If you have been to the hardware store recently to buy a light bulb then you should already know that LED light bulbs are fast taking over the market. The old incandescent light bulbs are becoming illegal and are being phased out around the world. The options for consumers are CFL (compact fluorescent lights) and LED (light emitting diode). If you are looking to buy a new light bulb, let me strongly encourage you to buy LED and not CFL. And here is why:
- CFLs contain mercury, which is toxic. I read an article once on how to cleanup a broken CFL. In short, you do not want to ever break a CFL because cleanup will be a major pain!
- CFLs do not like being cycled on and off. Constant turning on and off of the bulb greatly diminishes the life of a CFL, but LEDs do not have a problem with this.
- LEDs use less energy. CFLs are efficient, but LEDs are even more efficient.
- LEDs produce higher quality light. The light LEDs produce is closer to what an incandescent light produced.
- LEDs produce less heat.
- LEDs have longer projected life.
- LEDs are not sensitive to temperature. CFLs do not work in the cold.
As far as I know, the only reason to buy CFL over LED is because of the cost of the bulb. LED bulbs do cost more. But, LEDs are dropping in price fast! A bulb that cost $40 a year or two ago now costs $10. I predict that very soon it will be impossible to buy CFLs - they will stop manufacturing them. As the cost of LEDs drops so fast, there is no reason to buy a CFL. CFLs were basically a stop-gap measure, to bridge the time when incandescent were being phased out, but before LEDs were advanced enough to be a viable option.
For more comparisons between LED, CFL, and incandescent lights read this article.
Hopefully I've convinced you to buy LED light bulbs. But not all bulbs are created equal. Some produce better light than others, some have barely perceivable flicker, some have even light distribution, etc. So how do you know what is a good bulb? I found this awesome youtube channel called electronupdate. In it he does a very thorough analysis of dozens of LED bulbs, including tearing the bulb apart to look at the quality of the electronics.
If you just want the summary of his ongoing efforts, as of now the best bulbs are Cree and Philips. You cannot go wrong with either. I personally have some of the Cree bulbs at home and I love them. Another thing I like about the Cree bulbs is they are manufactured in the USA, plus they use top-quality capacitors inside them which means they will last longer than other LED bulbs.
