After last week’s article about LED lighting quality I noticed a lot of posts in the Hacker News discussion were praising bulbs from Waveform Lighting. So I ordered some to try. But they look too blue and I will be returning them. I’m flummoxed by LED lights now and am thinking I need some fancy color-tunable bulb.
Waveform Lighting sells high end LED bulbs: $18 for the typical A19, compare $3 for a basic Feit bulb from Home Depot. Waveform bulbs are supposedly better. A higher CRI (95 vs 90), a better spectrum beyond what CRI measures, and no flicker. Their website has a blog with a bunch of excellent semi-technical posts on it explaining what they do and why. I’ve been wanting high quality bulbs for awhile and they have a generous return policy, so I ordered some 3000K BR30 floods for my office / TV room.
They’re too blue.
When I turn them on low at night the room looks very blue. Way bluer than the old incandescents, which I expected. But also bluer than the 3000K Feit PAR30s I use. Nominally the Waveforms and the Feits have the same color temperature design; weird! The Waveforms also look too blue on a cloudy day. On a sunny day I don’t notice as much, presumably because the sunlight washes everything else out.
What’s weird is the measured color temperature of the Feit bulbs and the Waveform bulbs is the same. I measured this with an Android app. I didn’t calibrate the app so I don’t trust the absolute numbers, but the relative comparisons should be meaningful. The Waveform LED bulbs measured 4000K at all dimness levels; so did the Feit LED bulbs. The incandescents measured 3400K-4100K depending on dimmer setting. Those numbers are all about 1000 too high (calibration?) but otherwise plausible.
So why does the Waveform light look bluer to me? My only thought is it’s in some detail of color accuracy, that the Waveforms fill in more bluer spectrum than the Feits. I don’t have a way to measure that. But I know how it looks to me. The good news is I like the cheaper bulbs more! So that’s money saved.
Update: after a day or two with both the Waveforms and Feits in the same room I no longer think one looks bluer than the other. They seem a similar color temperature to me now. However there’s definitely a difference of some kind in color between the two. I can’t describe it and one doesn’t look better to me than the other. The room with both lights feels a bit cold / late night convenience store for me. It’s not objectively true but my subjective vibe is more “fluorescent lighting” than “candles”.
Desired color temperature
I think I’d prefer the Waveform bulbs in an application where they were turned on during the day to, say, light an office. I believe their claims the colors are more accurate.
But this is a room where I either stare at a computer screen during the day (don’t much care about the ceiling lights) or watch TV at night (want cozy dim lights). I think what I really want is a light that turns redder towards 2700K at low dim settings, them up to 3000K or maybe higher at full brightness. Philips sells “warm glow” bulbs that are exactly like that. But it’s not clear that’s a viable product. Now I’m contemplating programmable smart bulbs of some sort.
It’s funny, when I first learned about LED bulbs I was sure I wanted true sunlight 6000K bulbs. It’s natural! Turns out, at least in the west, we’ve all learned that cozy indoor lighting looks red like a fire glow. I put some 4500K bulbs in my shower and they look just terrible to me on cloudy days, like cheap fluorescents.
Other Waveform thoughts
I really wanted to like these Waveform bulbs. I’m happy to pay for higher quality!
They are good heavy bulbs. I take that as a sign they have a serious heat spreader.
I didn’t get any sense for flicker. I’ve never noticed flicker in any LED bulb.
I like the lens on the BR30s. The surface of the bulb is a smooth glow, not like the visible points of light in the cheaper Feits.
The Waveforms take about half a second to turn on after flipping the switch. Not a huge deal but it seems weird.
I’m testing with a 20 year old Leviton incandescent dimmer, which is not correct. The Waveform mostly works with it, but the minimum dimness is too bright. Also there’s a quiet buzz coming from the bulb at low dim levels. Both of those problems would probably be fixed with a proper modern LED dimmer. I’ll note the cheap Feits work fine with the old dimmer; another cost savings.
Nelson's log 