I purchased a few 2700k A19s LEDs to replace my incandescents and noticed that the LEDS are slightly whiter then the incandescents. I compared the new A19s to other 2700k A19 LEDs of other brands that are in the house, and noticed that they all are slightly whiter then the incandescents. I am wondering if 2700k LEDs produce a cooler colour then incandescents?
I am unsure what the temperatures are for incandescents as those bulbs look to be ~15 years old (they came with my home).
The color temperature of general incandescent is about 2700k. The color temperature of your new 2700k A19s LEDs maybe too high. After all, there may be errors due to material manufacturing process. And the LED is not completely equal to the incandescent , especially some LED have more blue light, which is easy to cause eye fatigue.
the cheapest bulbs may have less precise specs, so if you buy 12 of them, 2 might be too cold, and 2 too warm
what probably really happens is, the good makers use ‘binned’ leds, which discards the ones that are out of spec
this costs money
but then they turn around and sell the out of spec ones to CheapBulbs.inc
and you get them at the dollar store
the box says 2700 but the color and the lumens are +/- 30%
Another issue I’ve found is just straight-up lazy/false advertising by the retailer/manufacturer, bulbs not to 2700K specification but they’ll still slap a ‘warm white 2700k’ label on them and flog them off.
here is our story….
we changed to LEDs from incandescents at our church.
the women HATED them. forgive and forget? forget about it.
essentially, the LEDs that we installed were the successful “low bid”
for the project which made their makeup look like the Joker’s face.
actually accentuated age wrinkle by wrinkle.
as result, the LEDs were removed and replaced
with warmer incandescents. our church will NEVER
EVER have anything to do with LEDs for a long, long time
since the over-40 women are some of the biggest contributors.
I have experienced the opposite problem! Incandescent lights have more variable color temperature than you might expect, as well! Low wattage incandescent light bulbs, like old school 5W night-lights or decorative bulbs), have a very low color temperature, around 2200K. High wattage bulbs are closer to 2700K. But many modern “incandescent” bulbs are actually halogen, due to government mandates to improve luminous efficacy. The filament burns hotter and color temp is around 2900K. Color tempurature also depends on the voltage. If your out-the-wall voltage is low, they will burn at softer white. For me, The result is that 2700K LED strips appear too yellow and 3000K LED strips appear too white, compared to my 2850K halogen lamps.
As you dive deeper into color science, you will also start paying more attention to Color Rendering Index as well. This will be marketed as some sort of “HD Color” or “full spectrum” technology on many consumer LED bulbs, accompanied with some rainbow or color wheel.
As you dive deeper, you learn that CRI measurement works, and that not all CRI figures are created equal. Base CRI measurement works by shining the light onto a set of specific pigments and comparing how ‘off’ the color is compared to a blackbody source. CRI uses a set of standard pigments labeled R1 through R8, which are mostly pastel colors. Extended CRI measurement uses R9 through R13 which includes deep reds and blues. LEDs often struggle with R9, which is a deep cherry red.
And then you can go real deep and start looking at where the LED lands on the CIE 1931 (I think there is a newer standard as well) black-body root locus, and the 3-step or 5-step macadam eclipse. On this curve, if your LED lands right on it, it is very good! as you move along the curve, the color temperature changes. But as you veer off-course above or below it, the tint of the LED will be noticeably greenish or purplish and look like an artificial light source (thinking of old fluorescent bulbs or street lighting as the extreame example)