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> LEDs were big, clunky, and red Fascinating. Why were they red? Every LED bulb I've looked at has been a headache-inducing blue. I wanna buy LED bulbs for the

by culi 4y ago

> LEDs were big, clunky, and red Fascinating. Why were they red? Every LED bulb I've looked at has been a headache-inducing blue. I wanna buy LED bulbs for the energy efficiency but it's so hard to find one that doesn't emit so much blue light

yathern 4y ago
> I wanna buy LED bulbs for the energy efficiency but it's so hard to find one that doesn't emit so much blue light I have a similar hatred of cool-blue lighting, at least in the home - but you should know it's very straightforward to find LED bulbs that look good these days. Just pay attention to the "temperature" - it will look like "3000k" or "4000k" on the box. Lower is warmer - 2400k is pretty identical to incandescent, though I go for 3000k. Some makers will label them "soft white" vs "daylight" or "warm white" - as far as I know, there's not much of a standard on those terms, but I can assure you that anything "daylight" or "bright white" will be blueish. Hope this helps!
- culi 4y ago
  Great tip, thank you!
- dtgriscom 4y ago
  Some LED fixtures have a color temperature switch which changes the "warmth" of the light. Intended to be set on installation, but could be changed later if you want.
kmill 4y ago
Search for "5mm red led" to see what they're talking about
iancmceachern 4y ago
Red was the only color they could make at the time
leobg 4y ago
Red was the first color for LEDs. Later, yellow and green followed. But blue took a long time to develop, and early blue LEDs were very expensive. So now, I think, it‘s a fashion thing. Because red and green LEDs look so „1990“, manufacturers put blue LEDs everywhere to scream „Look how modern I am!“. (In Germany, it goes so far that electric cars have to have blue lights on the outside and everywhere on the dashboard so that everyone can be sure that, yes, this is innovative technology. That there‘s actually a reason to favor red in settings where it‘s important to protect one‘s night vision doesn‘t seem to matter.)
GuB-42 4y ago
To simplify: Red is the lowest energy visible light and therefore the easiest to produce. Blue is the highest energy, and therefore the hardest. It is telling that the 2014 Nobel Prize in was awarded to the inventors of the blue LED, and not one of another color. Once you have blue LEDs, using phosphors, you can convert that high energy blue light into a spectrum of lower energy wavelengths, i.e. white light. You can't have white light with red and green LEDs, or at least not that easily. As for you finding LEDs too blue, that's most likely an issue with the phosphor mix they are using, maybe there are some LEDs that go below the typical 2700K "warm white" standard that will be more to your liking. I don't think lighting with pure red or pure green is a good solution since without a blue component at all, blue objects will appear black, and you will have a result a bit like with these yellowish high-pressure sodium lamps that are common in street lights, which in technical terms is a low CRI. You can try it though: get RGB lights and set them to red, green or yellow.
jdonaldson 4y ago
Simple blue light LEDs created a residue on the surface of the lens like a cataract and kept them from being useful in panels and individual lights. The “invention” of the blue led was really just a slightly convoluted way of keeping the lens clear.

by culi 4y ago

yathern 4y ago

> I wanna buy LED bulbs for the energy efficiency but it's so hard to find one that doesn't emit so much blue light I have a similar hatred of cool-blue lighting, at least in the home - but you should know it's very straightforward to find LED bulbs that look good these days. Just pay attention to the "temperature" - it will look like "3000k" or "4000k" on the box. Lower is warmer - 2400k is pretty identical to incandescent, though I go for 3000k. Some makers will label them "soft white" vs "daylight" or "warm white" - as far as I know, there's not much of a standard on those terms, but I can assure you that anything "daylight" or "bright white" will be blueish. Hope this helps!

culi 4y ago
Great tip, thank you!
dtgriscom 4y ago
Some LED fixtures have a color temperature switch which changes the "warmth" of the light. Intended to be set on installation, but could be changed later if you want.

kmill 4y ago

Search for "5mm red led" to see what they're talking about

iancmceachern 4y ago

Red was the only color they could make at the time

leobg 4y ago

Red was the first color for LEDs. Later, yellow and green followed. But blue took a long time to develop, and early blue LEDs were very expensive. So now, I think, it‘s a fashion thing. Because red and green LEDs look so „1990“, manufacturers put blue LEDs everywhere to scream „Look how modern I am!“. (In Germany, it goes so far that electric cars have to have blue lights on the outside and everywhere on the dashboard so that everyone can be sure that, yes, this is innovative technology. That there‘s actually a reason to favor red in settings where it‘s important to protect one‘s night vision doesn‘t seem to matter.)

GuB-42 4y ago

To simplify: Red is the lowest energy visible light and therefore the easiest to produce. Blue is the highest energy, and therefore the hardest. It is telling that the 2014 Nobel Prize in was awarded to the inventors of the blue LED, and not one of another color. Once you have blue LEDs, using phosphors, you can convert that high energy blue light into a spectrum of lower energy wavelengths, i.e. white light. You can't have white light with red and green LEDs, or at least not that easily. As for you finding LEDs too blue, that's most likely an issue with the phosphor mix they are using, maybe there are some LEDs that go below the typical 2700K "warm white" standard that will be more to your liking. I don't think lighting with pure red or pure green is a good solution since without a blue component at all, blue objects will appear black, and you will have a result a bit like with these yellowish high-pressure sodium lamps that are common in street lights, which in technical terms is a low CRI. You can try it though: get RGB lights and set them to red, green or yellow.

jdonaldson 4y ago

Simple blue light LEDs created a residue on the surface of the lens like a cataract and kept them from being useful in panels and individual lights. The “invention” of the blue led was really just a slightly convoluted way of keeping the lens clear.