A trade show about LED lighting with the ungainly name LEDucation may not seem like the most fun way to spend a day. But for the editors and lightbulb experts at Consumer Reports, the New York City event was a chance to see what’s coming to stores soon and to learn from manufacturers where LEDs are headed. We noticed three trends that bode well for consumers. Here’s a look.
Prices keep dropping. That’s what we heard over and over. A look at the LEDs in our labs and a glimpse online confirm this. Home Depot’s website features dimmable Cree LEDs for $7. Fewer chips in LED lightbulbs are helping to lower the cost and so is increased competition and a push by manufacturers to get consumers to try LEDs. Here’s a look at some LEDs that cost around $10 to $14 when we first wrote about them but before you buy check the prices as they change frequently.
Color rendering improves. The color rendering index or CRI tells you how accurately colors appear under a bulb’s light and several manufacturers told us they’re working to improve color rendering performance to meet California’s standards, which are tougher than Energy Star’s, allowing more LEDs to qualify for California utility rebates. CRI ranges from 0 to 100 with incandescent bulbs right around 100. Most LEDs in our Ratings are in the low-to-mid 80s, but we’ll soon be testing LEDs that claim to be 90 and above. That sounds promising.
LEDs are getting slimmer and lighter. LEDs come in a variety of shapes and sizes and some are heavy but that’s changing too. The $10 Philips SlimStyle LED is shaped like a traditional incandescent except that it’s flat and weighs about half as much as the other LEDs we’ve tested that replace 60-watt incandescents.
Consumer Reports buys and tests energy-saving lightbulbs as soon as they become available online or in stores. Our lightbulb Ratings include dozens of LEDs and CFLs that have gone through 3,000 hours of testing.
—Kimberly Janeway
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