Light Bulb: Philips Ambient LED Indoor Flood BR30
Price: $39.95 at Green Supply
Household Use: spot lighting, track lighting, recessed lighting
Light Appearance: warm white light, 3000 K
Incandescent It Replaces: 65-watt equivalent
Overall Rating: Recommend*

This LED bulb provides a clean, bright light for overhead recessed or track fixtures. It promises incredible efficiency. It looks cool. It's pretty pricey. All this considered, I was excited to swap this sexy new thing out with my dusty old incandescent. Here's how it went:

The Test

Control Bulb: GE Reveal BR30

Primary Use: living room recessed light, directional overhead fixture

Time of Day Tested: night

How It Performed: I had difficulty finding this bulb at the local Home Depot and even on Amazon. A little searching, however, led me to Green Supply, where I purchased the bulb for the same price as advertised on the Home Depot website and with a free shipping coupon code.

When the bulb arrived, it was surprised at how heavy it was, though this is typical for LEDs. Its packaging boasted dimmability (which I couldn't test, as my fixture is not on a dimmer switch), instant-on (delays have long been a problem with flourescents), and a quiet, no-hum operation. I found all of this to be true except for a slight delay, which is unnerving but not a dealbreaker.

As for light quality, this bulb provides a crisp, strong, daylight-comparable light that made my old incandescent look downright yellow. I love the clean whiteness but find the brightness of this 65-watt equivalent bulb a bit surprising. It definitely is much brighter than my old 65-watt incandescent, though perhaps the old bulb was dusty/dirty? In my direcitonal recessed fixture, this bulb gives off dramatic light and creates dark shadows. Overall, however, I am happy with the color of the light and am sure I will adjust to its brightness. One small detail is that the high-tech-looking gray housing for the bulb is visible when installed in my recessed fixture. Rather than seeing just the glass "face" of the bulb, some of the gray surround is visible at the edges of the fixture. You can see a hint of it in the fourth photo above.

More Facts About This Light Bulb

Dimmable? Yes
Brightness: 650 Lumens
Estimated Yearly Energy Cost: $1.57
Life: 22.8 years, based on 3 hrs/day
Energy Used: 13 watts

*Our Ratings:
Strong Recommend
Recommend
Weak Recommend
Don't Recommend

Apartment Therapy Media makes every effort to test and review products fairly and transparently. The views expressed in this review are the personal views of the reviewer and this particular product review was not sponsored or paid for in any way by the manufacturer or an agent working on their behalf.