The other day, I was at a Home Depot looking at the new LED lamps sources for my living room. I was amazed at all of the new information that the manufacturers include with them now. In the old days they listed wattage and voltage (12 or 110). As we moved into fluorescents, they added cool white and sometimes daylight white (full spectrum) info. Now with LED sources, we have lumen output (pretty important to know how bright they are), wattage (and comparisons to incandescent and fluorescent sources), and very important-color temperature! I really liked a 950 lumen at a color temp of 5000 “A style” lamp replacement but it was $29 then right next to it, there appeared to be the same lamp but in a different colored carton. It was an 850 lumen lamp with a color temperature of 2500 selling for $25. I consider myself fairly savvy to LED sources but I still cannot figure out the reason for the differences in the versions. Most folks will buy the cheaper one but won’t understand the differences in warm and cool sources until they place the lamp in the same room as a cool LED source.
As theatre lighting designers, specifiers, dealers it is our job to educate the consumers about the new options that are available. In entertainment lighting, we are offered warm and cool LED color temps as well as RGB, RGBAW,RGBA, RGBW (YIKES!). While having all of the colors is the ideal situation, the reality is most folks don’t have the money to purchase the top of the line gear and may never have a need for the “full color” options. You may be lighting a display or statue at a museum and the cool or warm color temp fixture would do the job perfectly for less money. One can also consider using a color correction filter (gel or dichroic) to correct and match sources. What I am saying is, be creative and use that mind that has been analyzing and blending lighting colors for years. We have been trained in our professions to adapt for this new technology! It should be fun.
My solution to the living room color temp issue, I bought the brighter and cooler color temp LED lamp and used a double socket to add it to a warmer 450 lumen LED lamp (that was on sale for $10). Total wattage of 24 watts. My family, who hates my obsession with changing over to LED sources, still hasn’t noticed the change (and I’m certainly NOT going to tell them!)
Apollo offers several different LED fixtures from an RGBAW bright flood fixture to a warm 50 watt LED Fresnel and a 50 watt cool LED framing spot. Go to the website and take a look!
