LED Lightbulb Recommendations

I would say do some research before you buy LED lights. Some people get headaches from LED flicker. This guy on hacker news films every LED bulb he buys—check out the video he links to see what I’m talking about.

mrb 2 days ago

Lifetime isn’t even my #1 concern with LED bulbs. It’s strobing/flickering.

I film all the LED bulbs I buy in slow motion at 240 fps with an Android phone, and play the movie back on a PC with mplayer using the dot(“.”) key to move frame by frame. Here is a shot I made comparing 2 brands of LED bulbs: https://youtu.be/QbenId_F2RQ (Edit: yeah you don’t have to transfer to a PC, just playing back in slow motion on the phone will still show the effect quite well.)

It’s amazing how I find this way that most (but not all!) of LED bulbs flicker with a strobe effect at 120 Hz (frames alternate between bright and dim) because they have crappy power supply designs that fail to smooth the A/C voltage. As a result they flash one time during the positive phase and one time during the negative phase of the 60 Hz A/C mains frequency.

I find this unacceptable. Although not too noticeable in normal conditions, a 120 Hz strobing light is definitely noticeable when your eyes move or track an object illuminated by the bulb.

In my experience, Philips lightbulbs are one of the few brands that don’t have this flaw because they take care of converting AC to a stable DC voltage internally. In fact they are advertised as such: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CFRCGKC "COMFORTABLE LIGHT: Our products meet strict test criteria including flicker, strobe, glare and color rendition to ensure they meet EyeComfort

He recommends Phillips bulbs, but I’ve found that they flicker as well. I bought a bunch and decided to keep them anyway. I haven’t found any advice on a single bulb that doesn’t flicker. I spent a good amount of time going through this thread about LED strain and came up empty handed.

I think the only way to know for sure is to take your phone to Home Depot or the Hardware store and film the example bulbs at 1/8 speed.

There is a light called Bedtime Bulb, that apparently does not flicker. Although it appears to be only a 40W equivalent bulb. I don’t think it will work if you’re thinking 60W might be too dim. It’s also pretty expensive at about $18/bulb.