Is your bulb color appropriate? Check it now.

When replacing the bulbs in your home, you may not consider which bulbs to buy more than their wattage. More specifically, you may ignore the color temperature of the bulb-or you may choose one color over another because you prefer it.

The fact is, the color of the lights you install is important. Different colors have different functions, and you should pay attention to where to install these colors.

Not all light bulbs are the same. They not only have different basic styles and wattages, but also provide different brightness levels and color temperatures. However, choosing the right bulb is not difficult.

The brightness of the bulb is represented by its lumen level. The higher the lumens, the brighter the bulb. And, yes, there is too much light.

The problem is that how bright a room should be is subjective, and the effectiveness of light bulbs depends on the size of the room, wall color, lighting arrangement, and other factors. Therefore, knowing where to start brightness can be confusing.

Fortunately, Charlston Lights provides lumen and watt calculators for all rooms in your home. Select the room, enter the size of the room and your preferred lighting intensity and light position, and then choose between light and dark walls. 

Click Calculate and the tool will tell you the total number of lumens required for the room.

Watt is the amount of electricity consumed by the light bulb. If you switch to LED bulbs, you should care more about lumens than watts. 

Incandescent bulbs use much more power than modern LED bulbs, which means that 60W incandescent bulbs emit less light than 60W LED bulbs. Conversely, to replace a 60W incandescent bulb, you need to use an 8W or 12W LED bulb to get roughly the same lumen rating. 

In addition to brightness, you must also consider the color of the bulb. This is usually represented by a Kelvin rating (usually 2,700 to 6,500), with a descriptive name, such as soft white or daylight.

The following is a breakdown of bulb color temperature:

With this in mind, when choosing a light bulb for a room, consider what you usually do in that space and buy a light bulb for this purpose. 

In other words, you may need daylight bulbs by the dressing table or soft white bulbs in the bedroom. You may not want daylight on the dining table or soft white in the kitchen.

Color temperature is one of the reasons why smart light bulbs are so convenient. No need to buy room or event-specific bulbs, you can change the color of the light on the fly.

For example, if you like to read daytime colors at night, but don’t want to sacrifice comfortable warm light when not reading, you can place a smart light bulb in the bedside lamp and change the color to reading during the day while you are reading. And soft or warm white at night.

If you haven't tried it yet, here are five reasons to consider smart light bulbs. Also, please check CNET's lamp buying guide.

It was first released on September 8, 2018 at 8 am Eastern Time. 

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