LED lights and LED bulbs are becoming very popular with lots of options available in market. Plus it’s quite a simple job to replace CFL light in your house with LED bulb. But which one you should select for a given application or place. Like traditional bulbs, just the same wattage can’t to be only fact you should know before purchasing a LED bulb. Figuring out some of the consideration while choosing a LED bulb here is a buyer’s guide for LED bulbs, as per common products available in Indian market.
To replace every single bulb in the average home would cost hundreds of pounds, so it’s worth figuring out which are the most inefficient (and which are those you use most) and replacing those first. It isn’t worth replacing a power-hungry bulb in your shed if you only use it for a few minutes each week. Similarly, if you’ve already fitted energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs, it may not be worth replacing these with LED bulbs: always check the wattage of the bulb already fitted to see how much you’d save. By contrast, you might have a dozen spotlights in your kitchen which you use for several hours per day. These are the prime candidates for replacing with LEDs. In many cases, it’s as simple as removing the existing bulb and fitting an LED bulb. But for certain types of bulb, you’ll need a transformer or LED driver as they won’t work on mains voltage. LED bulbs are the most efficient and durable of the lot, but also the most expensive. However, prices have fallen considerably since we first tested them in 2013. They use up to 80 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs, while producing the same amount of light. Most LEDs should last at least 15,000 hours – that’s more than 13 years if used every day for three hours. If you want to buy an LED to replace a standard incandescent bulb, chances are the LED will appear brighter than the equivalent incandescent. This is because the beam angle of LEDs is narrower, so the light comes out more focused. Before heading off to the shops, check what kind of bulb you want to replace. The majority of light bulbs are described by a system of series designations.
What if the light bulb you put in your baby’s nursery didn’t have to be replaced until Junior is off to college? That’s the promise of LED light bulbs. They rival the light quality of incandescent; don’t contain mercury (as compact fluorescent light bulbs do); and are claimed to last up to five times longer than CFLs and 50 times as long as incandescent. Energy Star-qualified bulbs meet high standards for brightness, color, and energy use, and the mercury content is capped in CFLs. Energy Star-qualified CFLs come with a warranty of at least 2 years from purchase date, and for LEDs it’s 3 years or longer. Before you shop look online for rebates from your utility and manufacturers. Check store displays of lit bulbs to get a sense of their light color and whatever you choose buy just a few and try them out. LEDs have an impressive lifespan (20-something years!) and are very cost-effective. Now’s the right time to switch to LEDs. These bulbs have made significant advances over the last few years; finally delivering the warm light incandescent have comforted us with for decades. Because there are so many LED varieties, choosing an LED is entirely different from picking up an incandescent. Before you head to the store, find out what you need to know about choosing the right LED bulbs.
What to look for
There are LED bulbs available for nearly every lighting task in your home, but there are a few things to consider.
The long lifespan of LEDs makes them ideal for hard-to-reach fittings you’d like to change as infrequently as possible, such as above stairways or in high ceilings. If you want to use a dimmer you need to buy dimmable LED bulbs, and ensure your dimmer switch is compatible with the dimmable LED bulb (it will say on the packaging). A dedicated fitting houses the LED and its associated electronics – the bulb is fixed to the fitting and can’t be changed like a regular light bulb. A replacement bulb is an LED that can be retrofitted into an existing fitting to replace an incandescent, halogen or CFL. A dedicated fitting is designed to manage the heat that concentrates at its base; overheating can shorten an LED’s lifespan. If you’re installing lights as part of a renovation, or if you’re building a new house, then we recommend dedicated LED fittings. Note that if the fitting fails you’ll have to replace the whole unit. If your house has recessed down lights with incandescent or halogen bulbs, it is better to replace the entire fitting with a dedicated LED down light fitting, instead of just changing the bulb. Just replacing the bulb with an LED is likely to overheat the LED and shorten its life. In addition, older down light fittings require generous clearances to ceiling insulation and can allow draughts through the hole in the ceiling lining. Modern dedicated LED down light fittings combine energy efficient lighting with better air tightness and insulation can be abutted to or even laid over them. You will need an electrician to install them for you. For non-recessed fittings, retrofitting LED bulbs is cheaper and easier than installing dedicated LED fittings, but remembers to check you get the same base type and a similar shape, brightness, color temperature and beam angle.
Wattage: Most LED packaging shows the equivalent wattage of an incandescent bulb of a similar brightness. Use this as a guide when replacing an old incandescent bulb. Generally, LEDs produce the same amount of light as an incandescent bulb that has five to six times the wattage.
| Incandescent bulb (watts) | Equivalent LED (watts) | Light output (lumens) |
| 40 | <7 | 420 |
| 60 | 8-10 | 720 |
| 75 | 11-12 | 930 |
| 100 | ≥14 | 1300 |
Brightness: Lumens measure light output. For example, 720 lumens are about the brightness of a 60W incandescent bulb, while 1300 lumens is equivalent to a 100W incandescent.
Color temperature: Color temperature refers to the light’s color characteristics. It varies between warm, like the yellow light of an incandescent bulb, or cool, like the bluish light of some fluorescent lamps. It is measured in Kelvin (K). The higher the K, the cooler the light.
Warm white or cool white: An early complaint with LEDs was they were unsuitable for general ambient lighting because of the harsh white light they produced. Models capable of producing a warmer white light are now widespread. If you’re after a bulb for your living room or hallway, a warm version is a good choice to avoid a cold feel, but cool lighting is fine for the bathroom or laundry.
Beam angle: The beam angle measures how the light spreads out from the bulb. Beam angles of LEDs vary greatly and depend on their application. The shape of an LED bulb determines the direction light is emitted. However, when buying down lights ensure you get a bulb that emits light only from its end. Narrow angle bulbs – less than 30 degrees – are usually used when placing multiple down lights close to each other, such as in a hallway or when lighting cabinetry. Larger beam angles are used with high-power LEDs for floodlighting. If you’re replacing incandescent or halogen lamps with LEDs, make sure the beam angle is similar to the old bulb. Very large beam angles are sometimes found in pantries or walk-in wardrobes. As beam angle increases, you require more lumens (light output) to maintain the light’s intensity.
Life expectancy: LED bulbs have a claimed life expectancy of between 15,000 and 50,000 hours, so can be expected to last for more than five years of normal domestic use. However, their lifespan can be considerably reduced if they get too hot, as can happen when they are retrofitted into recessed down lights and spotlights. Make sure they have a way to dissipate excess heat or replace the entire fitting with a dedicated LED down light fitting. Care should be taken if you’re installing LEDs in environments where they are likely to be exposed to steam. The bulb housing contains a small electronic circuit which can short if it gets damp. LEDs retrofitted into bathroom heater units will probably have a reduced lifespan due to increased temperatures generated by heat lamps.
Energy savings and payback time: Despite the higher upfront cost of LEDs compared to other technologies, you can expect to save money in the long run through reductions in your power bill. Let’s compare a mid-range LED to a standard incandescent bulb. The LED has the same brightness as a 60 watt incandescent while only drawing 9.5 watts. The LED costs $18 and has an expected lifespan of 15,000 hours, while the equivalent 60 watt incandescent bulb costs 50 cents but lasts for 1000 hours. If the light is on for three hours each day the incandescent will use $17.08 worth of electricity in a year, compared to $2.70 for the LED. That’s a saving of $14.38 per year.
CRI: CRI is another spec you should see (if you don’t, it’s worth asking for the CRI figure). Here’s why: CRI stands for Color Rendering Index and is a measure of the light quality from 0 to 100. In other words, the CRI score tells you if objects appear the correct color when lit using that bulb. Incandescent bulbs had a brilliant CRI, but not so with fluorescent tubes. If you want to avoid bad-looking lighting, it’s crucial to go for LEDs with a high CRI.
Technology: Not all LEDs use the same technology. Cheaper bulbs will tend to use multiple SMD (surface-mount device) LEDs, but newer or more expensive ones will use COB – chip on-board LEDs.
Existing equipment: If you are replacing low-voltage halogen bulbs, there are no guarantees that LEDs will work on your particular transformers which may require a minimum power draw to work properly. If the draw is too low from your super-efficient LED bulbs, they may flicker or not work at all. In this case, you would need to either replace the transformers with proper LED drivers, or change the fittings from MR16 to mains-voltage GU10 fittings and buy GU10 LED bulbs instead. Fittings are cheap, and it may be cheaper to go down this route than buy an LED driver for each MR16 bulb.
Simple guidelines to select the best ones
Check light color: If you like light that’s a warm yellow; similar to an incandescent, then you want an LED or CFL that has a color temperature around 2700K (the K is for Kelvin). You’ll see “Light Appearance” noted on the Lighting Facts label on the back of the box of the LED or CFL. For white light pick a bulb that’s 3000K or so. Bright white light is 3500K to 4100K and bluer white light is 5000K to 6500K. But don’t worry; you’ll see this spelled out on the Lighting Facts label.
LED bulbs use slightly less energy than CFLs and manufacturers claim LEDs last 20,000 to 50,000 hours. That’s about 18 to 46 years when used three hours a day. LEDs instantly brighten, even in frigid temperatures, and lifespan is not affected by frequently turning them on and off.
Read the box: You’ll need a dimmable LED or CFL if you’re using it with a dimmer. Beware that the dimmer you have might not work with your CFLs or LEDs. If that’s the case, look at the light bulb manufacturer’s website for a list of compatible dimmers. Also note whether the bulb can be used in an enclosed fixture if that’s what you’re planning to do. It matters because when heat builds up inside the fixture it can change the performance and light color and even shorten the life of the LED or CFL. Our Ratings tell you which bulbs can be used in enclosed fixtures and outdoors, based on manufacturers’ advice. You may see the Color Rendering Index or CRI noted on the box. It tells you how accurately colors appear under the bulb’s light, and ranges from 0 to 100 (incandescent bulbs are around 100). A CRI of at least 80 is generally recommended for interior lights and differences of fewer than five points are insignificant. To compare bulbs look at the CRI of bulbs with the same Kelvin (K) temperature. They use about 75 percent less energy and last 7 to 10 times longer than the incandescent bulbs they replace. Typically it takes less than a year to recoup the cost of most CFLs. The spirals and covered spirals give off light in all directions, making them a good choice for lamps, and the flood/reflector bulbs are more directional. Several brands offer bulbs with a plastic coating that contains the mercury and any shards if the bulb breaks.
Lumens, not watts: When shopping for bulbs, you’re probably accustomed to looking for watts, an indication of how bright the bulb will be. The brightness of LEDs, however, is determined a little differently. Contrary to common belief, wattage isn’t an indication of brightness, but a measurement of how much energy the bulb draws. For incandescent, there is an accepted correlation between the watts drawn and the brightness, but for LEDs, watts aren’t a great predictor of how bright the bulb will be. (The point, after all, is that they draw less energy.) For example, an LED bulb with comparable brightness to a 60W incandescent is only 8 to 12 watts. But don’t bother doing the math — there isn’t a uniform way to covert incandescent watts to LED watts. Instead, a different form of measurement should be
Used: lumens. The lumen (lm) is the real measurement of brightness provided by a light bulb, and is the number you should look for when shopping for LEDs. For reference, here’s a chart that shows the watt-lumen conversion for incandescent and LEDs.
Cost Saving the smart & slow way: LED bulbs are like hybrid cars: cheaper to operate but pricey upfront. When switching to LED bulbs, don’t expect to save buckets of cash. Instead, think of it as an investment. Luckily, competition has increased and LED bulbs have come down in price, but you should still expect to pay much more than an incandescent. Eventually, the LED bulbs will pay off, and in the meantime, you’ll enjoy less heat production, longer bulb life, and even the option of controlling them with your smart phone.
Watch out for non-dimmable LEDs: Because of their circuitry, LEDs are not always compatible with traditional dimming switches. In some cases, the switch must be replaced. Other times, you’ll pay a little more for a compatible LED. Most dimmers, which were likely designed to work with incandescent, work by cutting off the amount of electricity sent to the bulb. The less electricity drawn, the dimmer the light, but with your newly acquired knowledge of LED lingo, you know that there is no direct correlation between LED brightness and energy drawn.
Not all light fixtures should use LEDs: Knowing where it’s OK to place an LED will ensure that the bulb won’t fizzle ahead of its time. You probably know that LED bulbs run dramatically cooler than their incandescent cousins, but that doesn’t mean they don’t produce heat. LED bulbs do get hot, but the heat is pulled away by a heat sink in the base of the bulb. From there, the heat dissipates into the air and the LED bulb stays cool, helping to keep its promise of a very long life. And therein lies the problem: the bulb needs a way to dissipate the heat. If an LED bulb is placed in an enclosed housing, the heat won’t have anywhere to go, sending it right back to the bulb, and sentencing it to a slow and painful death. Consider where you’d like to place your LED bulbs. If you have fully or semi-enclosed fixtures you need to light up, look for LEDs that are approved for recessed or enclosed spaces.
Manufacturers Label: A Lighting Facts label must appear on the packages of most light bulbs. It indicates brightness, energy use, estimated energy costs, expected life, light color, and, for CFLs, a reminder that the bulb contains mercury. Some CFLs and LEDs we tested can be used in fully enclosed fixtures, according to the manufacturers. Look for this information on the light bulb package. It’s important to note as heat build-up can be a problem in enclosed fixtures and can affect performance and shorten the life of CFLs and LEDs. The Ratings state which bulbs can be used in these fixtures, based on manufacturers’ recommendations.
Works outdoors: Many of the tested CFLs and LEDs work outdoors but cannot get wet, so they need to be protected from direct contact with rain or snow. The Ratings indicate which bulbs can be used in this way, based on manufacturers’ advice.
Works with motion sensor: Known also as vacancy sensors, motion sensors automatically shut off lights after a person leaves a room or, when used outdoors, turn on lights when movement occurs nearby. The bulb and motion sensor must be compatible to work properly. Check the website of the motion sensor manufacturer and read the bulb packaging to be sure.
Works with photocell: Using a bulb that works with a photocell is another way to save energy. The photocell turns off lights when daylight appears and turns them back on when darkness falls. But the photocell may be incompatible with your bulb, and might shorten the bulb’s life. Check the photocell manufacturer’s website and read the bulb box for compatibility information.
 The LED bulbs prices are affordable and so LED bulb buying is not cost an obstacle in adopting the same at consumers end. The power saving will justify the price difference in initial investment justifying high price difference in initial investment. Avni product line is
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Conclusion
LED bulbs are very easily available in market and are competitive prices as well but there a user has to be careful and considerate while purchasing and replacing a LED bulb as per the points we have covered in this guide.
