

The easiest way, however, is simply to replace your bulbs with dimmable smart bulbs.

There are also smart plugs from brands like Lutron that'll let you dim your fixtures and lamps up and down. Upgrading your light switches to dimmer switches is one way to do it (and not nearly as intimidating as you might be thinking if you've never switched one out before).
#Highest lumen led bulb full
The better approach? Give yourself a full spectrum of lighting possibilities by making sure all of those lights are dimmable. That's all well and good, but it limits you to a binary, "on/off" lighting mentality. The old-fashioned way to do it is to use a mix of different lamps and fixtures that serve different purposes - a reading lamp beside your favorite armchair, overhead lights for board game night, everything off when you're watching a movie, and so on. Rooms like that can really benefit from quality lights that can adapt to whatever's going on. For instance, you might use your living room for watching TV, reading books, playing board games with the kids, or any other number of activities. Some rooms serve just one or two basic functions, but other rooms get used in all sorts of ways. Cree makes them, and Home Depot is selling them for a little over $10 each, which is a pretty good deal.ĭimmability means versatility for your living room and bedroom If your ceilings are higher than average, or if you've got fewer bulbs shining overhead than you'd like, then look for 100-watt bulb replacement BR30 LEDs that bump the brightness up even further. As of writing this, Home Depot has those Cree bulbs on sale in a two-pack for less than $6 - they're the ones I'd go with in my own home if it were me buying. These dimmable bulbs also work well with dimmer switches and - most important for overhead lighting - they're both nice and bright, each putting out comfortably more than 700 lumens. They're good values and they're highly energy efficient for the money (each draws less than 10 watts). Among the ones I've tested, 65-watt replacement floodlights from Cree and Philips are the two I'd recommend. That's a good, average number, and fine for average-height ceilings with at least a few bulbs shining overhead. The most common choice among them are 65-watt replacement bulbs that typically put out about 650 lumens of light each. You've got plenty of energy saving BR30-shaped LED options in the lighting aisle. It's the same trick your car's headlights use to produce as much light output as possible out in front of you as you drive. Screw a bulb like that up into your ceiling, and that bowl will catch all of the upward cast light, then reflect it back down and out the bottom, which bulges outward to produce the widest possible pool of bright light across the room. The "BR" stands for "bulging reflector," and it means that the light inside the bulb sits above a reflective bowl, sort of like a little satellite dish.

The most common products for overhead lighting are BR30-shaped floodlights. After all, the higher up your light bulbs are, the brighter they'll need to be in order to light up the room. If you have rooms with high ceilings or recessed lighting - an entryway, for instance, or maybe a staircase with overhead lights or a candelabra up above - you'll want to prioritize brightness over softness in your light bulbs. If you have high ceilings, you'll want floodlights that shine nice and bright in a single direction. I'll keep this updated as I test new products. Where appropriate, I've also included links to buy light bulbs from our tests. To that end, here are some room-specific tips to help you zero in on the right LED light for your lamps and living space. That, more than anything, will dictate your lighting needs.įor instance, you might benefit from a super bright bulb in your favorite reading lamp, but prefer a gentler, more candle-like warm glow from the lamp at your bedside. But how do you pick the best LED lights for the job? The trick is to think for a long time about how you typically put light to use in the different rooms in your home. Plus, an LED light bulb can help you save on your energy bills and electricity. Light bulbs have an enormous, everyday impact on the way our homes look and feel, and with a flood of new energy efficient LED bulbs filling the lighting aisle, you've got more LED lighting options than ever.
