Forum Discussion

old_guy's avatar
old_guy
Explorer
Jan 25, 2016

led color

what color led light did most of you used when you switched to led lights, for example, warm white or cool white or what??
  • I bought warm white. A couple of them turned out to be more white so I used them in a storage compartment. The exception was a light in the kitchen stove hood, the wife wanted a bright white light so that is what she got.

    I am happy with the colors.
  • Ivylog's avatar
    Ivylog
    Explorer III
    Warm white inside the RV and bright white outside.
  • old guy wrote:
    what color led light did most of you used when you switched to led lights, for example, warm white or cool white or what??


    I prefer "natural" or "bright" white, 3000k or kelvin

    Warm white is around 2700 kelvin, and does a good job of imitating the orange glow of an incandescent bulb.

    avoid anything 3500-4100 kelvin, unless you spend a lot on the LED you'll likely see a green tint. 5000-6500 kelvin is a nice daylight blue
  • old guy wrote:
    what color led light did most of you used when you switched to led lights, for example, warm white or cool white or what??


    Don't go by the "short hand name" like warm white and so on..

    LED manufacturers must get a lot of giggles out of folks buying their modules by those names since they seem to have no real rhyme or reason to the name they give the colors...

    Instead you should be looking at the color temperature which is in Kelvin (K)..

    For example warm white for one manufacturer could be 2600 K (very bug light yellow) and for another 2900 K.. (less yellow).

    Comparing to incadescent a "soft white" bulb is typically 2700 K as a baseline to work with.

    I prefer 3000K-4000K (some call that "cool white" or "bright white"), to me it is the brightest so that is what I like..

    I don't like the 5000K-6500K LEDs (often called "daylight"), they just look horribly blue, I call it death blue.. Not to mention to me it takes one heck of a lot MORE bulbs to make it seem bright to me.

    If the LEDs you are looking at do not give the color temp in Kelvin, skip it.. Not worth the hassle guessing at it.
  • I bought a cool white, and a warm white and tried them both before switching them all over. I really prefer the warm white inside, and the cool white for any outdoor or storage applications.

    Jim
  • I have mostly warm white and a few of the cool white.
    I'm ok with either one.
    Pat

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