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Comment by benkuhn | Hacker News Reader

Have you tried buying higher CRI LEDs? Halogens have very good color rendering compared to typical LEDs (100 vs ~80 for typical LEDs), but you can buy specialty bulbs with closer-to-natural spectra. I haven't dug much into off the shelf options, but one of my coworkers did and got excited about these lights: https://store.yujiintl.com/collections/high-cri-led-lights/p...

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Hmm, that's sounds interesting and is at least an avenue to chase down. Sadly, next to my stockpile of halogen bulbs, I also basically have a lifetime supply of LEDs and CFLs that didn't pass muster. Maybe someday I'll have a really big garage that needs lighting. ;-)

The specific bulbs you linked to have a crazy high lumen rating, which appeals to me despite their high price.

I have noticed that name brand (and pricier) LEDs tend to do better for me. Some of the ones from e.g. Phillips and Osram put out a different quality of light (though it's still not up there with incandescents for me).

There's also this company, but I haven't pulled the trigger myself because of the cost:

https://www.waveformlighting.com/high-cri-led-strip-lights

Their standard socket bulb prices aren't bad (about $15 if you get a 6-pack), and they do produce bulbs for the slightly different European sockets, but shipping to Europe is about $40 (plus I'd then have to deal with picking them up at the customs office, which is always a multi-hour ordeal). But assuming I haven't found something decent before I'm next in the US in March, I'll pick some up then.

Thanks, that's interesting -- I'll have to buy one of their bulbs to compare to my other LED bulbs.

Looks like the lowest cost might be the 100W COB LED ... It would need a bunch of supporting equipment but it might be possible to do it for around $2 per watt.

Edit: I guess the normal bulbs and the led tubes could also come in around $2/watt and they can take mains power so that might be an easier but physically larger route.

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