Nope, that’s just part of trying to put things into neat little boxes, where a single number, or parameter, can be used as a marketing tool, or bludgeon, to steer the masses in the desired direction. Or utterly mis-lead. Or create a job for life on a standardisation committee and reap the rewards.
Some manufacturers really are trying. Others don’t have a clue. For example, the “eco-friendly” LED powered streetlamps that have been mandated here (CO2 emissions reduction grants incentivising this, together with jobs for the boys tearing down the old and replacing with the new) to replace the previous equally efficient high pressure sodium orange jobs are an example.
The dismal, dreary output of the LEDs is instantly obvious, as is the superiority of the old high pressure sodium lamps, in real use. And for old eyes. And in UK weather (generally wet, misty, foggy) And at least astronomers could filter out the sodium line from their imaging with a straightforward filter.
Start here for some self education, it is a complex subject, and above all, trust your own eyes and judgement.
And try to remember that it is all just a delusion, a trick of the imagination, something learned, maybe then un-learned, particularly when others are determined to put doubt in your mind. And if you were a different animal, or just have a Y chromosome, or descended from a different ethnicity, things probably look completely different. Blue eyes (me) vs. brown, for example.
Bottom line is that LEDs are generally rubbish, they usually don’t match the human eye, its just that some are better than others. Some do try their best, but it is an imperfect and not well controlled or understood process. Binning under test is one (expensive) way, but as soon as you start cherry picking the “good ones” you have to accept that the leftovers become less desirable. But still have to be sold to somebody, if the overall process is to be viable. Making them all “perfect” isn’t possible yet, that’s just the way the phosphor gods throw the dice. Then we modders like to burn them up at vastly higher currents, and are surprised to find that things change yet again, and no, they no longer last “20,000 hours”.
A Sun, an incandescent filament bulb, a flame, a mantle, all deliver much nicer light. But don’t have the surface brightness that an LED can make. (Perhaps the Sun does, but I haven’t researched the numbers). At 5778 Kelvin surface temperature, then filtered through our atmosphere, usually half sideways at my latitude, it is hard to tell.
Perhaps a standard candle, made of Spermaceti extracted from the heads of whales, might be more useful ?
Tricky to insert into an integrating sphere though, and might make it sooty.
I’m not sure our current standards are any better, though at least one person is trying and selling his “standard candles” calibrated in arbitrary but hopefully consistent units.
Meanwhile hanging on to my stash of incandescent bulbs (banned), and halogens (also banned). Expecting fire to be banned next, atmospheric oxygen taxed, and farting to become a crime.
I didn’t even know that we had a “Prince of Wales’s corporate leaders group” until I read that article. Heaven help us when he finally gets the reigns, and his feet under the table.
I wonder what the requirements are to become a “corporate leader” and join the POW’s lunch club ?
