Which colour of LED bulbs is preferred?

[Barkuti]

@Tally-ho

…

I’m really looking forward to Seoul Sunlike LED for household lights or something equivalent without a blue spike for NW and CW high CRI.

Interesting, but the current product range is too limited: four “only 3000K” COBs and two small 3030 mid power emitters at 0.2 and 1W rating.

[Jack_Kellar]

@xevious

Depends upon the application. In some cases, warm white works best while in others a neutral white is preferable. While I enjoy warm white, too warm and dark orange-like is too much. My preference is a lower temp neutral white, like about 3500~4000k.

Haven’t tried anything below 3000K, so I wouldn’t know exactly, but yeah, I’m not a fan of the tint of candlelight. “Incandescent bulb” (coincidentally 3000K-ish) is as warm as I can appreciate.

@xevious

It pains me when a company like JetBeam makes a great light and the only choice of emitter is cool white. Maybe that’s why there’s such a surplus of lights they released over 5 years ago.

Not just that, their cool white LEDs have a painful purple shift. I had a BA20 a few years back and the tint sucked.

[WalkIntoTheLight]

@Geuzzz

+ Less phosphor coating = more lumens = better selling muggle specs

That’s the most popular answer, though I’m not sure I buy that. Manufacturers, especially of cheap lights, lie about their specs all the time. So, they don’t really need to use cool white to claim high lumens.

Maybe cool white emitters are just cheaper to buy in mass.

[Tally-ho]

@Barkuti

Interesting, but the current product range is too limited: four “only 3000K” COBs and two small 3030 mid power emitters at 0.2 and 1W rating.

Yes mid power emitters but the seoul 3030 sunlike seems to have the same footprint as the nichia 3030 optisolis and Clemence has this MCPCBs

1 - VR21P4 (flashlight)
2 - VS35SP36 (household light)

[Lightbringer]

@Robin Dobbie

I don’t know if I can buy the “less phosphor coating for insignificantly higher lumen rating for better specs” reason, because aren’t they all making up bogus numbers anyway? Unless I see numbers from a trusted reviewer, some random flashlight ad claiming umpteen lumens isn’t going to make me want to buy it on lumen claims alone. We’ve all seen flashlights which claim 200, 2000, 5000 lumens where the reality is it might hit 75 with a nice battery.

I’m talking real numbers, not made-up claims.

[Tally-ho]

@xevious

I find color temps above 5000k to become unrealistic and color altering, plus a more penetrating glare.

At work, for close range i’m using two Jetbeam Jet-u modded by clemence with an optisolis 5000K and 6500K. It took me some time to get used to the CW, the NW is more pleasing to the eye but most of the time the CW gives me the impression to show “truer” colors (less “yellowish-ed”) with better contrast/separation. Red colors are a bit richer with the 5000K but there are tons of red shades in the 6500K optisolis compared to a CW CRI70, and the green and blue colors shades are excellent.
You should try to mod a flashlight with a 6500K E21A or optisolis to see how it looks like, we all get used to bad CRI CW, which makes the colors rendition of the high CRI CW hard to believe at first.

For my outdoors activity, I need to read IGN maps that are easier to read with the 6500K than with the 5000K particularly when brown/orange caracters are printed over green.

[rngwn]

I find 4000k being a little “too warm” during the day and it kinda make the printout off-colored.

6500k also feels boring (bonus point when these are usually paired with low CRI). Everyone and their mother are using it where I live.

I find 5000-5500k suits me the best in most of the use cases.

[Barkuti]

It's a matter of perception, rngwn. Temperature can also affect mood, and overall light intensity matters. To me 4000K is fine, and for the bedroom I prefer ≈3000K. Coolest temperature I am using is in the kitchen, with measured ≈4800K out of a mixture of 5700K and 4000K emitters.