← Back to context

Comment by krackers

1 day ago

Also even limited to visible spectrum, I have not seen any 99 CRI bulbs. The highest one I have ever found are the 98 CRI by YujiLED, but you pay around $35 for a single bulb. It is absolutely not "easy" to get flicker-free high CRI bulbs, let alone ones that cover the infrared range.

Specialized stores or online. If enough people start buying them, they become popular and cheaper.

Phillips, GE, Cree, and others sell high-CRI bulbs.

10 years ago you had to work to find high CRI bulbs but could still find Cree bulbs pretty easily. Now you can get high CRI bulbs at the grocery store.

High CRI bulbs generally have low or no flicker because high CRI is toward the premium end of the market.

IR emission is not a "feature", it's a bug.

  • Almost all of the bulbs you can find at a hardware store (let alone grocery store) exhibit terrible 120hz flicker. I know because I've literally tried every single one. Also it's not hard to get "high" (~90-94) CRI while nonetheless having terrible deep reds.

    Out of the manufacturers you listed, only Philips Ultra Definition (95 CRI, R9 90) have low flicker and good R9. Unfortunately they are poorly made and I have to keep buying new packs each year but it's more cost effective than Yuji for lesser used areas.

    Also the claim from TFA is that NIR component improves visual performance (and I've read elsewhere that NIR also has health benefits).

    • How about Phillips flicker-free "warm glow" bulbs? I honestly have a hard time believing that they flicker because I can literally unscrew the bulb and watch it dim gradually over the course of a second. Which indicates to me that there's a capacitor in front of the LED drivers smoothing the current out. (Which I guess is required to be compatible with triac dimmers anyway.)

      3 replies →

  • > IR emission is not a "feature", it's a bug.

    If you look at energy efficiency, it totally is. But the whole point in the discussion is that IR _might_ (according to the paper) have biological relevance.