An article in the Washington Post this morning said it well: “America, prepare to embrace lumens.”
When the FTC made the announcement last July, we got our first look at the new “Lighting Facts” labels. If you missed our blog post in July, here’s a quick recap: The “Lighting Facts” labels represent a redesign in light bulb packaging, created to make shopping for energy efficient bulbs easier.
Why did light bulb packaging need a change? It’s all about lumens. In the past, consumers bought bulbs based on wattage. Everyone knew a 100W incandescent bulb was much brighter than a 40W. However, that logic doesn’t work for highly efficient fluorescent bulbs and LEDs.
Watts are a measure of energy consumption, not light output. An energy efficient bulb might use only 11 watts of power but might emit 600 lumens of light – which is the equivalent output of a 40-60 watt incandescent.
So you see, it’s time to embrace lumens. To get an idea of what you should be looking for, here’s a chart showing the lumen output of incandescent wattages we are all familiar with:
| Incandescent Wattage | Lumen Output |
| 40W | 360 lumens |
| 60W | 615 lumens |
| 75W | 960 lumens |
| 100W | 1100 lumens |
| 150W | 2850 lumens |
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Haven’t used Lumens in my home but have really considered it since it seems to work just as well.