3 Pointers for Buying LED Light Bulbs

With incandescent bulbs being phased out by governments around the world and the prices for LED light bulbs continuing to fall, now is the best time to switch the lights in your [city] home to LEDs. You probably already know that LEDs have an incredible lifespan of 20+ plus years and are highly energy efficient. What’s more, in the last few years alone, advances in engineering and technology have resulted in more reliable LEDs that generate the same warm glow as incandescent light bulbs. But while LEDs are indeed ushering in a new era in lighting, the sheer number of LED bulbs and brands on the market is staggering, making it difficult to choose which LEDs bulbs are best for your [city] home.

Before you go to the nearest hardware store to buy your LED lighting, here’s what you need to know first.

1. Brush Up on the New Lingo

When shopping for light bulbs, you’re probably used to looking at the label for watts, a measure of a light bulb’s brightness. That used to work for incandescent bulbs, but not so much with LEDs.

Contrary to popular belief, wattage isn’t an accurate indicator of a bulb’s brightness, but rather shows how much power the bulb needs to function. While the correlation between brightness and watts is easier to understand with incandescents, with LED bulbs, which draw very little energy, watts are quite irrelevant. For example, an LED bulb produces the same brightness of a 60-watt incandescent for just 8 watts of electricity.

What you should be checking is a light bulb’s lumens, the real measure of a light source’s brightness. The higher a bulb’s lumens rating, the brighter it is.

2. Think About the Bulb’s Color

LED bulbs used to be criticized for generating only a bluish-white light. Suffice it to say that’s no longer the case today, as bulbs like the Philips Hue are capable of generating just about any color of light, from red, yellow, and white, to purple and blue. For general home lighting, however, you’ll want to choose warm colors of light that are similar to that of incandescent bulbs.

When buying LED light bulbs, you may always want to consider popular colors like “warm white” and “soft white, ” and “bright white. ” The first two colors are similar to the light emitted by incandescent’s, while “bright white” bulbs more closely resemble daylight.

3. Have Realistic Expectations for Savings

While their prices have fallen in recent years, you should still expect to pay more for LEDs than incandescent bulbs and compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). When switching the lights in your [city] home to LEDs, don’t expect to see an instant and dramatic decline in your energy consumption either. Instead, think of LED bulbs as a long-term investment and one that will more than likely pay for itself much faster than you think. Your investment in LED bulbs will eventually pay off, but in the meantime, it’s best to focus on what you’re getting: longer lasting bulbs, less heat and a lower likelihood of burnt out bulbs.