Lighting is its own industry with its own science and technical language. As a consumer, it’s important to be able to understand the terminology so you can pick the perfect lighting for your space. ilumi is here to save the day with the skinny on these light bulb specs!
What’s a “watt”?
Watts are typically the first thing you might think about when choosing the right amount of brightness for a light bulb. Watts refer to the amount of power that a light draws from a socket. In years past with traditional incandescent bulbs, the wattage of a light bulb was considered a good indicator of a light's brightness. Hence you could find an assortment of 60-watt, 75-watt, or 100-watt light bulbs that each had a related amount of brightness. However, with new energy efficient lighting, like LED lighting, using wattage as an indicator of brightness is not a good measure. This is because LED lights actually use much less power, or watts, than your old fashioned light bulb, and different products can use different LED light bulbs may achieve different levels of brightness with the same wattage. So how can you measure brightness today? That’s where lumens come in.
What’s a “lumen”?
The U.S Department of Energy (DOE) defines lumens (or a lumen) as the measure how bright a light source is. Essentially, it's a measure of how much actual light comes out of a light source. So with LED lighting, instead of using wattage to decide the right brightness light bulb, you should become familiar with lumens. To help make the transition from watts to lumens, here's a great table from Energy Star for traditional 'A' style or omnidirectional bulbs:
Also, check out this video from the U.S. Department of Energy for a better understanding of watts and lumens!
Now here's the good news for you! Thanks to ilumi HyperLux™ technology, ilumi smartbulbs deliver more lumens per watt than any other multicolor light bulb in its class, for brighter whites and richer saturated colors without compromise. Each operates at low wattage while maintaining optimal lumen output at all colors, including cool whites, warm whites and any color you can imagine! With controllable brightness levels via Bluetooth using our iOS or Android app, you can be sure that you’ll have the right lumens for the right situation.
Live Your Light!®
team ilumi
ilumi.co
