You know those black-and-white nutrition labels we've come to expect on the side of our morning cereal box? Well the FTC is taking a cue from the FDA and requiring light bulb manufacturers to display a similar infographic for lighting facts starting next year. Check it out in detail—plus how the new labels are going to help you with your decorating—below the jump.
The Federal Trade Commission announced that, starting in the middle of 2011, lighting manufacturers must use a Lighting Facts label on the back of light bulb packages.
In addition, the front of packages are no longer going to be displaying a bulb's wattage (an indicator only of the energy a bulb uses and not how bright it is, a common mistake made by consumers) in favor of displaying the brightness measurement of lumens:
And for us aesthetites and amateur interior designers, the new labels include a scale of the bulb's warmness, a key factor in how colors in the room are perceived by your eyes.
With these new labels, you might finally be able to decide once and for all whether a CFL bulb is going to be worth the money to replace your closet light bulb. With estimates of annual cost based on hours usage per day, the new labels offer information to guide your consumption—just like a nutrition label would.
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Comments (9)
Wow--I'm happy to hear this. Mainly for the brightness and light appearance.
Yep, finally!
Standardized disclosures are awesome and enable consumers to more easily make informed decisions, but the lack of CRI or other color rendering information is unfortunate, especially with the recent surge in LED lighting solutions. I understand that most consumers don't know what CRI is and the FTC is trying to inform with basic information at a glance.
At the same time, including this key bit of information there would increase public awareness of the importance of color accuracy as well as color temperature. After all, consumers probably DO notice when low-CRI lighting leads to washed out art, unappetizing food, and zombie-like skin tones.
There's another way of concisely representing the accuracy with which colors are represented when lit by a light source, but I can't find it. Wikipedia suggests "Spectral Power Distribution" but that's more of a graph than a single number. It's supposed to be more accurate than CRI at predicting light sources that make things "look right" and could be another option for standardized disclosure on bulbs.
Great idea... I think it would also be wise to include information on how effective a given bulb is for dimming applications. Luckily when I was redoing the lighting for the home theater I went with the electrician to Home Depot. He had to warn off no less than 3 couples that were going with the compact fluorescents in dimmed environments because the ramping is terrible.
Dimming makes me sad. I sold off a whole lot of dimming stuff in my move to CFL because you just cant use a digital dimmer with them.
Aren't traditional incandescent bulbs supposed to get phased out next year anyway? I've heard some lighting guys express their skepticism, but that was the plan as of not all that long ago, meaning we're all going CFL or halogen anyway....
kamikazetedibear--you can use cfls w/ dimming devices--if you buy the cfls that are dimmable. That's what I use.
@VioletVeil: There are actually multiple dimmer types, and while they make CFL bulbs with ballasts that handle normal resistive dimmers, I have yet to find one that works with dimmers driven by a digital circuit. The way they output power functions differently, and it causes dimmable CFL bulbs to freak the hell out. While one might exists that works, at 10 bucks a bulb I gave up trying to find them.
I have these dimmers--I think they are driven by a digital circuit. But maybe I'm wrong.
http://www.homedepot.com/Electrical-Dimmers-Switches-Dimmers/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xggZbnni/R-100055621/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053
The first dimmable cfls I tried worked. I can't remember which ones they are though. Got them from Home Depot. Somebody commented on the dimmer page that Phillip's dimmable cfls don't work with it.