(Credit: Department of Energy)
As your incandescents burn out, it's a good time to consider switching to LED bulbs. By now, you probably know that LEDs have an impressive life span (20-something years!) and are very cost-effective. You probably also know that they're a pricey investment that can run five times more expensive than incandescents.
Despite the cost, now's the right time to switch to LEDs. These bulbs have made significant advances over the last few years, finally delivering the warm light incandescents have comforted us with for decades.
More than ever, there is also an overwhelming number of LED varieties, and choosing an LED is entirely different from picking up an incandescent. Before you head to the store, find out what you need to know about choosing the right LED bulbs.
Learn the lingo
Forget what you know about incandescents -- your watts are no good here.
When shopping for bulbs, you're probably accustomed to looking for watts, an indication of how bright the bulb will be. The brightness of LEDs, however, is determined a little differently.
Contrary to common belief, watts isn't an indication of brightness, but a measurement of how much energy the bulb draws. For incandescents, there is an accepted correlation between the watts drawn and the brightness, but for LEDs, watts aren't a great predictor of how bright the bulb will be. (The point, after all, is that th... [Read more]
by Sharon Vaknin via CNET How To
Posts
No comments: