Let There Be Light! Here’s How to Pick the Best Lightbulb

As regular readers of Eco Tech Daily will know, I’ve been fascinated by the rapid transformation of lightbulbs in recent years. (Please see my article 2015: The Year of the LED).

Not so long ago, consumers had only three options when choosing a lightbulb.

The traditional incandescent lightbulb. Which offered warm light, but suffered from short lifetimes and expensive running costs.

The halogen lightbulb. This improved on the technology used by incandescents, and offered smaller bulbs with high-intensity light. Halogen lightbulbs also had better energy-efficiency (i.e., were cheaper to run) than incandescents.

Then there were fluorescents. While still popular in offices, factories and retail stores, fluorescent lights have never been in favor with the average consumer. For many years, companies tried to sell us CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lamps). However, while they were certainly cheap to run, they had some significant downsides. Namely, slow to light up, bleak light quality, high initial costs and worse of all – a toxic problem (they contained mercury!).

Fortunately, technology has moved on, and we now have the choice of LEDs, which last for decades, are more efficient than even fluorescents, and offer a range of light color (from daylight to warm white).

I was fortunate to be contacted this week by Megan Wilson from Ghergich & Co, who, in association with PartSelect, have put together an incredible infographic that shows you everything you need to know about lightbulbs.

I’ll share this infographic with you now, as I’m sure you’re going to find it illuminating!

As you can see, the infographic’s conclusion is that LEDs are overall the best lightbulbs.

I agree 100% with this.

It’s also worth noting that LEDs are improving all the time, and their purchase costs are rapidly falling too. If you add the fact that they are cool to touch, and have no toxic chemicals, then it’s easy to why LEDs are winning the battle over incandescent, halogen and fluorescent lightbulbs.

With lighting taking up a significant proportion of your home’s energy costs, it makes sense to replace older style bulbs and striplights with LEDs.

Your purse (and the planet!) will thank you for it.

Craig J Todd – Freelance writer with a passion for tech, trends and simplicity.

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