I find it odd that these articles are starting to appear now (recently came across a similar article in The Atlantic). I’m an interior designer, I spend a lot of time on light fixtures and I’m a geek so I’ve been watching LED development closely. Early LED fixtures and bulbs definitely had issues - extremely poor color rendering, color shift, high frequency flicker, poor dimming performance, etc. However, they have vastly improved and I would say most bulbs at Home Depot, etc will do just fine and the technology is only going to continue to get better.
If I can provide some useful advice and recommendations (which this article provides exactly none of), pay attention to the kelvin (color temperature) in addition to CRI. 3000k is considered “neutral” white in the design world, 2700k is warm and 4000k is cool. I would not get anything outside that range. The big manufacturers are more reliable, both in the quality of light output and the consistency of light output as they maintain more control over LED chip production and selection - Cree, Philips and GE are my go-tos. If you want really good quality and are willing to pay a little more - look for Soraa bulbs. Soraa makes a low-blue light bulb for bedrooms. Also, keep in mind that an LED bulb lifespan is at least three times that of an incandescent, so you could spend three times as much as still be paying a comparable cost.
Warm-dim bulbs and fixtures - those that transition from say 3500k to 2200k as you dim the bulb are promising, but that is the leading edge of bulb development at the moment and so I think they are still iffy. I’ve noticed undesirable reds and pinks as they dim, greens at full brightness, and less reliability. They’ll get there for sure, but I’m still avoiding them for most clients.
I dunno we’ve replaced most of our bulbs with affordable led lights from the local home goods store. They seem to be working just fine for dim warmish ambient light and get bright enough to use in task-lamps too. To be fair we try to use natural light as much as we can so lights are more for evening, ambience, and tasks.
I’ve noticed many LED bulbs are just built poorly and often with minimal heatsinking or just none (using just the thin alunimium base as a heatsink which often isn’t enough). It’s really annoying since often it results in the bulb failing sooner than the LEDs themselves. It’s why I try to find more expensive and quality made LED builbs but it seems even quality made ones are being made poorly these days rather than up to a certain specification that will last longer than most CFL bulbs. It’s really annoying too since LEDs were sold as the ultimate synthesis between CFL low power usage and the brightness and color fidelity nearly as good as old incandescent bulbs. It seems neither of those promises were true.
… of course, sunlight is about 5800K and “white” on our TV sets is 6500K—maybe sticking with 2700K because it’s what we’re used to from a lightbulb is not necessarily the best choice
I suspect some people leave their TVs on all winter because it’s the only way they know how to get enough blue light in their brains
i don’t even understand why we still have night. bring the moon down here. liven things up. karaoke till the break of… well until people get tired anyway
