As consumers are we really supposed to do a ton of research on light bulbs and accept that we can't run down to Home Depot and get some new bulbs when they go out in our house?
This is the tragedy of modern times in the West. Hard to get anything quality without tons of research. Not even about the money, there's just too much noise
Yes, exactly. It’s one thing to need to be an expert to find a diamond in the rough. It’s another to not be able to guarantee you’ll get a premium product by going to a reputable retailer and picking out an expensive whatever. That’s the really frustrating part.
I think the issue is that there are no more reputable retailers. Just amazon, which more than half the time isn’t even amazon.
No, the lightbulbs at home depot are inexpensive and they work fine. On the other hand, if you care about CRI, then you can also google for high-quality bulbs with a good CRI. I don't really see a problem here?
The problem is I used to be able to spend a couple dollars on lightbulbs that consistently looked great and didn’t require a ton of research or money. I’ve bought hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of high-end LED lightbulbs since moving into my new place last year, and the lighting here still looks like crap. Even with budget it’s hard to get something that looks good. Finding something that dims without flickering, the issue with dimming not actually warming like mentioned in the article, trying to match color temperatures to actually look good, so many issues. I’ve tried to splurge and get good lights and good dimmers but I’m still not happy with how it’s turned out. And if you go in any home or restaurant where they haven’t dedicated substantial time and money into good lighting, things are downright painful these days. I desperately miss incandescent bulbs. I’ve been told by several people that I seem oddly sensitive to this, but it’s a huge deal as far as I’m concerned.
Check out WAC lighting. You'll pay for the quality, but it's there. Work with a local lighting store to guarantee results. There are other high-end brands too, but WAC are very popular and what many high-end hotels and restaurants use.
Thats the kind of fixtures you find in the homes of people who got their wealth by robbing the poor.
I searched for "A19" since thats the kind of bulb type that a regular old joe like me has. Just one match and its only 80 CRI. Thats not anywhere competitive with what else has been suggested in this thread.
The problem is that previously the low-effort default option was great, and now the low-effort default option is bad and to get the equivalent of the previous great default you must now spend a bunch of extra time and money. "Caring about CRI" is basically just caring about the human visual system working correctly, that shouldn't be some weird niche.
Besides, I don't control the lighting decisions of every place I go that's not my own home. And many people might be impacted in tiny ways without even noticing (cf. the old research about fluorescent lighting in schools/offices impacting mood or concentration or whatever).
I bought Feit lightbulbs at a big box home store (not the cheapest option). Half of the 6 I bought failed in 6 months. The rest seem to be going strong at least…
THD by me doesn't even stock the CREE bulbs anymore, just the crappy FEIT generics.
I had to drive all over town to find a specialty lighting store with some 'real' Sylvania brand. (But then found the supermarket across the street has Philips on the shelf. Oof.)
If you want nice things that engineers spent thousands of hours researching, designing, and tuning, you can do the research to find those brands and pay extra for them.
Most people don’t want to pay the premium and don’t value the benefits that come with that premium.
> Most people don’t want to pay the premium and don’t value the benefits that come with that premium.
This is also called boiling the frog. People actually do care, but in the scheme of things, they'll accept it.
The default lightbulb in the store 20 years ago had a tender warm light. The default lightbulb in the store today has garish light, or doesn't dim, or has that ugly plastic half cover. A real decline in quality of life. but sure, we can be dismissive about it, of course you can spend hours on the internet figuring it out (ignoring the fact that it took no effort whatsoever to get nice lighting before).
I mean… just here in this comment section are suggestions for suppliers of premium LEDs that I would trust based on the karma rating of the people who posted the links.
Googling for “premium LED high ratings 95 cri” or searching on Amazon definitely isn’t going to work, because they will just send you to the highest bidder, or the most proficient scammer.
The comment section is great , but if I need to find out quality of a random consumer product, what is the chance I will find it in this comment section? like 1%?
I feel like I’ve been able to make decently informed choices without too much hassle…
Recent purchases include usb cables, rechargeable batteries & USB power pack, LCD monitor, SSDs, multivitamins, torque wrench, belt sander, pressure washer, washing machine, gluten-free pastas and baking mixes, video games…
LED bulbs are kind of a pathological case, along with things like USB cables, speaker wire... If you want something better than the lowest common denominator it’s very hard because they are nearly indistinguishable from the outside and take a long time to fail.
But for example shopping and comparing washing machines online wasn’t terrible. You can narrow down the list very easily based on your requirements and budget, probably you end up with 2 choices that both seem great, you can watch videos of them running, and then you pick the one assembled in your home country or the one that makes a more pleasant ding when it turns on, and call it a day? Obviously the “reviews” are all fake, but the point isn’t for someone to tell you what to buy, but that all the options are readily discoverable while I’m lying in bed on my phone.
Reddit's /r/buyitforlife 's 1.4 million subscribers and probably 10x as many people that visit without joining reddit and the subsequent similar population of people scraping that data and consuming the scraped data... I think they would disagree with you.
That said, even if that's generously 100 million people that's a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the population of consumers that couldn't care less.
