Top 10 Advantages of LED Lighting

Lighting should match your needs. LED technology has expanded and improved to provide commercial contractors and consumers with energy efficient light bulbs that feature long lifetime hours, safety improvements, and more. There is no need to settle for preexisting lighting or keep paying high utility bills when you can save when you switch to LED lighting bulbs.

You can now choose from multiple LED varieties to suit your workspace or your home lighting design and match your particular light requirements. Selecting type, brightness, and color temperature will enhance the light layout you need for your commercial office space or home.

What advantages do you get when you switch from traditional to LED light bulbs? Below, we will break down the top 10 advantages of LED lighting:

1. Energy Efficient
2. Longer Lasting Bulbs
3. More Eco-Friendly
4. Safety Improvements with Less Heat Emission
5. Brightness and Wattage Equivalency
6. Great Color Rendering with High CRI
7. Instant On with No Warm-Up
8. Wide Color Temperature Range Options
9. Specialty Lighting: Dusk-to-Dawn, Smart Bulbs, Bug Lights
10. Dimmable Lighting

Energy Efficient

You can reduce energy costs and save money by swapping out traditional incandescent bulbs and replacing them with low wattage LED bulbs to improve your office or home energy efficiency. Sunco LED lights are up to 85% more efficient than traditional light bulbs. LED light bulbs consume less wattage, so you use less power. Our A19 LED features a 60W equivalency, but only consumes 9-watts. That’s quite an energy savings!

Let’s examine the popular Sunco ST64 LED Bulb Filament to breakdown costs for you. Our ST64 is a bare bulb with a retro look, similar to an Edison light bulb. Looking at power consumption, the ST64 Filament is comparable to a 60W halogen lamp. This comparison uses an average of $0.11 per kWh:

• Sunco ST64 LED Bulb, Filament (8.5W)      $14.00 across a 15,000 lifespan
• Traditional 60W Halogen Lamp (60W)         $99.00

As you can see above, the 8.5W Sunco LED bulb is more energy efficient than a 60W traditional bulb that delivers the same look.

The handy Lighting Facts label on Sunco packaging and our website looks like the familiar food content labels. There’s a good reason for that. The Lighting Facts label was a creation by the FTC and DOE to help consumers make educated choices when comparing products. It breaks down the Estimated Yearly Energy Cost of each bulb. You can see the Lighting Facts in the images section of each LED product on our website.

LED Tubes provide a good example of energy efficiency. 1 LED tube can perform the job of 2 fluorescent tubes. Not only do you save money on your energy bill, but more lumens per fixture means you need less fixtures when installing LED Shop Lights or recessed LED lighting.

Approximately 85% of the energy in a traditional fluorescent bulbs is converted to light. LED lights convert up to 90% of energy light. LEDs require less energy to produce the same amount of light.

Looking at the top selling BR30 LED Light Bulb, your yearly energy cost is only $1.32 with this bulb, based on a three hour day. More on light lifespan in a bit.

More energy efficient means you will save money during the lifetime of each LED bulb you install, when compared to a traditional bulb. You will also benefit from LEDs that run cooler than incandescent bulbs to help you manage the heat of summer indoors.

Longer Lasting Bulbs

LED bulbs have the potential to last tens of thousands of hours, some Sunco bulbs feature up to 50,000 lifetime hours. Compared to the average light bulb with only 1,000 lifetime hours, this is a huge leap in technology and product longevity. It means switching to LED bulbs in your home or office supports a sustainable future. The durability of LED bulbs with their naturally long lamp life also helps improve the life expectancy of your light bulbs so you can stop replacing light bulbs all the time.

You will note that Sunco uses a “lifetime hours” designation on our website. The Lighting Facts card mentioned previously indicates that the BR30 LED Light Bulb will last 22.8 years when used only 3 hours per day. The average homeowner or office worker will likely use a BR30 LED Bulb in their recessed downlights for longer than 3 hours a day. Even if you use it 24/7, which is nearly 3 years, you will still save money and experience a longer light bulb lifespan than a traditional bulb, which would have to be replaced multiple time during that 3-year period.

Downlights are a good example for LED bulb longevity as there are side benefits, as well. Recessed lighting usually requires a ladder to reach the ceiling lighting fixture in order to change the bulb. Imagine how many times you would have to go up and down a ladder to change a traditional light bulb vs. the time savings in maintenance hours with the longer bulb life of an LED.

LEDs also perform well in extreme temperatures where a traditional incandescent light bulb might fail faster, such as inside your refrigerator. Freezer and fridge light bulbs are often an afterthought. Adding a Sunco A15 LED Bulb will mean less time you spend changing out the bulb. Our A15 LED is designed to withstand temperatures as low as 4°F.

Longevity is not the only thing you can feel good about with LEDs. Sunco LEDs are also more eco-friendly than traditional options.

 

More Eco-Friendly

One of the key reasons Sunco LED lights are more eco-friendly than traditional bulbs is because they do not contain toxic elements like mercury and the LEDs do not emit damaging UV or IR. LEDs are the better alternative. Fluorescent bulbs contain mercury and other noxious chemicals that can be harmful to humans and the environment when disposed of in a landfill. When companies want to throw out fluorescents, they have to arrange for special pickup to adhere to compliant disposal regulations. An LED bulb does not have that issue, so you save time, in addition to supporting a sustainable world.

With higher lumens, Sunco LEDs provide the bright light you need to illuminate your workspace or home. That means that you can use fewer light fixtures in a room, which saves money, while it also helps support a sustainable future with less waste.

Want even more? LEDs can help with safety, too.

 

Safety Improvements with Less Heat Emission

LEDs provide a number of boosted safety improvements and also emit less heat than traditional bulbs. Let’s examine lights that are often a fire risk due to where they are placed inside your ceilings: recessed cans. Sunco recessed slim lighting and cans won’t overheat and cause a fire.

Recessed lighting in your ceiling allows you to create subdued light in a room in the form of downlights. Sunco LED downlights are IC rated. That means our lights can be safely used in an insulated ceiling since the light housings and bulbs used in them are lower wattage and created to safely come in direct contact with insulation. Sunco LED recessed lights are thermally protected and will not overheat and cause a fire in your overhead joist space or ceiling. In addition, IC rated light fixtures reduce moisture condensation. Many are also airtight to reduce or eliminate the need for maintenance electrician calls.

Safe for use near insulation is not the only advantage on the safety improvements you will discover when using LED recessed lights. You can also use Sunco Slim recessed LED lighting in narrow ceilings. Their thin profile allows you to safely insert lights where you could not before when using a can. The reason this was difficult with non-IC rated lights was because you needed a minimum of 3” between the insulation and the housing. With narrow space overhead placing lighting could be difficult. With Slim lights you will quickly install your lights and not have to worry about safety issues dur to their IC rating. Be sure to check building codes before installing recessed lighting. Many regions have differing regulations.

Many Sunco products are also certified. Our BR30 LED is backed by Energy Star, FCC, UL, and RoHS certificates. So are the Sunco Recessed LED Slim lights. For instance, the Sunco Recessed Lighting Can 4-Inch Remodel is also compliant with Title 24 energy efficiency standards.

So LEDs last longer, they are safer, and they are both energy efficient and eco-friendly. What about bright light and providing the light quality you like with incandescent bulbs? We got you covered.

 

Brightness and Wattage Equivalency

LED lights are brighter with lower wattage than traditional incandescent bulbs. While many people think about the number of watts a light bulb has as equating to the brightness of the bulb, that is not accurate. The myth of high watts equals brighter bulb continues to persist. Check the lumens of a light bulb to determine brightness.

Lumens is a technical spec measurement that refers to the amount of brightness a light bulb emits. The higher the number, the brighter the bulb. Sunco LED bulbs feature high lumens to provide you with the lighting you require. Remember, you can dim a bright, dimmable LED bulb to reduce the amount of light seen.

Wattage equivalency between LED and traditional light bulbs is easy to find when looking at the Lighting Facts Labels. However, that means a lot of back and forth for the buyer. We will soon post a blog with a helpful wattage equivalent chart for you to use when buying from Sunco. You will be able to look up the Sunco LED bulbs that match 40W incandescent bulbs, for instance.

But what about color selection?

 

Great Color Rendering with High CRI

When a light bulb has High Color Rendering Index, or CRI, it refers to the quality of the light. High CRI provides good texture on the objects a light illuminates and delivers accurate color rendering. Many of Sunco’s LED light bulbs feature a high CRI rating from CRI80 – CRI95.

Accurate color rendering may not mean a lot to you until you consider how an object appears under sunlight vs. under artificial light with low CRI. That’s the key. You want objects inside your office or home to appear in their natural state, as your eye would see them in daylight or outside. An LED light with high CRI means you also get the added benefit of enhanced texture to help the item on display stand out. High CRI is especially helpful when looking at clothing in a retail space or exhibited artwork.

 

Instant On with No Warm-Up

No more waiting for your lights to turn on or warm up! That is a relic of the past. No delay when you flip a light switch is a benefit of LED lights that not many consider.

Let’s look at shop lights or any fixture that would previously have held a fluorescent light tube. Typically, when you enter a large, dark room with fluorescent lights you have to wait for the lights to power on and warm-up. When you are moving fast you do not have time to wait for lights to fully turn on. LED Tubes deliver instant light when you flip the switch, so you do not have to wait for full lighting to quickly enter and leave a room or to safely carry something into a workspace.

Functionality of light is one thing, but you want color choices and to change the quality of the light in a room? You can select from warm to cool light to suit your needs, because LED lights provide you with a choice of wider color temperature ranges than traditional light bulbs.

 

Wide Color Temperature Range Options

With Sunco LED lights, when you purchase an LED light bulb you can choose the color temperature that the light bulb will emit. Simply select the color temp you want in the pack size you need on our product pages.

Absolute color temperature is measured in degrees of Kelvin (K), as shown in the chart below. This cool/warm measurement allows you to describe the quality of a light in terms of color. The lower the temperature, the warmer the look and the higher the temperature, the cooler the look.

Sunco color temperatures include:

• 2300K (Amber)  --- Appears: Red
• 2700K (Soft White) --- Appears: Orange
• 3000K (Warm White) --- Appears: Yellow
• 4000K (Cool White) --- Appears: White
• 5000K (Daylight) --- Appears: Blue
• 6000K (Daylight Deluxe) --- Appears: Silver/Multi-Colored
• 7000K (Diamond White) --- Appears: Silver
• 8000K (Bright White)
• 9000K (Ultra Bright White)

Want to know more about Kelvin and Correlated Color Temperature (CCT)? Visit our Lighting 101 page.

 

Specialty Lighting: Dusk-to-Dawn, Smart Bulbs, Bug Lights

The improvements offered by LED specialty lighting mean you are no longer limited to standard room lighting. Sunco offers a great selection of specialty lighting for sale, including:

• Dusk to Dawn (D2D)
• Smart Bulbs
• Bug Lights

Dusk to Dawn LED Bulbs

Using Dusk to Dawn LED light bulbs is a great outdoor solution to safety, the need for bright lighting, and energy conservation. Dusk to Dawn LEDs allow you to automatically turn on lights when the sun goes down, no timer required. The included high tech photocell sensor in Sunco D2D bulbs will detect light levels and turn on when it gets dark, then turn off again when light is detected.

There are more details about Sunco Dusk to Dawn D2D bulbs in our blog covering the Benefits of LED Dusk to Dawn Light Fixtures.

LED Smart Bulbs

Want full control over your lights? Then you want to upgrade to LED Smart Bulbs.

It’s easy to customize your lighting in home or office with LED smart bulbs. Sunco smart bulbs offer customizable control over your light so you can manage:

• Color Temperature – to set your room tone from cool to warm temps, amber to daylight
• Color Selection – choose from over 16 million colors to suit your exact need
• Music Sync – everybody dance now to the beat of the music as your lights match the color changes
• Create a Schedule – schedule when a light turns on/off
• Set the Scene – save your settings or choose from existing scenes for candlelit dinner or movie night

Learn more about Smart Bulbs in our blog and review all seven types of the smart bulbs available now. Looking for something even more unique? Try a yellow bug light.

Bug Lights

One of the advantages of LEDs is the wide variety of specialty lights that are available now. The latest trend in bug lights is a good example of this, except this is not just a trend. It actually works.

Insect repellant LED bulbs help you eliminate bug attracting lights near your doors and porches. No more bug zapper! You can keep the bugs away with Sunco Bug Lights that emit a yellow hue and no UV light. Compared to a bug attracting traditional light bulb, installing an LED Bug Light from Sunco will help reduce the flying pests nearby.

In addition, you can use the mellow color of the bug light as a sleep aid to naturally adjust melatonin levels. The color temperature avoids the blue light spectrum that can boost alertness when you are trying to go to sleep.

What if you just want to dim a light instead? Sunco offers a wide range of dimmable LED lights.

 

Dimmable Lighting

Using a dimmer, in combination with lower voltage LEDs, is a great way to save energy and also provide control over your lighting levels. Dimmable Sunco LED lights usually provide a dimming range from 10%-100%. This means you can easily adjust the lighting to exactly the level that you need in each room.

You can create ambiance in a room with dimmable LED bulbs. There are LED compatible dimmers and modern dimmers that create buzz or flickering. You don’t want those, of course. To determine which dimmers are suitable for your unique lighting scenario and specific bulb types, visit our Manuals and Documentation Page.

Prefer to use a bulb that does not require an additional dimmer yet still offers built in dimming? Check out the line of LED Smart Bulbs offered by Sunco Lighting.

Now that you are all caught up on the advantage of LED lighting, we hope you enjoy the many effective products offered by Sunco Lighting and our industry leading warranty.