*the secret is that they're vastly more efficient at low/mid brightness and have a vastly longer usable lifespan when run that way (due to not generating as much heat), you just need more of them to reach a comparable lumen output. I mean vastly more efficient - if you have, uh, 100 low power LEDs in a "filament"/"vintage" LED bulb (that bulb style is actually comprised of tiny LED strips, often ~25 LEDs per strip, and coated in a diffusing material so as to appear continuous) and run them at max brightness you might consume 9W of power but 200 LEDs at half brightness will consume like 5W, output the same amount of lumens, and have a working lifespan several thousand hours longer
"why don't we make bulbs like that, then, if they're so fucking good?" you may ask when presented with this knowledge. that's fair. consider however that light bulb makers are ruthless bastards who have colluded to make bulbs that require frequent replacement since edison first started stealing all of his "inventions" and they continue that tradition to this day. Also, they do make bulbs like this but they only sell them to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. google "dubai bulbs" or watch this youtube teardown
The real reason is the cri of leds ran that way is absolutely awful. Dubai bulbs make everyone look near death, and makes food look disgusting. Living under low cri lighting is mentally harmful over time, I know from experience.
The CRI on them isn't that bad, it's somewhere around 80, which is entirely standard for LEDs. Fluorescent tubes commonly had an absolutely horrible CRI, just missing large chunks of visible spectrum, and they were used for decades in every application imaginable.
Fluorescent tubes are hated by everyone because of the awful green tinge they have. And the LEDs that have a CRI of only 80 or so are the shitty dollar store ones that also flicker and give people headaches, and as such are also hated. The standard for cheap leds people will tolerate is more like 90-95. The name brand cheap bulbs are around 98.
Number one easiest way to make a space feel less shitty and claustrophobic is to replace the contractor special lights with name brand ones. Everything feels cleaner even, just doing that.
And the LEDs that have a CRI of only 80 or so are the shitty dollar store ones that also flicker and give people headaches, and as such are also hated.
Cree's branded LED bulbs are very highly recommended, I'd consider them both name brand (Cree and Philips are the two largest manufacturers of LEDs) and pricey (at around $4-6 a bulb), and their normal bulbs only have a rated CRI of 80 (usually slightly higher in testing, admittedly). They do have a few "high CRI" models rated at 90 but they've mostly been discontinuing them. I have never seen an LED bulb rated anywhere near 98, and I've been looking. It's just like with flashlights, everything uses the same small handful of LED elements in their design and the performance and flicker has everything to do with cooling and circuit design.
Just did some googling, this is a very recent development. As in, in the last year or two the CRI of lightbulbs rose a ton. It looks like this is due to some California regulation requiring 90+ CRI lightbulbs.
of course they make them way better immediately after I replace the shitty CCFLs in my house with the highest-CRI LED bulbs I could find, I should have known
You didn't completely miss out. CRI is a measure that's easy to cheat, as it was designed not as a consumer standard, but an industrial one. A lot of these new high CRI bulbs aren't actually as good as their rating suggests. So that's a whole rabbit hole to go down.
also we'll have to learn the secret* of LEDs
*the secret is that they're vastly more efficient at low/mid brightness and have a vastly longer usable lifespan when run that way (due to not generating as much heat), you just need more of them to reach a comparable lumen output. I mean vastly more efficient - if you have, uh, 100 low power LEDs in a "filament"/"vintage" LED bulb (that bulb style is actually comprised of tiny LED strips, often ~25 LEDs per strip, and coated in a diffusing material so as to appear continuous) and run them at max brightness you might consume 9W of power but 200 LEDs at half brightness will consume like 5W, output the same amount of lumens, and have a working lifespan several thousand hours longer
"why don't we make bulbs like that, then, if they're so fucking good?" you may ask when presented with this knowledge. that's fair. consider however that light bulb makers are ruthless bastards who have colluded to make bulbs that require frequent replacement since edison first started stealing all of his "inventions" and they continue that tradition to this day. Also, they do make bulbs like this but they only sell them to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. google "dubai bulbs" or watch this youtube teardown
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The real reason is the cri of leds ran that way is absolutely awful. Dubai bulbs make everyone look near death, and makes food look disgusting. Living under low cri lighting is mentally harmful over time, I know from experience.
The CRI on them isn't that bad, it's somewhere around 80, which is entirely standard for LEDs. Fluorescent tubes commonly had an absolutely horrible CRI, just missing large chunks of visible spectrum, and they were used for decades in every application imaginable.
deleted by creator
Fluorescent tubes are hated by everyone because of the awful green tinge they have. And the LEDs that have a CRI of only 80 or so are the shitty dollar store ones that also flicker and give people headaches, and as such are also hated. The standard for cheap leds people will tolerate is more like 90-95. The name brand cheap bulbs are around 98.
Number one easiest way to make a space feel less shitty and claustrophobic is to replace the contractor special lights with name brand ones. Everything feels cleaner even, just doing that.
Cree's branded LED bulbs are very highly recommended, I'd consider them both name brand (Cree and Philips are the two largest manufacturers of LEDs) and pricey (at around $4-6 a bulb), and their normal bulbs only have a rated CRI of 80 (usually slightly higher in testing, admittedly). They do have a few "high CRI" models rated at 90 but they've mostly been discontinuing them. I have never seen an LED bulb rated anywhere near 98, and I've been looking. It's just like with flashlights, everything uses the same small handful of LED elements in their design and the performance and flicker has everything to do with cooling and circuit design.
Just did some googling, this is a very recent development. As in, in the last year or two the CRI of lightbulbs rose a ton. It looks like this is due to some California regulation requiring 90+ CRI lightbulbs.
of course they make them way better immediately after I replace the shitty CCFLs in my house with the highest-CRI LED bulbs I could find, I should have known
You didn't completely miss out. CRI is a measure that's easy to cheat, as it was designed not as a consumer standard, but an industrial one. A lot of these new high CRI bulbs aren't actually as good as their rating suggests. So that's a whole rabbit hole to go down.