LEDs are light emitting diodes that are, earlier on, used only to indicate an action like the function starts or the function stops but now with the advancement of technology, the reasons of its use has been changed. Instead of indicating something with a blink of light, it has now turned into whole full fledge lights that are in no way less than the normal common use incandescent bulbs. Rather it must say that they are many times better than old traditional bulbs. They are energy efficient. They are environment friendly and easily available in markets. They are no more costly now as there is a great competition among the rates of the LED lights manufactured by a number of different companies.
Like all traditional light bulbs, LED lights also produce light by turning a given amount of electricity current into light. The difference is this that in LEDs, less amount of energy is required to turn the light on as compare to the old incandescent lights. In fact, old lights waste a large amount of power by converting it into heat that on its turn makes the reason of wastage of energy as well as money. On the other hand, LED lights use less energy and in return produce less amount of heat too. This makes it an environmental friendly product. According to U.S. Department of Energy, a typical Energy Star qualified LED light saves around 75% of power and it has at least 25 times longer life than an ordinary bulb.
The amount of light a bulb generates is measured by lumens and the amount of power a bulb uses to generate this light is measured by watts. As in LED light and incandescent bulbs, the method of turning power into light is different, so the consumption of power is different in both these methods. Lumens are directly related to human beings. It has nothing to do with the photons or raw radiating energy. They describe the amount of light or brightness of the light that can easily be perceived by human eye. If human beings feel that the light is bright, it means that the light is producing more lumens. For example an average 100 watt incandescent bulb produces 1,600 lumens.
On the other hand, the watt is the measurement of electric power. It is not related with something that can be measured by human beings with their senses. Common 200 watt bulb will produce more light as compare to a 100 watt bulb. The case is different with LED lights. They produce more lumens by using fewer watts. For example, LED lights use only 9 to 12 watt power and produce the standard number of lumens that are produced by incandescent lights. Philips has developed a replacement of 60 watt by producing a LED light that consumes only 12 watts and produces the light of a 60 watt bulb. GE has also developed a 40 watt replacement that uses only 9 watts. So it is advisable to look at the lumens when going to buy a LED light rather than look at watts.
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