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.
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.