How bright are LED light bulbs?
This is a common question asked about LED bulbs when swapping from incandescent or CFL bulbs. With the traditional bulbs the wattage was an indicator of their brightness but LED’s are measured in lumens.
A lumen is the unit of measure of the total amount of visible light, so the higher the lumen the brighter the bulb will be. LED’s also consume much less energy to achieve the same brightness as the incandescent/CFL bulbs.
Is a LED light bulb brighter than a regular light bulb?
If you do a direct comparison of consumed energy (wattage) then yes the LED bulb would be significantly brighter than the incandescent bulbs. This is due to the difference in luminous efficacy. Incandescents work by heating a filament which wastes energy as heat, so a standard 60W incandescent bulb produces around 800 lumens.
With LED’s to achieve 800 lumens you would only need around a 9-12 watt bulb. If you focus on the lumen rating rather than the wattage you will achieve the level of brightness you require.
What is the LED equivalent to a 60W bulb?
A 60W incandescent light bulb is the most commonly used household bulb and produces around 800 lumens and you would need to find a LED bulb around 9-12 watts with a 800 lumen rating to achieve the same level of brightness.
What is the LED equivalent to a 100 watt bulb?
Brighter lighting is normally required in kitchens and garages etc. and the 100W bulb was the favourite. The 100w incandescent had a lumen output of around 1600 lumens, so you would be looking for a 14-20W LED bulb with a lumen rating of 1600 to be an equivalent light.
Beyond lumens: Considering colour temperature
Lumens determine the total amount of light emitted but there are two other factors to take in account.
Colour temperature (Kelvins) - This is the warmth or coolness of the light colour.
2700K-3000K is warm white which has a slight yellowish tinge
3500K-4000K is neutral white to cool white and is a bright white colour
5000k-6000K is daylight and is the brightest version with a bluey tinge
Colour rendering index (CRI) - This means how accurately the light bulb shows the true colours of objects compared to natural daylight. A CRI of 100 is perfect daylight, above 90 CRI is normally used in art galleries and jewellery shops but above 80 CRI is normally good for normal household use.
