Cree LED Revolution Blog

Cree and LED lighting are starting a revolution

Posts Tagged ‘lighting facts label’

Get il-LUMEN-ated with Lighting Facts: Knowing the Difference Between Lumens and Watts

Monday, October 17th, 2011

Cree is celebrating Energy Awareness Month with a series of blog posts about ways Cree and our products are helping save energy.

To help you become more energy aware, we’re going to drop some knowledge on you with what’s coming up in the wild and crazy world of lighting. As we’ve shared with you before here and here, beginning in 2012, you are going to start seeing new packaging and labeling on all household bulbs. The idea is that this information will help you save money by selecting the most efficient bulbs that fit all of your lighting needs.

Check this out…

Does that help? If not, maybe this breaks it down a little better…

light-bulb-chart2

Still confused? The National Association of Electrical Manufacturers (NEMA) also did an awesome job of explaining it in their The 5 Ls of Lighting – The Consumer’s Guide to Choosing Energy-Efficient Lighting.

Basically, forget everything you thought about when buying lighting products. Yup, everything. Erase it from your memory. You used to buy on watts, which measures the amount of energy required to illuminate lighting products. But with more energy-efficient lighting available, like Cree’s EcoSmart LED Downlight, you need to buy your lighting based on lumens, which measures the amount of light produced.

The more lumens, the brighter the light. For example:

  • 40-watt incandescent bulb = 450 lumens
  • 60-watt incandescent bulb = 800 lumens
  • 100-watt incandescent bulb = 1600 lumens

“Nutrition” Labels

Similar to the nutrition labels that you find on your food packaging, the new labels that will be coming in 2012 will have concise information about the bulb’s output and savings.

lighting facts label

Cree labels include:

  • Brightness (in lumens)
  • Estimated Yearly Energy Cost
  • Life-expectancy of the bulb
  • Light appearance and
  • Energy used

What Cree labels won’t include – Contains Mercury. That’s right, those other energy-efficient bulbs, you know the ones, the twisty-twirly CFLs contain mercury and will have to disclose that on their labels.

So now that you’ve been educated and you know how to shop, go out and get your Cree LED Lighting!

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Department of Energy, Energy Awareness Month | 1 Comment »

The U.S. Department of Energy is working to make “lumen” a household name

Friday, July 30th, 2010

What would happen if you walked around and asked all of your coworkers to tell you how many lumens the lights in their homes put out?

Chances are they wouldn’t have the faintest idea (unless you work for a lighting company, but that’s another story). Your coworkers, your friends — heck, even your mom — could probably tell you how many Watts the lights in their homes consume. But when it comes to lumens, you might get a few blank stares.

That’s why the Department of Energy is launching a new consumer education campaign this fall to educate the public about lumens, which measure light output.  It won’t be long before Watts will take a backseat on lighting packaging. When the new Lighting Facts labels begin appearing on light bulb packaging next year, the front of the package will display the number of lumens a light contains. This will help tell consumers how bright the light they’re buying will be. The more lumens, the greater the light output.

This becomes particularly important as we get closer to the first phase of the U.S. incandescent ban, which starts in 2012, when 100W incandescent lights are phased out. Then, in the following two years, the U.S. will say goodbye to 75W, 60W and 40W bulbs thanks to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. As more energy-efficient lighting options like LEDs enter the market, consumers are going to have to learn to look at lumens to gauge the light output they’re looking for.

 We’re looking forward to learning more about the DOE’s consumer education initiative. In the meantime, we’re pleased to see the DOE is expanding its presence online. You can now:

And, of course, you can find us on most of these networks too. Just click the icons in the upper right corner of our blog.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Department of Energy | 1 Comment »

Here’s why the new Lighting Facts label is important for consumers

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

It’s official. New “Lighting Facts” labels are coming to U.S. light bulb packaging in mid-2011. Watt’s up with that? (Sorry, couldn’t resist). Well, the new labels mandated by the Federal Trade Commission mean many consumers may finally start to put “Watts” in the right context.

The Lighting Facts labels will emphasize lumens as a measure of light output instead of Watts. A graphic on the front of bulb packages will display how many lumens a bulb delivers. The back of the package will have additional information on Wattage, color temperature, etc. This change to the packaging will push people to understand that Watts measure energy consumed and lumens measure light output.

This is important because as more energy efficient lighting options (such as LEDs) are sold at the store, consumers can no longer judge the brightness of a bulb based on Watts.

Here's a look at the new labels approved by the FTC.

Here's a look at the new labels approved by the FTC.

Back when incandescent lights were the only thing on the market, you could pretty much judge what type of light output you would get based on the Wattage (even though, it’s not the right way to measure the type of light you’ll be getting). It was safe to assume that the higher a bulb’s Wattage, the brighter it would be.

But now that energy-efficient lights such as CFLs and LEDs are taking up shelf space, many consumers must be weaned off their old shopping habits and become familiar with lumens as a measure of light output.

For example, the average 40W incandescent bulb has a light output of about 500 lumens. But a CFL that puts out 500 lumens might only consume 10 Watts. And an LED light that produces 500 lumens can consume even fewer Watts.

Other features of the new labels include:

  • Wattage: You’ll still be able to see how much energy your light consumes
  • Estimated yearly energy cost: That way if you’re spending more on the up-front cost of an energy-efficient bulb you’ll be able to gauge estimated savings to see the true value.
  • Life based on three hours of usage a day: Since Cree LED lights are designed to last 50,000 hours, their life expectancy would be more than 45 YEARS if used for only three hours a day.
  • Light Appearance: There’s a scale measuring the light from warm to cool, including the specific color temperature.  No more guessing whether soft white means warm or cool or somewhere in between.
  • Mercury Alert: Bulbs that contain mercury (ah hem: CFLs and other fluorescents) will be required to disclose that on the package, and include a link to the Environmental Protection Agency’s site that details how to clean up a broken mercury-laden bulb.

lightingfactsmercury

The new labels are exciting because they’re really setting the stage for the LED Lighting Revolution.

“The new labels that focus on brightness in lumens will help consumers make purchasing decisions as they transition to more energy-efficient types of bulbs,” according to the FTC press release.

Do you think the new label will do a better job of educating consumers on light output v. energy consumption? Or will the new labels just confuse shoppers?

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Energy Efficiency | 5 Comments »