Introduction of these technologies came with a bunch of information in addition to your standard Watt rating like Lumens, Lumen per watt ratings, efficacy and much a lot more details on about the product on the labels
2. • People have been buying lights by the watt for more
than 6 decades relying over their judgement on how
bright the light is. Main reason being, only wattage
information was available on the labels. The recent
years have seen some major changes in the lighting
industry with the introduction of energy efficient CFL
and LED technologies. Introduction of these
technologies came with a bunch of information in
addition to your standard Watt rating like Lumens,
Lumen per watt ratings, efficacy and much a lot more
details on about the product on the labels.
3. Lumens and Watts
• Almost every manufacturer these days display
both Watts and Lumens on their packaging. So
what are they?
• Lumens : They are the measurement of light .
In simpler terms, Lumens describe how bright
the light can be.
• Watts : They are the measurement of power.
In simpler terms, Watts describe how much
power the light consume
4. What do they mean?
• All the new technologies and products are sure to raise
certain levels of confusion. Luckily it is easy to simplify
this confusion.
• The standard notion while buying the bulbs was " The
more the wattage, the brighter the light. ". Now the
rules have changed. You cannot compare a 60 Watt LED
bulb with 60 Watt CFL bulb or incandescent bulb. To
overcome this problems, manufacturers started rating
their products using Lumens. The intention was to give
a more accurate indication of how much light is to
expected.
5. Selecting the right kind of Lights
• Now that we are aware what lumens and watts
on the labels mean, it is easy for us to select the
correct type of light for our requirements. One of
the easiest way is by using a conversion chart.
• Say you have been using 60 Watt incandescent
bulb. It usually emits 800 Lumens of light. So in
order to replace it with a LED bulb, you would
check for the bulb that would the same
illumination. Usually it is 8-12 Watts of LED bulb
fitting the requirements.