ledlighting

There are several possible answers to this depending on what is actually meant by the question.

As a generic form of lighting, the LED spotlight is clearly out in front in terms of overall luminosity and light quality. The reasons for this are straightforward enough.

• Spotlights require a highly directional form of light and the light from all Light Emitting Diodes is intrinsically directional.
• Traditional spotlights, and especially the immensely popular halogen spot, operate at very high temperatures. Not only is this a potential fire risk, but this excess heat also costs big bucks in terms of lighting expenditure. Typically 9 out every 10 watts used to run a conventional spotlight go into producing waste heat, not light. Put more bluntly, that means literally burning 9 out of every 10 dollars spent on lighting. LED spotlights run cool and consume just 1/10 the energy of incandescent and halogen lamps.
• LED spotlights, due the diminutive nature of LEDs themselves, can be made to retrofit existing halogen fittings. Put simply, you can remove an existing conventional spotlight and replace it with an LED equivalent. This is something that oversized, ungainly CFLs struggle to do, and indeed just one of many serious problems with CFLs.
• Even though LED technology is in the early days as regards domestic lighting, there are many LED spotlights available that compete directly against 35w and 50w halogen lamps on brightness, beam angle and light quality (again something of an issue with CFL light bulbs).

So, if LED spotlights are the best type of domestic LED light currently available to consumers, is there a specific make that stands out from the crowd? As it happens, there are several contenders but arguably the best LED spotlight at present is Sharp’s Zenigata LED.

The light color from the Zenigata is warm white (3200k for the technically minded) and the 120 degree wide beam angle creates a very even light pool. Luminosity and general light quality is easily on a par with 35w and even 50w halogen lamps; the huge difference is the running costs at some 13 times cheaper for the Zenigata LED spotlight.

When it comes to non-directional ambient light, such as would be expected from a table lamp for example, high intensity directional light is not really what most folk would be at all comfortable with and for this reason LED replacements for regular incandescent and CFL light bulbs have until recently not been available. That all changed with the advent of the Cree EvoLux LED globe. The Cree EvoLux is a standard shaped light bulb that fits into the usual types of light fitting (bayonet and Edison screw) and takes on a conventional 100w incandescent bulb for luminosity using just 13 watts. In fact, it’s so bright that Cree makes a variant (the Cree EvoLux R LED globe) that has a builtin dimmer with 3 preset settings and memory recall.

Getting back to the question, which is the best LED light today? If one gets away from specific examples and from focussing purely on normal domestic lighting, then the runaway winner has to be LED garden lights in general. Surprised? Well, these may not win out in terms of dry benchmark performance data, but for popularity and the sheer speed and scale of their rise to dominance in the outdoor lighting market I think they can make a robust case for claiming the prize. I also happen to believe that the speed with which LED garden lighting took control of that market segment hints at what is about to happen with mainstream domestic lighting.

And for a specific example in the outdoor LED lighting field? No particular brand springs to mind but I must admit I’m rather fond of the humble solar shed lights that have become surprisingly common these days, depending as they do on low energy, robust, super bright LED lights. They’re an ideal way for people to experience how far technologies such as solar electricity and LEDs have come along and how much more they promise in these “interesting” years ahead.

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