only 2-17 watts of electricity that is

about 1/6th to a regular incandescent bulb and 1/2 to

CFLs. Traditional incandescent bulbs use a lot of energy

to produce light however 90% of this energy is given o

as heat. Here lost energy is money we are throwing

away. On other side, using LED bulbs, you can save 85%

in energy costs.

Low power consumption means far lower energy bills.

Generally, lighting accounts for roughly 25% of the utility



bill. So this is really a big deal, not only for individuals

but also for larger properties like warehouses &

factories, public schools, hospitals, local governing

bodies, etc. which can hoard huge monthly bills. LED

oers really big savings for their electricity use.

Comparison based on other important bene鴖홈ts that

LED oers:

Life span: Another big advantage of using LED is

that it lasts longer. Our GlowUP LED bulbs last for

an average of 50,000 hrs, around 15 years (at 9

hours/ a day) under normal household use. This is

roughly 30 times longer when compared to

incandescent bulbs as well as 5 times longer than

CFLs.

Big saving of energy and money: LEDs are initially

expensive, but the cost is recovered quickly in

electricity and replacement savings in the long

term. It oers considerable ongoing savings for

many years to come, as LED bulbs last for an

average of 50,000 hrs means no hassle of replacing

bulbs. On considering its low-power usage and

long life, it helps you save a lot than incandescent

bulbs and CFLs.

Highly durable: LEDs are extremely durable; as

they do not have a 鴖홈lament means they can work



even if dropped or fell down like incandescent

bulb. Being solid with aluminum body, they also

hold up well to jarring and bumping.

Less heat: LEDs don’t get hot, even after being on

all night. They just feel warm to the touch while

Incandescents and CFLs get really hot to work by

their very nature. LED lights do not cause heat

build-up. They come with metal heatsinks to draw

the heat away from the LED chip itself. That means

it’s safer to operate as well as it can cut energy

costs along with cut air conditioning costs in the

home, preventing heat build-up.But if the heat sink

is not perfect in size, poorly connected or of a poor

design, the LED will be overheated and burning

out. Here thermal management is the single most

important factor in the successful performance of

an LED product over its lifetime, as higher the

temperature at which the LEDs are operated, the

more quickly the light will fail and the shorter the

useful life.

Eco-friendly: LEDs notably reduce carbon

emissions, so praised as the best eco-friendly

lighting option. Every year, power plants using

Incandescent bulbs emit 80 million tons of CO2

into the atmosphere for generating electricity to

light US homes. Now replacing all those bulbs to

LED, carbon emissions is reduced to only 12 million

tons comparable of taking 2,500,000 cars o the

road.Even LED bulbs don’t contain harmful

mercury like CFLs. Mercury is a toxic heavy metal

that damages the environment as well as becomes

poisonous when breathed in by humans. As LEDs

use low power, there would be lesser demand for



electricity that resulted in less power plants means

less pollution.

CRI – quality of a bulb’s light: Color rendering

index (CRI) is important factor for any led lighting

product. General use bulb for home requires CRI of

80. With High CRI > 82, Charlston’s GlowUP LED

lamp helps you see the actual color of the objects

more accurately.

Suitable to decorate any corner: LED bulbs would

be nice lighting choice for eect and decorative

purposes. As LEDs lights are directional, they are

excellent for lights under cabinetry, in the kitchen

over your workspaces and over the home oce

desk.

Quick light: LEDs are instant on like incandescent

while CFLs take a minute to warm up on turning

on.

Dimming Capability: The main dierence between

cجح寃 and led bulbs is that, CFL lamps cannot be

dimmed. With dimmable LED bulbs, you can not

only save money but also increase life span of

bulb.

Calculating the cost of electricity:

Here is given a simple example to know how much you

exactly save for using LEDs. For this, you must

calculate the costs of electricity to run light bulbs.

At 鴖홈rst, take scenario of 3 bedrooms, each having a light

bulb in the ceiling. Fix 60W incandescent regular bulb in

鴖홈rst bedroom, a 20W CFL for the second, and 9W

GlowUP LED bulb for the third one. All these bulbs

would give the same light level in the room.

Now to calculate the cost of running the light bulbs for a

year, 鴖홈rst you have to make some assumptions like




usage of light bulb and how much are you charged for

electricity?

Suppose light bulb in your room is used for about 6 hrs

a night, means about 2000 hrs of use every year. Next

assume that you pay for electricity 7 Rs. (Indian rupees)

per kWh( 1 Unit). Also, get the bulb’s wattage in 1000W =

1kW means 40W bulb is 0.04kW.

Use formula: hrs x Rate x Wattage = Total yearly cost.

So, a yearly running cost

for the 60W incandescent bulb is 2000(Hrs) x 7(Rs) x

0.060(Kilo Watt) = Rs. 840/-

for the 20W CFL it is 2000(Hrs) x 7(Rs) x 0.020(Kilo Watt)

= Rs. 280/-

for the 9W LED it is 2000(Hrs) x 7(Rs) x 0.009(Kilo Watt) =

Rs. 126/-

You can use this formula for any types of bulbs.

Another way to count on savings of LED lamp is take a

quarter of your bill – did you know that lighting account

for 25% of a home’s electricity usage. Now, reduce that

quarter portion by 85% if you want to go from

incandescent bulbs to LED or by 50% if you want to

switch from CFL to LED.

How to calculate total cost of replacingbulbs?

What if there will be any replacement of light bulb, you

couldn’t get the right 鴖홈gure based on common usage.

Knowing cost of replacing bulbs over a particular period

helps you count exact saving for LEDs.

As claimed, our LED bulbs last 50,000 hrs, CFLs last 5000

hrs, and the incandescent bulbs last only 1000 hrs.

Suppose there is 2000 hrs a year of usage; then within



20 years, you’re only going to have 1 LED bulb, while you

need 8 CFLs and 40 Incandescent bulb.

Another important thing is the money spent on light

bulbs. On assuming prices stay the same, 9W LED Bulb

costs 750 Rs. and its 20w CFL equivalent costs 200 Rs.

and 60w incandescent bulb costs around 20 Rs. That

means over a 20-year period 1 LED bulb will cost 750 Rs.,

8 CFLs will cost 1600 Rs and 40 incandescent bulbs will

cost 800 Rs.

Cost of electricity per year to run those light bulbs, as

calculated above

9W LED Bulb = Rs.126/yr

20W CFL Bulb = Rs.280/yr

60W Incandescent Bulb = Rs.840/yr

Cost of electricity over 20 years:

126 x 20 = Rs. 2520 for LED

280 x 20 = Rs.5600 for CFL

840 x 20 = Rs.16800 for Incandescent

Total cost over 20 years (Cost of electricity over 20 years

+ Cost for the bulbs used within 20 years):

Rs. 750 + Rs. 2520 = Rs.3270 for LED Bulb

Rs. 1600 + Rs.5600 = Rs. 7200 for CFL

Rs. 800 + Rs. 16800= Rs. 17600 for incandescent Bulbs

Check the Incandescent vs. CFL vs. LED light bulb

comparison chart below showing annual running cost,

energy usage and lifetime.

http://www.charlstonlights.com/blog/advantages-of-led-lights-over-cfl



Role of Lumen in lighting output as wellas eciency:

Lumen is unit to measure the total amount of visible

light that your bulb and other lighting object produces.

You can easily compare lumens between all

incandescent and CFL bulbs, as higher lumens on the

box, the brighter the bulb’s light output. But it is

meaningless if you compare lumens between an LED

bulb and a CFL to an incandescent bulb. On measuring

lumens, you also have to consider useful lumens. If a

light bulb emits light in every direction similarly over and

beneath, then light that going up can get trapped in the

light 鴖홈tting and totally wasted.

It is reported that about 50% of light emitted from a CFL

or incandescent bulb is trapped inside the 鴖홈tting and

never makes it out. That trapped light is just gets

absorbed and wasted as heat. That means from all the

lumens that bulb produces, only about half actually

lights the room, these are called as the useful lumens.

When it comes to LED bulb, its little LED chip is mounted

to the body of the bulb and all the light coming out are

all pointed in the one direction, basically pointing down.

As bulbs in your ceiling are pointed down, all of the light

produced by the LED bulb makes it into the room.



See the Incandescent vs. CFL vs. LED light lumens chart:

Wattage Lumens Useful Lumens

LED 9W 800 lm 800lm

CFL 20W 1000lm 500lm

Incandescent 60W 1000lm 500lm

Here you can say that the 9W LED is higher in light

output levels to the other two. All the lumens produced

by LED bulb are useful lumens, while only about half of

the lumens from the CFL and incandescent are actually

usable.

Ecacy is another important thing to decide the

performance of the LED bulb in terms of lumens. It

points out eectiveness of the light bulb at converting

electricity into visible light based on watts used by the

object while turning on. Thus, ecacy is total lumens per

watt. For ex. our 9W light bulb comes with lumens of 800

has an ecacy of 90lms per Watt.

What to look for Quality in LED Bulbs?

Light quality and temperature are also important

consideration to make on comparing bulbs. Both

important things are measured by CRI and CCT

respectively.

CRI – Color Rendering Index: CRI is a measure of light

quality, showing how well a light source replicate color

to the human eye relative to daylight. White light is

made up of all the colors in the light spectrum. We can

see the color of every material object when light being

thrown on it. Natural daylight has the highest CRI rating,

while arti鴖홈cial light sources can’t produce all the colors

of the light spectrum. CRI of 80 is the standard

requirement for general home use. With CRI > 82,

Charlston’s GlowUP are best to render natural colors.



Even some well-known retailers with colorful fabric and

wares are switching to LED bulbs and are perfectly

satis鴖홈ed with CRI score of > 80.

CCT – Correlated Color Temperature: CCT is measured

in Kelvin to refer to the warmness or coolness of the

white light that bulb produces. CFLs and LED bulbs don’t

get as hot as incandescent bulb. The temperature is

linked to the warmness or coolness of the light – higher

the temperature cooler the light looks. LED bulb listed

with 3000K doesn’t actually heat up to 5000°F, but it will

still give o a warm light just like an incandescent so

color temperature is important. As being Cool white, our

LED bulbs have 5300K- 5600K temperature. Some LED

bulbs have more than 6000K CCT, which make the light

more towards bluish rather than white.

How to buy the perfect LED bulb?

Above mentioned details help you get perfect idea about

how better is LED bulb, compared to other lighting

source. If you are fully convinced, then your next step

would be purchasing of LED bulb, but wait, LED bulbs

are available in so many varieties to choose from. To

make the right choice, consider important factors that

aect making of LED bulbs. So many factors help to

dierentiate the value of LED bulbs from each other. Just

checkout carefully and pick the best LED bulb for your

home, oce, or other purpose according to these

factors.

Quality of the LED chip: The performance of the LED

light bulb is mainly based on LED chip, so next important

thing need to be considered here is type of LED chip

used. High quality chips last longer and depreciate less

over time, both for light output as well as light quality;



however you have to pay more for that quality. So

beware of LED bulbs made using chinese LED chips.

Lumens: The next step would be to calculate its lumens

per rupee – How many lumens does it produce and how

much does it cost? For ex. an LED bulb is 800 lumens

and costs Rs. 750 (800/750) = 1.06lms/rs. The higher this

ratio is, more light the bulb emits.

Lifespan of Bulb: Another important thing is lifespan in

hours. Charlston’s LED bulb GlowUP lasts 50,000hrs. So

if you consider daily use of 8 hrs, bulb may last 17 years,

and for daily use of 12 hours, bulb may last 11 years.

The life of bulb also depends on the heat sink used to

draw heat away from the chip and LED driver. In

addition to good heat sink, GlowUP is dimmable, which

extends its life to last longer.

Color Temperature: Modern bulbs are available in

dierent color temperatures – in a unit called Kelvin (K).

A warm yellow light oer lower color temperature with a

lower Kelvin value, giving a comfortable atmosphere.

While cool blue light oer higher color temperature with

a higher Kelvin value, which is more energizing. If you

prefer clean look, modern, brighter feel of a cool white

lamp, over traditional yellowish color of warm light, then

GlowUP is for you.

Dimmability: The amount of light in a room helps to

create the suitable ambience, and it can be controlled

with dimmable light bulbs including dimmable LEDs. You

can easily turn the amount of light up or down via a

dimmer switch. Dimming not only saves energy

consumption but also extends bulb life, as the power to

bulb is reduced, So must consider it while selecting.



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The signi鴖홈cant dierence between branded and non-

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LED light bulbs buying guide How to choose the right lamp