LED Home Lighting Has Come a Long Way, Baby.

By Ginny Skalski, Cree*

If you’re judging LED lighting by the bluish Christmas lights you bought a few years ago or a poorly performing LED bulb you ordered online, then please do me a quick favor before you read the next paragraph. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and whisper to yourself: “I will not let one bad experience spoil my quest for energy savings.” Go ahead, do it. Don’t be shy. I’m waiting …

Now that we’ve cleared your head, let’s talk. LED lighting has come a long way in recent years. And, armed with some smart-shopping tips, you can bring beautiful energy-saving LED lighting into your home. The trouble is, not all LED lighting is created equal. So there’s some “caveat emptor” in all this and, as consumers, you have to be extra vigilant to ensure you’re getting what you pay for.

Knowledge is power, so keep this in mind as you let LED light into your life:

• LED lighting is all about energy efficiency. A main challenge with LED lighting is that it costs more upfront, but really, it’s no different than requiring insulation in homes and buildings. It can pay for itself over time with energy savings and lower maintenance costs. Keep this in mind when you initially invest in LED lights.

• LED lighting is designed to be long lasting. Many LED lights are designed to last 50,000 hours – which is 17 years if you leave them on for eight hours a day. That’s a long time. What’s more is that LED lights typically don’t burn out at the end of those 50,000 hours. Instead, they begin to dim. Depending on your lighting needs, you may not even need to replace your LED lights when those 50,000 hours are up. That means less maintenance and less waste. 

• LED lighting is beautiful, when done right. You should be satisfied with the light quality coming from your LED lights. The best way to ensure this is to know what color light you want and how to ask for it.

If you want warm light, look for LED lighting that is close to 2700K. If you want a more neutral light, look for something closer to 3500K and if you want a cooler light, look for 5000K or more. But that’s not all… You also need to be aware of color rendering. The closer an LED light comes to 100 on the color rendering index (CRI), the more naturally colors are rendered, and the light is perceived as more pleasant. Look for a Lighting Facts label—it’s like a nutritional label for lighting and it shows you all these critical stats.

We’ve come a long way since Thomas Edison commercialized the energy-sucking incandescent light bulb. We’ve come a long way since the mercury-laden CFL was born 20 years ago. Heck, we’ve come a long way in the last five years, when LED lights first started cropping up on the market.

But that fast pace of innovation doesn’t mean much if consumers don’t understand what’s happening and how the lighting world is changing. So educate yourself and the people around you and join the LED Lighting Revolution! After all, the cleanest, cheapest energy is the energy we never use.

*Ginny Skalski is social media specialist at Cree, a market leader in LED lighting. You can follow her on Twitter @Cree.