Good quality trustworthy red LED light bulbs?
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I'm in the market for some red LED light bulbs to use while I'm getting ready for bed. With my limited budget and limited setup, I can't get anything else (so I am saying that true smart lights of any kind are absolutely out of the question). Plus, I just want pure red. The redder, the better! hehe I am testing a red FEIT brand 60W equivalent CFL that I found right now, and WOW... I love this! I should have done this YEARS ago! Except, I hate CFLs. Dirty electricity. heh Read about it sometime. :/
Anyway, so gain, I will be using these red LED bulbs while I"m getting ready for bed. At that time, I will be swapping out my SWITCH brand 3-way light bulbs with whatever red LED lights I get. I don't have a choice but to swap. Trust me. I don't have enough room for more lamps, and I don't want to replace the ones I have now for any reason. So, this swapping will have to be done on a daily basis.
I did some searching already, but I began feeling overwhelmed because it's not as easy as shopping for normal-colored lights! So, can you help? Do you have any red LED light bulbs that you can recommend?
They can be as big as A21. I have no idea what wattage equivalent I'd want. The FEIT brand 60W equivalent CFL that I'm testing right now seems pretty nice, but it might be a hair on the bright side (I haven't tested it in my bedtime routine yet) . So maybe a 40W equivalent? I really don't know.
Thank you for any help that you can provide.
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If you don't mind amazon, and getting them shipped (sometimes it's just a lot easier and much faster), here:
filtered RED, warm white LED, bulbJust like good ole Incandescent painted / coated light bulbs!
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Oh I have no problem with shipping LED bulbs. They're not fragile like incandescent bulbs.
So, are you saying that TCP makes good LED bulbs? I've never heard of them before.
Ooo, one reviewer is talking about using orange bulbs for this purpose. Hmm... I haven't thought about using orange bulbs yet. That would make just as much sense as red. Hmm... well, just as long as I can find a quality product I can choose the color later.
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TCP also makes orange! Yes, they seem well made, try them out for me! I was thinking of suggesting that to you as well, so I'm glad you saw that. LED lights are amazing, truly amazing.
I would say, use orange for where you need just a hint of color, and red for around your sleeping area! Orange just looks great anyway, as it's similar to a fire, which is always great.
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I am on a very limited income and so I can't risk throwing money away just to try something (unless I can buy it from a local store and return it if I don't like it). I'm hoping to get recommended a red (or orange) LED light bulb that someone else has tried and found to be very nice so that I can just order it from home. lol I'm so lazy.
One thing that I'm liking about the red FEIT CFL 60W equivalent is the quality of the light. It's a very pure red, like red kool-aid or something. I don't know. It's beautiful. It's just a perfect red. I have an old red incandescent and it's pink in comparison. Yuck. By itself, that old red incandescent is a decent red because there's no basis for comparison. I don't like dirty electricity though (and the negative health effects it's reported to have), so I must have an LED bulb - even though LED lights flicker just as much as CFLs. Argh. I'm tempted to just say screw it and get 40 FEIT CFL since I already know I like the color of the 60W equivalent. lol Dirty electricity though + negative health effects = no peace of mind.
What I like about the idea of using red light is, I use 1200K in f.lux when I'm going to bed. :) When I tried that last night just after midnight, it was like, "WHOA!" It's what I think I have always wanted. All I have left to do now is switch my case fans to red LEDs or no LEDs. Right now I have white LEDs and a front blue LED fan. Bleh... I didn't know any better.
I liked the red light because i could still see in the dark but I didn't have to worry about having any alerting type of light, which is all I want.
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I saw a review on Amazon saying that the red looks pink. Do not want. I want a nice deep red. No pink.
I'll have to keep using this 60W equivalent FEIT red CFL for the foreseeable future. Its color is awesome.
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Use the red incandescent and put it in the 3 way on low, if it's pink, then it's clearly not red to begin with. Now above around 40 watts, the bluer light will come from the filament, so 60+ will not be very red -- also orange at this level will start to look yellow.
Also, don't base off of one review.
Also, FEIT makes pure red LED, led bulb. I wanted to make that clear, so it's not warm white with a red filter. You may like that more.
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I think you're right that I'd like that more. I'm at the tail end of my bedtime routine and I am seriously enjoying this pure red light right now. It's the best thing that I have done for myself in a long time.
I have written off that 40W red incandescent bulb as just a cheap piece of junk. :) Like I said though, by itself it is ok. Compared to the red CFL though, it leans toward being a bit pinkish.
Amusingly, my f.lux setting right now is 1187K with my monitor's brightness all the way down, and this red CFL is making it clear to me that this setting still has blue in it thanks to my monitor. Of course, it's severely better than the alternative. :)
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I'm going to Menards tonight to get 2 of those Feit red LED bulbs. They have 2 left, and I need 2. lol The reviews of its color on Amazon.com are very good.
This Menards that I'm going to also has 4 of the Feit orange LED lights in stock, so I might pick two of those up as well just to try them, but I am pretty sure I'd rather have pure red. I am an "all or nothing" type of person.
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Ok, I am testing the bulbs now.
Its color is excellent, but I feel that it might be too bright for this use. It's brighter than the 13W red Feit 60W equivalent CFL, and I already felt that that was too bright. If I were to guess at its incandescent equivalence (it's not listed on the package), then I'd call it 75W. The funny thing is, it seems that it won't be too bright for the beginning of my bedtime routine where I'm sitting at the computer with f.lux at 1200K and all that, but the lamp that I need it to be in is right next to my bed. So, when it's time to go over to my bed, it's too bright. Argh! lol
Menards has some Westinghouse 1W red LED lights I might try:
I almost picked some up because of their price, but I'll keep these Feit LEDs for a few days just to see how they work out for me. Fortunately, I have to take melatonin supplements anyway so it's not like the brightness of these red lights is a problem for suppressing melatonin production, but a dim red light would still be a lot less alerting. lol
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I'm discovering a new, additional use for my red LED lights: movie time! It's like the room is dark, but it's not dark at all. The movie on my monitor right now is standing out just as much as it would if I had most of my lights off, but I have both of my red LEDs on, which is actually rather bright.
By the way, even though these FEIT red LED lights aren't dim like I would want, the pure red color is still working exactly the way that I wanted! I'm still going to try others though, like those 1W red LEDs made by Westinghouse. I might also try this red LED light made by Polaroid:
http://www.menards.com/main/p-2757375-c-7482.htm
It consumes a little more power, but it claims to be a 40W equivalent. I'm assuming that if it's made by Polaroid, then it should be a pure red as well like for use in Dark Rooms as a cheap Safe Light.
I hope that you can find a red light that you like too. There's nothing quite like sitting in pure red light for an hour or so before going to bed with f.lux set to 1200K, dimmed a little with the monitor's brightness all the way down.
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I'd probably go with a filtered red light. I think it's lower price as well.
Glad you found some that work.
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If you want a monitor with stronger contrast then get an AMVA panel from BenQ.
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@timpster said:
I'd probably go with a filtered red light. I think it's lower price as well.
Glad you found some that work.
Thank you. So am I. I still wish they were dimmer though.
Why would you worry about the price when they will probably outlive you? I'm barely using these for 1 hour per day and they're supposed to last up to 25,000 hours. Even if I were to use them for like 12 hours per day or longer, their price is still extremely low.
So, don't look at the cost that you pay for them on the day that you pay for them. For how long they last, they're significantly cheaper than incandescent bulbs.
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If you want REALLY nice lights by Philips for a really really low price, look for the packs of "everyday" bulbs they make!
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@timpster said:
If you want REALLY nice lights by Philips for a really really low price, look for the packs of "everyday" bulbs they make!
Red LEDs?
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@timpster said:
If you want a monitor with stronger contrast then get an AMVA panel from BenQ.
I'm not looking for a new monitor. I don't know where you got that impression from. lol
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"and this red CFL is making it clear to me that this setting still has blue in it thanks to my monitor. "
Just save $2-3 a day and in a few months you'll easily have $200+ to spend on a monitor that has a much better black level, and much less light leakage because AMVA is just great like that.
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@timpster said:
"and this red CFL is making it clear to me that this setting still has blue in it thanks to my monitor. "
Just save $2-3 a day and in a few months you'll easily have $200+ to spend on a monitor that has a much better black level, and much less light leakage because AMVA is just great like that.
That's not related to contrast. That's due to the color output of my monitor. Maybe.
So what I was saying was, I used to think that 1200K was quite red. However, when the only light in my room is a very red CFL or LED, the 1200K setting seems to reveal itself as not being quite as red as I thought. I blamed my monitor, but in hindsight, I think that it's just because 1200K is a colder color than I once thought. Maybe I am looking for about 800K. I don't know. Regardless, I wasn't saying that I want a new monitor.
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I think you may have some backlight bleed as 1200k should be a strong orange red. With backlight bleed the color doesn't output as strongly as a CRT would.
