selectable-tint bulbs and lamps

[Dave_H]

Recently I tried out an A19 60W-eq. LED bulb having adjustable tint. Feit "ColorChoice" has slide switch near the base to select 2700K/4000K/5000K. Fourth position allows switching tint by rapid toggling of light switch; neat feature but I wonder how useful to most people, after the novelty is gone. 750 lumens/9.5W is fair (79 lumens/watt) but over 100 is not uncommon with bulbs of this size.

I found another bulb at HD (SKU 1001681841) with five tints: 2700/300 /3500/4000/5000K, Ecosmart 11A19060W5CCT01 . Slide switch on collar, but no auto-toggle on this one. Again efficacy is only fair, 800 lumens/9.6W which is 83 lumens/watt. I can't vouch for CCTs being exactly what they claim, or CRI 90 (...at which CCT(s)?), or 25k hour life. It looks good, though not exactly cheap at about $5 each. Some people have mentioned preference for 4000K or 3500K which is not common in mainstream product esp. OTC.

Both bulbs use planar SMT LEDs as compared to filaments.

Dave

 

[Dave_H]

Here are some observations of these lights, having opened up a ceiling fixture and small BR30 spot (with plastic cover which popped off with some persuasion).

Ceiling fixture uses two sets of 12 LEDs and driver which controls each seperately. One set is low CCT (2700K), other is high (5000K). Intermediate 4000K is achieved by mixing, both sets on at the same time, at lower brightness; seems good as all LEDs are utilized, driving at lower current and spreading the thermal loading, which should improve lifetime.

The BR30 has three sets of 7 LEDs, one per tint. Only one set is ever on at a time, leaving 2/3 unused which is wasteful design. That assumes "set and forget" for tint and I can't imagine most users flipping back and forth much. (I do recall one guy mentioned his wife liked a different tint for the same lamp, which could be achieved with the light-switch flip feature, but not for this particular bulb). Physical LED spreading is fairly good but still amounts to small number of LEDs driven at relatively high power, over 1W each.

Dave

 

[yuandrew]

My browsing of the light bulb aisle of my local Home Depot the other day lead to my discovery of some BR30 LED lamps under their EcoSmart house brand which, besides having five different fixed color temperatures (2700, 3000, 3500, 4000, and 5000k), also had a 6th setting called "DuoBright" which allowed the color temperature to change when operated on a dimmer switch. I picked up the single pack 100 watt equivalent BR30 version (Store SKU #1006248166) but a 2 pack 65 watt equiv with that feature was also available at my store

A little research on "DuoBright" lead me to Globe Electric which introduced the feature about three years ago although their products don't have the switchable fixed color temperature settings like on the EcoSmart. All the way up on the dimmer gives a 5000K blushish-white "Daylight" color then when dimmed to around the 3/4 setting, it changes to what appears to be 3000k (my preferred color temp) then fades to 2700K a little over halfway and down to a yellowish-white as the intensity decreases (the color temp at the dimmest setting was mentioned to be 2000k)

Globe has a 60 watt (800 lumen) equiv A-19, some inserts for recessed can lights, and a flush-mount fixture with the DuoBright feature.

 

[Dave_H]

Good detail on your findings!

I check HD periodically for lighting products, more specialty LED products, being saturated with regular bulbs. Other stores here are checked mostly OTC including Canadian Tire, Rona, and Lowe's. Although often not looking for anything specific, something usually manages to follow me home, typically item(s) on sale or clearance.

I recently got a couple of Globe DuoBright 60W A19 bulbs. These are dimmer-only which doesn't give full independent control of brightness and CCT. Most of the CCT change is within top 10% of dimmer. Not something I really need, but interesting to test, and they seem to work well. Stated efficacy is good: 9W for 800 lumens.

The 3000K/4000K/5000K ceiling fixtures are Commercial Electric brand (HD: 1001 404 275), may be discontinued. Efficacy is not great, 14W for 900 lumens (64 lumens/watt) which may partially explain local clearance at $5 per 2-pack (label reason was "slow moving" last Dec.). Its dual-output driver is interesting, could be used to drive a different set of LEDs at two different current levels (off the same driver output).

Dave

 

[Dave_H]

Just for fun a Duo Bright A19 bulb was checked using 3-stage touch dimmer module.

high: 5000K full brightness
med: neutral (4000K-ish) mid brightness
low: very warm (roughly 2400K) low brightness

It's a bit of weird combo, but interesting.

Dave