LED bulb buying guide, how to select LED bulb 2024, India

Advantages of LED bulbs over CFL

• Long durability, for normal usage a LED bulb can easily come from 5 to 10 years.
• Energy efficiency, in consumes very less electricity, at least half of the electricity.
• Eco Friendly, as no mercury used for inside the bulb like CFL.
• Low heat dissipation, bulb filament is relatively cool and no heat is spread around the bulb

Disadvantages of led bulbs

People may even surprise to read the title, what disadvantages LED can have. They are literally very few disadvantages.

• Expensive. LED bulbs or lights are very much expensive. LED bulbs costs around 3 to 5 time extra compared to CFL bulbs. Within next few years we can expect the costs may significantly come down due to economies of scale and governments push.
• Low beam angles. LED light is by nature is unidirectional making it to difficult to use for wider rooms. But recently manufacturers are started using diffusers to spread the light and making it perfect.

LED bulb common terms and definitions

Bulb input wattage

It is the measure of input electricity the bulb consume. More power consumption means more electricity bill. Of Course this is one of the main reason to shift to CFL to LED bulb.

Lumens

Lemens is the output, it is the measure of brightness. More lumens means more brightness.

Luminous Flux

It is better measure of brightness, as it even consider the light distribution as well. What if the bulb is more bright, but light is concentrated around the bulb, and light is not reaching the corners of the room very well? Luminous flux is nothing but efficiency of light considering the distance perceptive. Out of two similar lumen bulbs with different luminous flux, the bulb with high luminous flux light reaches to the corners of the room very well.

Beam Angle

Beam angle is measure of widness of light distribution, in other words angle at which the light is emitted. Table lamps require very less beam angle but if you are choosing for a room then higher beam angle is must, at least 80 - 100 degrees beam angle is very good to have. By nature LED light is of straight nature, to achieve this higher beam angle manufacturers started using diffusers to spread the light to wider angles.

Color Rendering Index

Color Rendering Index (CRI) is measure of natural colour rendering. A low CRI means a green Mango may looks like pink mango. In a Medium CRI light 'Avocado green' may look like 'Parrot green'. The best CRI light make sure 'Avocado green' looks like 'Avocado green' and 'Parrot green' looks like 'Parrot green'. CRI is scaled 1 - 100, and CRI value of 80 for LED bulb is very good to have.

CFL watts to LED watts conversion

This is the most common question we get from our readers. I am using CFL bulb of 10 watts, how many watts LED bulb I should use? We have did extensive research on this and got the CFL watts to LED watts comparison charts.

CFL watts to LED watts conversion chart India

Here is the simple conversion chart. For your reference, we have given the Luminous Flux of LED and Fluorescent bulbs. For ease of comparison, we have considered only Philips brand bulbs in India. Below table gives you a rough idea on Fluorescent to LED watts conversion.

If you are looking for direct watts conversion, here we go.

LED bulb color temperature

LED bulb color is important to have comfortable lighting. Don’t confuse the color with red, yellow, blue. It is temperature colour, what shade of white light do you prefer? Color Temperature is the shade of color that characterizes the how the white light looks. Each shade ideally suits one mood, one room environment. Choose the right colour as per your preference. We are presenting the short comparison in the table, hopefully it will help you in choosing the right colour temperature of bulb. There are three colour available in the market

• Cool Daylight
• Warm White
• Natural White

Here is another table to choose the right LED colour temperature based on room type, or the room type where you want to put the LED bulb.

Handpicked best cool daylight LED bulbs in India

Philips 9-Watts Multipack B22 LED Cool Day White LED Bulb, Pack of 4

 

Philips Stellar Bright B22 14-Watt LED Bulb (Cool Day Light and Pack of 2)

 

Philips Base B22 17-Watt LED bulb (Cool Day Light,Pack of 2)

 

Philips Base B22 9-Watt LED Bulb (Pack of 4, Cool Day Light)

 

Philips LED light bulbs combine a beautiful warm white light with an exceptionally long lifetime. They provide immediate, significant energy savings while enhancing your home atmosphere.

Handpicked best natural white LED bulbs in India

Syska 25 Watt Rocket Led Lamp B22 Base,White

 

Syska LED Bulb (pack of 5 Bulbs)PAG-3W-white color

 

Syska LED Bulb Base B22, 3W

 

Syska LED Bulb (pack of 6 Bulbs)PAG-5W-white color

 

Handpicked best warm white LED bulbs in India

Philips Base B22 2.7-Watt LED Bulb (Warm White and Pack of 2)

 

Pack of 3 LED Bulb 2.7-25W B22 3000K 230V

Philips Base B22 4-Watt LED Bulb (Warm White and Pack of 2)

 

Philips 9-Watts B22 LED Warm White(Golden Yellow) LED Bulb, Pack of 2

 

Wipro 9 W Standard B22 LED Bulb(Warm White, Pack of 2)

 

Industry best efficacy of >80 lm/W Wide light distribution > 200 degree Polycarbonate diffuser with no LED spots Constant current driver, voltage range 100-240 VAC Protections : Double Insulation, surge, thermal, overload Light weight, decorative look and premium finish Applications Decoration,Lamp Shades,Chandeliers Specification : Color Temperature: 2700K Lumens: 750, Base: B22 Equivalent to 75 watts GLS bulb Equivalent to 15 watts CFL Power: 9 watts Warranty: 1 year on product

How to identify LED bulb energy efficiency

Many people gets confused on selecting the energy efficient LED bulb. How to identify which LED bulb is better? Which LED save much of electricity bill. The right indicator is to look for “Lumens per watts”. It is mentioned as lm/watt. Better Lumens per watt means energy efficient. Lumens per watts means number of output lumens for consumed each input watt. Sample product page description image containing the same information is mentioned below.

LED night bulb or LED zero bulb

In old days in India. when electricity meters were of mechanical, they were not able to capture tiny current usage occurred due to night bulbs, hence the name zero bulb. But in reality they costs a lot. Incandescent zero bulb consume around 10 to 15 watts. So it is always better to migrate to LED bulb to use as night lamp.

But first what type of colour for zero colour? Light at night impacts the quality of sleep and Melatonin hormone production. In other words, light at night has adverse health effects. Sleep scientists figured out that red light is the best and has the least effect on Melatonin and good for health. Blue light is the most harmful. Sounds strange but true. So if you are using the LED night bulb for hall you can use any colour but if you are using for bedroom, better to use only red colour and strictly avoid blue colour night bulbs.

Handpicked best LED night bulbs in India

For night bulb usage, it is always advisable to consider LED night bulb of 0.5 to 2 watts. Here is the handpicked collection of few night bulbs.

• Philips 0.5 W B22 LED Bulb
• Eveready 0.5 W B22 LED Bulb
• Philips Deco Mini 0.5-Watt B22 Base LED Bulb
• Syska Multi Color LED Bulb Pack of 6 (0.5 Watt)
• Philips Joy Vision Coral Rush 0.5-Watt LED Bulb
• Eveready 0.5-Watt Plug and Play T-Type Deco LED Bulb
• Wipro Safelite B22 0.5-Watt LED Night Lamp

LED light bulb fitting types in India

There are different bulb cap sizes are available. Choose a light bulb with the right fitting. B22 cap size is the most common and suitable for almost all Indian household needs. In fact, B22 size even referred as Indian bulb cap size. The bulb cap is even referred as holder as well in daily usage. List of commonly available cap sizes are listed below.

• B22 (also known as Bayonet bulb)
• E14 (also known as Edison Screw bulb)
• E27(also known as Bayonet bulb)

LED bulb warranty in India

LED semiconductor itself have very long lifespan due to its nature, under the conditions of moderate temperature and dust free atmosphere. Every LED bulb has heat sink which controls the inside bulb and LED diode temperature. So the longer warranty on LED bulb means better packaging of LED diode, bulb, better heat sink and less changes of dust getting inside the bulb. So it is always better to go for a LED bulb with higher warranty.

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