Energy Guide

Understanding What Lighting Fact Labels Are and Are Not Telling You

As part of this new federally-mandated energy-efficient post-incandescent age of

lighting, we are not just being asked to accept bluer, off-color light as the norm; we are

expected to digest and understand an entirely new vocabulary. It’s not enough that we

have to navigate shelf-after-shelf of ungainly LEDs and cork-screwed CFLs, light bulb

purchasers (virtually everyone) now have to become fluent with concepts like lumens and

light appearance as measured in Kelvin. In fact, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission

mandates that most light bulb packages uniformly display certain information – much

like the nutrition information labels you find on packaged foods.

The problem is, just like food labels don’t tell you if the food inside tastes good, the

lighting labels don’t tell you if the light produced by the bulb inside looks good!

FINALLY, ACANDESCENCE, and ACANDESCENT, LOVE YOUR LIGHT, V3 VITALIZING SPECTRUM, and TESLA are trademarks of Lucidity Lights, Inc.

What’s in a Label?

Bright Ideas

CARIN MANETTI MARCH 25, 2017

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Bright Ideas What’s in a Label? CARIN MANETTI MARCH 25, 2017 Understanding What Lighting Fact Labels Are and Are Not Telling You As part of this new federally-mandated energy-efficient post-incandescent age of lighting, we are not just being asked to accept bluer, off-color light as the norm; we are expected to digest and understand an entirely new vocabulary.
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Here’s what the label does tell you: 1. Brightness is measured in lumens. The more lumens a bulb emits, the brighter it will be. Incandescent bulbs were traditionally measured in Watts, or the amount of energy required to produce the light. According to the equivalencies published by Energy Star if you are replacing a: 40W bulb, look for 450 lumens 60W bulb, look for 800 lumens 100W bulb, look for 1600 lumens 2.