Light Bulb Buying Guide: Understanding Incandescent, Fluorescent, CFL, LED & Halogen Lighting

Lighting inside a room directly impacts you. It sets the mood, creates productivity and calms you down at the end of the day. However, picking the right light can be overwhelming.

Bulbs are improving, lasting longer and using less energy which in the long run saves you money on your power bill.

Before we get into the different types of bulbs on the market, you need to know the difference between a watt and a lumen.

Watts and Lumens

Watts are a measurement of how much electricity something uses. It actually has nothing to do with how bright a bulb is.

It takes far fewer watts to create light with newer bulbs, so wattage ratings are no longer very useful.

Each type of bulb is different, and the whole idea is to develop bulbs that use fewer watts to make more light.

Lumens, on the other hand, actually measure the amount of light being put out by the bulb. Lumens are a much more accurate measurement because it tells you how the light actually performs, regardless of the source that produced it.

One lumen is approximately equal to the amount of light put out by one birthday candle.

To help you get an idea of the lumen scale, a standard 60-watt bulb puts out around 750-850 lumens of light. If you’re choosing bulbs for task lighting, look for bulbs with 1000 lumens or more.

Simple Solution:
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  1. Great Information! There are so many different types of light bulbs on the market now it’s confusing. There’s CFL, LED, fluorescent, halogen, incandescent. There are also different types of light ranging from soft white to bright daylight.