There is more to better light than how bright it looks.
A light can look bright and still show colour poorly. What you actually see in your book, your photograph or your sewing depends on what is inside that light.
Scroll down to see why.
The difference is in the mix of colours.
Light is a mixture of colours. The things you look at reflect part of that mixture back to your eyes, so changing the mixture changes how their colours appear.
That mixture is what we mean by the spectrum of a light, and it can be measured. Below are the measurements for two of them: our HD light engine and an ordinary LED sample. Start at the blue end, on the left.
Toggle to see the difference.
The curve below is our HD light engine.
- 400
- 450
- 500
- 550
- 600
- 650
- 700
- 750
Pick a band, then switch between the two lights to see how the balance changes.
How the two differ.
Our HD light engine spreads its output right across the range, strongest through the oranges and reds. The ordinary sample puts its tallest point into one narrow spike in the blue and runs low from there on. Each curve is drawn to its own highest point, so this compares the shape of the light rather than how bright either lamp is.
Blue, 450 to 495 nm — Serious HD light engine
Blue is the one colour no LED is short of, because a white LED starts life as a blue or violet chip. The question is whether it takes over. Here it is steady rather than piled up, so it does not drown out everything else.
Blue, 450 to 495 nm — ordinary LED sample
Here is the whole story in one shape. The tallest thing on this curve by a long way is one narrow spike at 452 nm, the bare chip showing through, and everything past it runs low. That is why the greens, yellows and reds further along have so little to work with.
Green, 495 to 570 nm — Serious HD light engine
Green is the easiest part of the range for any LED to fill, because it is where the phosphors give up most of their light. Output climbs steadily across the band and is well up by the top of it.
Green, 495 to 570 nm — ordinary LED sample
This is the band where this sample does best after the blue. Even so it sits in the low shoulder beside that spike rather than near the top, so two greens that are close to one another start to run together.
Orange and yellow, 570 to 620 nm — Serious HD light engine
Skin, wood, brass and autumn leaves all live in this band, and it takes a good spread of phosphors to fill it. Averaged across the band this is the strongest of the four, which is why those things keep their warmth.
Orange and yellow, 570 to 620 nm — ordinary LED sample
This one is already falling away by the time it reaches the warm middle. It is why a room can be plenty bright and still leave wood looking flat and faces looking drained.
Red, 620 to 750 nm — Serious HD light engine
Deep red is the hardest part of the range for a white LED to get right, which is why it is scored on its own rather than buried in the average. This curve reaches its highest point of all at 625 nm, just inside the red, and runs several times higher than the other sample right through the band. It scored 92 out of 100.
Red, 620 to 750 nm — ordinary LED sample
Deep red is the first thing to go, because putting it back costs efficiency. This sample scored 40 out of 100 for it, against 92 for ours. That is the difference between telling a burgundy from a maroon and having to guess.
Daylight gives you a broad spread of colour.
When you look at something by a window, daylight provides a broad range of colours for it to reflect. That breadth matters when you want to see the subtle differences between shades.
Daylight Wavelength Technology™ is built around that. A specialist LED and a blend of phosphors spread the light right across the range, so you get the true richness of your books, your photographs and your needlework long after the sun has gone.
How we create that colour balance.
It sits inside the light engine and starts the process off. It is not the colour the finished lamp shines.
Phosphors are materials that convert some of that violet light into the other colours of the range.
Those colours combine again, and what leaves the lamp is a single light with a broad mixture inside it.
The aim of the whole arrangement is a broad, even spread of colour rather than one dominant peak.
What the measurements show.
98 out of 100 for colour fidelity. That measures how closely a set of test colours is reproduced against a defined reference. Our tested HD light engine scored 98; the ordinary LED sample scored 83.
This is TM-30 colour fidelity, compared against a reference at the same colour temperature. It is not a percentage match to daylight, a measure of brightness, or a score for reading comfort. The figures come from one tested sample of our HD light engine and one ordinary LED sample.
See the measurements
| Measurement | Serious HD Light | Ordinary LED sample |
|---|---|---|
| Colour fidelity (Rf) | 98 | 83 |
| Gamut (Rg) | 101 | 97 |
| Deep red (CRI R9) | 92 | 40 |
| Colour temperature | 4,193 K | 7,648 K |
| Light at the test position | 4,873 lux | 2,412 lux |
| Sample | HD Wide Beam (S-1) | S-1, maker not recorded |
Each curve on the page is drawn to its own peak, so it shows the balance of colour within that light rather than how bright it is. The two samples were tested five years apart at different colour temperatures, so this is not a matched-brightness trial, and the figures describe these two samples only. TM-30 compares colour rendition against a reference at the same colour temperature. Below 4,000 K that reference is a blackbody radiator and above 5,000 K it is daylight; in between it is a blend of the two, so at 4,193 K it is roughly four parts blackbody to one part daylight. The score is not a percentage match to daylight, a measure of brightness, or a score for comfort. Deep red (R9) is a CRI index rather than a TM-30 one, and both reports give it alongside Rf and Rg.
Enjoy everything there is to see.
You choose your books, your pictures and your projects because they interest you. The light you use should help you enjoy the detail and the richness of colour in them.
That is what we design our lights for.
Find better light for the things you enjoy.
Daylight Wavelength Technology™ is in our High Definition range. The measurements on this page are from one tested sample of that light engine.