In the past, shopping for light bulbs meant determining what wattage of bulb to look for. Different locations and applications required different wattages. With LED bulbs, this is not the case — though that information is still available. In this piece, we’re quickly going to look at lumens what they have in common with watts...and what they don’t.
Watts ≠ Brightness
You’re probably used to shopping for light bulbs according to their wattages. This is the case when looking for incandescent light bulbs. These bulbs are very inexpensive to buy, yet use up a tremendous amount of energy in comparison to a compact fluorescent light bulb that may use a quarter of the electricity or an LED bulb that may use as little as a tenth the amount of energy. Shopping for comparable LEDs to replace an incandescent bulb can be confusing because we’ve frequently used wattage to determine the brightness of a light bulb. In truth, wattage is not a measure of brightness, but rather only a gauge of how much electricity the incandescent bulb requires to achieve optimum brightness. The true brightness of a lightbulb is measured in lumens.
Look For The Lumens
The brightness of light emitted from a specific source is known as a lumen. This unit of measure was established by the International System of Units (SI) as a means of measuring light from a variety of sources. It is a measurement of the amount of visible light created by a source. Forms of invisible light, such as radio, gamma-ray, ultraviolet, and infrared light, are not taken into considering when determining the lumen rating of light source.
How To Determine What You Need
After decades of simply replacing bulbs based on the wattage of the bulb that came before it, you may be understandably confused. It can be hard to make the shift in thinking how many lumens your LED bulbs. It’s worth learning the difference because the lumen unit of measure is not isolated to LED bulbs, but is used to determine the brightness of all other types of bulbs as well. If you’re still somewhat lost to the concept of lumens, we have fortunately put together a guide for determining both what lumen and Kelvin levels are appropriate for your home.
Still scratching your head? Let us help!
If the world of LED bulbs is still confusing to you, let us help you. Our crew of LED experts can help you with a retrofit of LED lights for your home or business as well as new fixture installations for new construction. You can trust the LED professionals at Lighting Inc.