These days people are quite savvy when it comes to buying lightbulbs. They don't just want a lightbulb that fits, they want the right kind of brightness and the right shade of colour.

When selecting the brightness and shade that you want, there are two things that you should look at.

 

Kelvin

 

  • Kelvin is a four number digit. 
  • With lightbulbs the scale ranges from 2,700K to 6,500K.
  • Kelvin is a temperature scale. 
  • This is the number that will let you know the colour or shade of the lightbulb.
  • It starts from the lower number of 2,700K as a warm white colour, almost a yellowy / orange glow, up to cool white and then up to 6,500K which is a daylight colour.




Kelvin Temperature Scale Image

 

Lumen

 

  • Lumen is a measure of brightness, or the power of the light, that is projected.
  • It is similar to how we used to measure the wattage of a bulb.
  • A higher wattage always meant a brighter lightbulb, but now we have LED lightbulbs with very low wattage and this does not mean that they are not bright.
  • A higher lumen number means a brighter lightbulb.
  • With so many lightbulbs on the market now, ranging from the standard incandescent bulb to an energy efficient LED lightbulb, lumen is a way of measuring the brightness of any type of lightbulb.

 

  • The higher the Lumen number the brighter the Lightbulb.
  • The Lumen number of brightness ranges from around 200 up to nearly 2,000.


Lumen Range Image