Recommended: New Cree LED Light Bulb

Be careful, the 40 watt (equivalent) bulb is slightly less expensive, it's easy to confuse the two.

Yah- I have about 25 of them installed along with a couple 9 watts - I find the 6 watt perfectly adequate for my needs except in my office and a couple other places where i read a lot.

A couple of nights ago the Dimable CFL I had in our Sconces burned out so I had a chance to directly compare the Cree 60w warm vs the 60 Philips L-Prize bulb (1st gen I believe). Only those two bulbs on a KPL Dimmer both go down to 1% but the Philips flickers occasionally. From off to 1% the Cree turns on but the Philips doesn't come on until 10%.

I'm hoping we'll see 75w (or preferably 100w+) version soon!

I'd also love to see some LEDs that have a better ramp where 1% is similar to an incandescent at 1% (easer for simulating sunrise).

So far the dimmable LEDs I've tried are the Insteon bulb and the Philips Hue along with some miscellaneous LEDs controlled by dimmers or lamp modules. All of them are noticeably brighter at 1% than an incandescent bulb.

Can anyone recommend an LED that gets dimmer than these? I have some night scenes where selected lights are dimmed considerably to provide barely enough light so people can see what they're doing if they move about the house, but really don't "light up" the area. The LEDs are simply too bright for that.

What about the Philips LivingWhite CFLs? How low do they go?

Any suggestions?

Anyone have any experience with Cree bulbs and an In-LineLinc Relay? I'm considering switching out my flood lights for them if they will work.

Also wondering about some of the switch links. I'm building a new house and plan on swapping out most of the lights for these bulbs. Since they draw so little power, are they reliably controlled by a switch link? Don't some of those switches have lower limits on the load?

[matt (support)]

They seem to dim pretty well to me (although the brightness ramp isn't identical to an incandescent, it is still quite usable IMO). See my original post in this thread for the pros and cons I found.

[jay (support)]

I replaced one of the indoor can floods in my kitchen with a cree flood a couple of weeks ago - it's on a SwitchLinc dimmer and aside from the different dimming characteristics that Matt pointed out it works great. I'll be replacing those floods with them as the old incandescents fail.

It should work even better with a Relay since you won't notice the dimming differences.

I use brightness levels 0, 6, 10, 15 25, 50, 100 %
In a script triggered by an insteon 6 switch ( on, lamp +, fan +, lamp -, fan -, off)

when lamp + or lamp - the brightness level goes up or down between these values.

That seems to give the right increases / decreases

Karl

Code: Select all

-- program: LeoLamp
--  set brighness level for CREED lamps
-- V1.0
-- Karl Wachs
-- June 19, 2013
--
--
--  how to use 
-- set variable "lamp"Command to UP or anythinge else, if UP brighten otherwise dim
--    variable "Lamp"Level is set to new current level of brightnet of lamp
--    set variable "Lamp"Debug is used to decied if log should be written
---   set LAMP to name of device to be dimmed/brightened
--
global debug
set debug to false --  if  true add logfile entries add info to indigo logfile
set initialize to 0
set action to "UP"
set Lamp to "LeoCeilingLight"
global Lamp

on toLog(xxx) -- must be called outside "tell application indigioserver"  … otherwise it does an end tell
   global debug
   if debug then
      tell application "IndigoServer"
         log Lamp & " " & xxx
      end tell
   end if
end toLog

toLog("starting v 1.0")


-- get parameters from indigo, check if everythings is setup properly, if not try to correct
try
   tell application "IndigoServer"
      set LL to Lamp & "Debug"
      set debug to (get value of variable LL) as boolean
      set LL to Lamp & "Command"
      set action to (get value of variable LL) as text
      set LL to Lamp & "Level"
      set Lev to (get value of variable LL) as number
   end tell
on error
   set initialize to 1 -- to be done
   return -1
end try



toLog(action)
toLog(Lev)

-- all setup for nornal operations

----------------
----------------  end initializing
----------------


-- now run through the different commands  and brightness levels
-- levels used: :  6 10 15 25 50 100
if action = "UP" then -----  other wise down +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
   set NewLevel to 100
   if Lev < 5 then
      set NewLevel to 6
   else
      if Lev < 7 then
         set NewLevel to 10
      else
         if Lev < 11 then
            set NewLevel to 15
         else
            if Lev < 16 then
               set NewLevel to 25
            else
               if Lev < 26 then
                  set NewLevel to 50
               else
                  if Lev < 51 then
                     set NewLevel to 100
                  end if
               end if
            end if
         end if
      end if
   end if
   if Lev = NewLevel then
   else
      tell application "IndigoServer"
         brighten Lamp to NewLevel
         set value of variable LL to NewLevel
      end tell
   end if
else
   set NewLevel to 0
   if Lev > 99 then
      set NewLevel to 50
   else
      if Lev > 49 then
         set NewLevel to 25
      else
         if Lev > 24 then
            set NewLevel to 15
         else
            if Lev > 14 then
               set NewLevel to 10
            else
               if Lev > 9 then
                  set NewLevel to 6
               else
                  if Lev > 5 then
                     set NewLevel to 0
                  end if
               end if
            end if
         end if
      end if
   end if
   if Lev = NewLevel then
   else
      tell application "IndigoServer"
         dim Lamp to NewLevel
         set value of variable LL to NewLevel
      end tell
   end if
end if




Matt or Jay-- does the Cree dim to the same or close to the same low level as an incandescent? The lowest level for my other LEDs is much brighter.

I'd say they don't get quite as dim. Fairly close, but not quite. But since they stay white instead of turn yellow I think we perceive them as being brighter than they are. So if you're looking for a warm, dim light you'll probably be disappointed.

Maybe this will help me. Can the Cree bulb dim more than the insteon or hue bulb?

[jay (support)]

Matt or Jay-- does the Cree dim to the same or close to the same low level as an incandescent? The lowest level for my other LEDs is much brighter.

Not really - when brightening from off it looks like to me that it doesn't actually come on until around 10% brightness though it also seems to me when dimming from being on brighter it may go a little lower before cutting off. Anyway, that's just my impression.

I don't have an INSTEON LED bulb or any Hue lights so I can't really comment.

mine start working with 5%, but I have 4 in parallel.

Comparison of lights emitted by different bulbs

from left to right:
with its own dimmer
- Insteon LED
with a 600W insteon dimmer:
-cree soft white
-cree spot light
-incandescent 60 W

settings:
5% incandescent is completely off, LED lights equivalent to incandescent bulb at ~ 20%
10% incandescent just visible
20% incandescent just shines a tiny little bit
50% incandescent soft warm light
100% full on

Its hard to keep exposure constant, the camera tries to adopt to the light.
The 50% seems dimer than the rest, thats just the camera.
As you know the incandescent light bulb use that lamp as the normalization point.

All LED lights are still on at 1%. The dimmer divides the voltage into 32 equal steps between 0 and 100. So I guess between 1 and 3 it is the same setting

brightness levels 0, 6, 10, 15 25, 50, 100 % seem to make sense to me for incremental changes

hope that helps.

Karl