How to choose LED lamps for home?

LED lamps are one of the most environmentally friendly light sources and are the latest alternative to obsolete incandescent lamps. Such lamps do not contain mercury-containing elements, therefore they do not pose a threat and danger to humans. The range of LED lamps (LED) has expanded significantly lately, so it is so important to know how to choose LED lamps for the home, what product parameters affect the comfort of lighting, saving electricity and cost. Today we will try to understand as much as possible in all the nuances of the choice of products.

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LED lamp design

The design of products has three main elements:

• LED is a light source. LEDs have a different layout. Some lamps consist only of white LEDs, others of blue.

Important! Lamps consisting of several white light sources are ineffective and break quickly. It is best to choose a lamp with several blue LEDs and necessarily coated with phosphorus. It is this mixture that allows you to get a very bright white light.

You can choose a lamp and LED lamps for the home with one, but heavy-duty white LED.

• Mini transformer. Since a regular home electrical network has a voltage of 220 V, and for the LEDs to glow, only 12 V DC is needed, then there must be a transformer in the bulb, which converts the voltage. This is the most vulnerable part of the product and the most expensive, so if the transformer is of poor quality, the bulb will not work for a long time.
• A cooling radiator that is designed to cool a constantly heating transformer. When choosing a product, you must pay attention to the fact that the radiator has good ventilation.

Important! How not to doubt the quality and make the right choice of LED lamps for the home:

• If the design does not provide a cooling system in the form of a finned radiator, then bypass this model of the lamp side.
• Sometimes manufacturers instead of an aluminum radiator install a plastic one. Do not buy this model, since plastic has many shortcomings, in addition, it does not have such high cooling efficiency.
• Pay attention when choosing a product at such a moment: the matte flasks of the product do not allow you to see if there is a cooling radiator in the lamp or not. Opt for clear bulbs to ensure complete product quality.

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Pros and Cons of LED Lamps

In times of constant increase in tariff prices for electricity, everyone is trying to look for ways to save money. One of such methods is the replacement of conventional lamps with LED. In addition, these light sources have several advantages. Here are just a few of them:

• Long service life. Compare for yourself:
  • average life of incandescent lamps 1000 hours;
  • energy-saving - 10,000 hours;
  • LED - 50 thousand hours, which corresponds to 10-12 years of continuous operation.
• Very high efficiency. Unlike incandescent lamps, LEDs use 97% of their energy for lighting, not heat.
• Low power consumption. The level of energy consumption of LED lamps is 10 times less than that of incandescent lamps.
• Environmental friendliness.Unlike energy-saving light sources, LED lamps do not contain toxic harmful substances and do not harm either humans or the environment.
• Wide range of applications. Devices of this type are used not only as a primary or secondary light source. LEDs are also used to illuminate interior items, in nightlights and table lamps, as well as in flashlights.
• Lack of heating time.
• Efficient and quality work, even at low temperatures. Such lamps can be safely used to illuminate the courtyard of a house in the coldest winter.
• Lamps do not emit ultraviolet light. This allows you to use them in special rooms, for example, in art galleries, where an ordinary light bulb can adversely affect the paint of paintings.

Important! The only drawback of LED devices is their high price. However, there is no doubt about the appropriateness of using these light sources, and there are much more advantages to LED lamps.

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LED lamps: how to choose?

In principle, it is not difficult to choose LED lamps for an apartment, you just need to pay attention to three factors:

• Power.
• Base type and lamp shape.
• Manufacturer and lifetime warranty.

Consider how to choose LED lamps for the home, depending on the characteristics of the product.

Power

The most important characteristic for buyers of LED bulbs is power. This parameter for LED lamps differs significantly from that of conventional bulbs. The power of LED devices starts with 5.5 watts and ends with 25 watts.

Important! When replacing conventional light sources with LED products, the power of the modern version must be reduced by 5 times. For example:

• If you had a regular 75 W bulb, then you need to choose an LED analog with a power of no more than 15 watts.
• The indicator of 25 watts for LED bulbs corresponds to 150 watts of a conventional light source.

Choosing the power of the bulb, you need to determine the level of brightness of the light. For example, for a house and an apartment there is enough power in 6-8 W LED lamps. Such light sources will provide the room with a cozy and even light, better than 60-watt incandescent lamps.

Advice:

1. When choosing the number of light sources, proceed from the fact that 3 sq.m. The rooms need only one LED lamp.
2. There are LED bulbs that operate on 12 and 220 V. Use the first option for rooms with high humidity, for example, for lighting in the bathroom.
3. Another parameter you need to choose wisely is the color temperature of the diode. Remember that the higher the temperature in Kelvin (K), the colder the glow.

Important! Do not choose LED lamps with bright daylight, as they are designed for offices and industrial premises. It is better to choose a light source in the range of 2700-3000 K. It is this temperature range that represents the usual yellowish solar glow.

Pay attention to the product packaging, where the color of the lamp can be indicated in verbal form. Choose “warm white” or “soft white”.

Base Type

For home fixtures, different types of base are used. The main ones are as follows:

• E27 - standard. A lamp with such a base is simply screwed into the lamp holder.
• E14 - a small lamp base “Mignon”. Use such lamps in sconces and nightlights.
• GU10 - mainly used for spotlights. Such a base consists of two pins with an extension at the end. A lamp with this type of cap is installed with rotation, which ensures the reliability of its fastening in the cartridge.
• GU5,3 - used for spotlights. The difference with GU10 is only in the thickness of the pins. A lamp with this type of cap is installed without turning. The operating voltage of such light sources is generally 12 V.
• T8 - installed on lamps that are designed to replace tubular fluorescent lighting devices. The length of this type of lamp is 0.6 and 1.2 m.
• G9 - used when replacing single halogen lamps. This type of cap is two pins bent into an arc. The main field of application of such products is decorative spotlights.

Important! When choosing LED bulbs, it is better to dwell on the version of the base that was previously. For example, if the chandelier has a threaded standard E27 base, then look for the LED with the same parameter.

Shape and features of the lamp assembly

In shape, light sources can be very diverse:

• Pear-shaped.
• Round.
• Elongated.
• In the form of a candle or an ear of corn.
• In the form of a pill.

Important! When choosing the shape of the product, rely on your preferences and room design.

Also, lamps can differ in design, for example, there are lamps of open and closed type:

• The open type immediately indicates the quality of the product. They should not be bought - such lamps quickly deteriorate.
• Buy lamps of the closed type. The highest quality of them are products with an ultra-high-power LED or several blue-spectrum LEDs coated with phosphorus. This is the most durable option in terms of service life.

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Manufacturers

It's no secret that the quality and durability of any device depend on the manufacturer. If you choose LED lamps for the home from a trusted brand, you can be sure that the devices will last long enough, and the money will not be thrown to the wind.

Today, both domestic and foreign companies produce fairly reliable products.

The leaders of the ratings are the following giants:

• Philips (Holland).
• Osram (Germany).
• Nichia.
• Gree.
• Gauss.

Important! All these companies are profiled in the production of lighting and electrical equipment.

The following companies have proven themselves of domestic manufacturers:

• “Svetlana-Optoelectronics”.
• “Optogan” (Optogan).

Important! A lot of positive reviews, recently, about the Chinese company Maxus. It is her products that have the highest warranty period, moreover, at a relatively low price.

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Guarantee

When choosing LED devices, pay attention to such a characteristic as a working resource. Today this figure can exceed the bar of 50 thousand hours, and this is about 15 years of work. However, do not rely heavily on the reliability of the manufacturers' information, as over time, the quality of the LEDs decreases noticeably.

Best of all, build on the warranty period. This time can be either 3 years or 5 years. And this means the following: if the lamp fails during this period of time, then you can replace the product with a new one completely free of charge.

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What else to look for when choosing LED lamps for the home?

There are a few more nuances that cannot be ignored if you decide to approach the solution of the problem very carefully and choose LED lamps for a house of really good quality:

1. Light scattering angle. The nature of the illumination will depend on whether the scattering lens is installed in the lamp and whether it is coated internally with phosphors.
2. Position. Pay attention to how the LEDs are located in the lamp:
   • if they are in the same plane, then the light will be narrowly directed;
   • multi-level placement will create diffused lighting.
3. Light transmission coefficient. For bright lighting, this indicator should be no less than 80. A coefficient of 95 is considered a high indicator, but the price of such a model will be more expensive.

Important! Color rendition is indicated on the package.

4. Dimmers If you replaced conventional switches with dimmers that allow you to smoothly adjust the brightness of the light, then you need to remember that not all models of LED bulbs can fit the dimmer. The LEDs for connecting to the dimmer must be specially designed, otherwise - both the dimmer and the lamp will quickly fail.
5. External design. The packaging itself says a lot about the quality of the product.Popular manufacturers typically display the following data:
   • Information about the manufacturer.
   • Warranty period.
   • Power.
   • Color temperature (in Kelvin or in verbal form).
   • Type of cap.
   • Luminous efficiency (in Lumens).
   • Color rendering coefficient.
   • Barcode.
6. Appearance. The lamp should be smooth, without roughness and burrs. All fasteners should be made without gaps and irregularities, as well as without protruding wires.

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Stock footage

We hope that our information has helped you choose a high-quality light source, thanks to which comfortable lighting will appear in the house. And as a bonus - saving electricity and money.