Good quality LED is much healthier light source than incandescent / halogen bulb

[Kray]

Since no one really tests light bulbs for a flicker, I have bought all the super expensive testing equipment myself, bought a bunch of light bulbs and spent couple of days by testing them. Have also measured their color spectrum and some other parameters.

The most surprising result was that incandescent / halogen bulbs do flicker.* Quite a lot, actually.

The second most surprising result was that all modern LEDs from reputable brands have almost undetectable flicker. The intensity of light was flickering by 1-5 lumens. Halogen bulbs were flickering by up to 300 lumens, depending on their power. That's ~100x more flicker!

Also, the color spectrum is much better with LED bulbs.

2200 or 2700 kelvin LED bulbs produce almost zero blue light. Incandescent bulbs produce much more blue and even ultraviolet light (the cons of blue light very much outweight the benefits of infrared light, in my opinion)

Considering all the aspects, I liked LEDs made for IKEA and Jysk the most. They performed the best and cost literally penies. Since I'm in Europe, I can't speak for US retail chains, sorry.

Bulbs made by GE or Philips performed very well, but they are much more expensive than the above. The price is not justified.

I was not very impressed by Osram and LIDL bulbs.

Bulbs from eBay and Aliexpress were mixed bag. Some were absolutely horible. Some were really, really good. Even some of the very cheap ones. But even the worst LEDs did not flicker much more than incandescent bulbs.

*Flickering of incandescent bulbs is much less of a problem in countries with 120V/60Hz power system

I got a little lost in this thread.

I'm located in the Pacific Northwest, so my daylight is much shorter in the winter. I'm using mostly 3000k (700lumen) lights in my "living" area at night. Should I be concerned about blue light effect from these bulbs, and consider switching to a good-quality incandescent?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Judd Crane]

I got a little lost in this thread.

I'm located in the Pacific Northwest, so my daylight is much shorter in the winter. I'm using mostly 3000k (700lumen) lights in my "living" area at night. Should I be concerned about blue light effect from these bulbs, and consider switching to a good-quality incandescent?

Thanks for your help.

Incandescents are 2700K so there might not be a very big difference from a blue light standpoint.

 

[Kray]

Incandescents are 2700K so there might not be a very big difference from a blue light standpoint.

My concern is also about health, and what I was confused about from reading the thread.

 

[BearWithMe]

Much of what I have said was probably wrong. I wish I could edit the OP. I'm sorry.

That being said, I know this for sure:
- Incandescent bulbs do flicker
- Good quality LED bulbs does not flicker
- Incandescent bulbs do emit some blue and UV light
- Warm white LED bulbs emit almost no blue and UV light
- Incandescent bulbs emit very natural, continuous spectrum of colors similar to fire
- LED bulbs have unnatural peaks in color spectrum near the rated color

Do you want no blue light and no flicker whatsoever? Buy warm white LED bulbs.

Do you want natural color spectrum? Buy incandescent.

Which is healthier? I don't know.

I suspect that flicker is the biggest problem, therefore I'm using flicker-free LED bulbs.

I might be wrong.

 

[BearWithMe]

Another thing I'd like to add, all incandescent bulbs are low flicker device by default. Their flicker is "smoother" and not as pronounced as flicker of bad LED bulbs. But they are not flicker-free, as high quality LED bulbs are.

The order of the healthiest light sources might look something like this:
Sun >>> Fire (clean burning, soot free) >> High quality LED > Incandescent >>>>>>>>> Low quality LED and fluorescent

I'm not 100% sure whether high quality LEDs are healthier than incandescent. It might be the other way around.

 

[Judd Crane]

Another thing I'd like to add, all incandescent bulbs are low flicker device by default. Their flicker is "smoother" and not as pronounced as flicker of bad LED bulbs. But they are not flicker-free, as high quality LED bulbs are.

The order of the healthiest light sources might look something like this:
Sun >>> Fire (clean burning, soot free) >> High quality LED > Incandescent >>>>>>>>> Low quality LED and fluorescent

I'm not 100% sure whether high quality LEDs are healthier than incandescent. It might be the other way around.

Which LED bulbs are non-flickering?

 

[BearWithMe]

Which LED bulbs are non-flickering?

Find the Best Light Bulbs

Find the healthiest light bulbs for your home with the world's largest database! The desktop experience is recommended.

optimizeyourbiology.com

Flicker Alliance

Flicker Alliance

flickeralliance.org

These guys did better job at measuring the bulbs than I could ever do.

 

[BearWithMe]

In theory, good LED bulbs are better than incandescent in every measurable aspect.

Their flicker can't be detected even by the most expensive, state-of-art measuring devices. Flicker of incandescent bulbs is perceivable by naked eye in some circumstances, and always detectable by simple phone camera.

LEDs can be made in a way they emit absolutely no trace of blue and UV light. They can also be made to emit light spectrum that is almost identical to daylight (CRI 97+ in some cases).

But when you read some threads on www.ledstrain.org or r/PWM_Sensitive subreddit, you will find many people claiming that even the best LED bulbs reliably trigger symptoms, while the same people can tolerate incandescent or halogen bulbs without an issue.

I suspect that the "flicker-free" LED bulbs actually do flicker, but they flicker on frequencies well above the range of measuring devices. And those very high frequencies, while being imperceptible, can still mess with our brains.