LED Lighting

Just over 130 years after the bearded genius Sir Joseph Swan first lit his house with electric light bulbs in 1880, the incandescent light bulb in its basic form was outlawed. An EU phase-out plan endured from 2009 to 2012, and now here we are with the ‘big three’ household lighting choices: CFL, LED, or halogen.

One of the beauties of incandescent lighting was its quality, and being a form of incandescent lighting this baton has been passed onto halogen - which in its base form is only fractionally more energy-efficient than the original bog-standard bulb. But the design of halogen lamps has evolved, and using IR-heat reflecting technology or brighter-burning gases it’s a technology that can now boast up to a 30% energy-saving advantage over its filament burning ancestor.

Fluorescent lamps are often simply dubbed ‘energy-saving bulbs’, and not without reason. They offer a substantial energy saving of up to 80% over regular incandescent equivalents, and boast several times the lifespan.

However, both incandescent and CFL light forms are blown away by some of the specs inherent in a typical LED bulb. While a CFL bulb might last for an impressive 15,000 hours, it’s not uncommon for LEDs to quote longevity of 30,000 to 50,000 hours. Wow! For many sprightly young people, a bulb might literally last for a lifetime! Consider that an incandescent bulb lasting for 1,000 hours would usually equate to one year of use, and the maths speaks for itself.

One of the reasons for the long life of LED is its lack of vulnerability. It doesn’t waste energy producing any significant heat, and it’s a solid-state form of lighting, so it’s not susceptible to damage from the occasional knock or shudder. There’s no delicate filament to snap! CFL lighting enjoys that advantage as well, but unlike CFL lighting, LED doesn’t use any toxic mercury, so it trumps its rival not only in energy-efficiency and longevity - it’s also more environmentally friendly!

There’s another thing: with LED lighting being so abstemious in its wattage consumption, it marries perfectly with solar power. Solar panel and LED lighting combos are becoming increasingly common.

The scope of LED around the home is almost unlimited, and especially with its economical use of space. It dares to go where CFL generally doesn’t - in spotlights of predefined sizes, for instance, where LED alternatives are often a sensible replacement for halogen. The range of LED products is endless; it’s a technology that has permeated most lighting areas, including GLS bulbs, candle bulbs, golf balls and globes, spotlights, striplights, desk lights ceiling lights, wall lights, display lights, downlights, candle lights, picture lights and more!

If you’re looking for a weak spot - something that might make you like LED more for not being so damn perfect - it renders colour inherently less accurately than incandescent light. It’s all to do with LED’s discontinuous spectrum compared to the continuous spectrum of the displaced filament-burner. This is something that can’t be mitigated by a high CRI. Certain colours are likely to render less accurately when placed under LED lights, which in turn might be ruthlessly highlighted if you subject the result to an unforgiving imaging sensor. Perhaps a small price to pay for being the cool-running light of the future - the solution!