>If you’re lucky, the LED will have a CRI of 90 or higher
EU has banned incandescent lights years ago and the situation for LED buyers is much different here. My local drug store chain (Rossmann in Germany) sells 1000lm E27 bulbs under their own Rubin brand with CRI>97 for 4.99€. No flickering and available as 2700K or 4000K. My Opple Light Master 3 even reads CRI 100. So for me right now, it's just going to the drug store and buying a bulb, like before the ban.
I read a lot of the other comments here before yours and they all seemed to describe a reality very different from my own experience. Then I saw yours and it suddenly makes sense. I am also in the Europe, most other commenters seem to be from the US.
Here I find it is very easy to find good LED bulbs with the strength and color profile of my choice and I have used LED in all rooms of my house for the last 10+ years without any failing so far.
> I am also in the Europe, most other commenters seem to be from the US.
You're falling for the "Europe is better than the US, of course" mindset. What you are actually seeing are partisans spinning a narrative to fit their ideology, not an accurate description of reality.
We have really high CRI bulbs here, too, and they're inexpensive. I can go down to the home store and buy them by the dozen. I'll bet you money that bulbs in the US and bulbs in Europe are mostly manufactured in the same place...
Greater than 95 or including 95? Most of the Philips brand dimmable LEDs have a CRI of 95. The eco smart is crap at 80 and that’s to be excepted from the cheap house brand.
The in ceiling lights I bought to replace a bottom dollar Amazon light was are 94 and I’m pretty sure I bought the cheapest I could that would change temp to match my existing ones.
Your friend has shared a link to a Home Depot product they think you would be interested in seeing.
Home Depot's "Ecosmart" store brand, claims 95 CRI, and has admirable dimming performance even on the cheapo not-designed-for-LED dimmer I have on the fixture. And it has a more even and omnidirectional pattern of illumination than typical LED bulbs.
I'm in the US and every single LED bulb I've ever bought - some ten years old - still work fine.
I also don't buy the shitty cheap bulbs. I buy mostly Cree's high CRI dimmable bulbs, Phillips high CRI dimmable, or GE high-CRI bulbs if I can't find the Crees (Home Depot stopped carrying them in-store.)
The problem is that both the author and a ton of people in this discussion buy shitty, cheap, no-name bulbs and then they're shocked when they flicker, don't dim well, and fail often.
This whole discussion is a bunch of angry old men yelling at clouds because the guvmint won't allow them to waste 4x as much electricity to light their home.
Even high-CRI bulbs aren't a "perfect" replacement for an incandescent, but the energy savings, especially if you're in an area where you use air conditioning and thus the heat of an incandescent bulb equals more energy usage for cooling, is worth the small sacrifice.
I'm not sure if this is the norm in Europe, the only chain store I know that sells high CRI (>90) bulbs is IKEA. If I go to my local home store or supermarket, they are all junk Chinese bulbs that I doubt are really even 80 CRI.
CRI isn't even something you can filter by on their online catalogues. At least the new EU energy labeling let's you see what the specs are.
As much as I like EU, the new bulbs are flickery shit.
I bought a stockpile of 150W incandescent bulbs marked as 'shock resistant' (they are definitely not) and they give decent light.
The 100W LEDs give more like 50W and flicker too..
EU has banned incandescent lights years ago and the situation for LED buyers is much different here. My local drug store chain (Rossmann in Germany) sells 1000lm E27 bulbs under their own Rubin brand with CRI>97 for 4.99€. No flickering and available as 2700K or 4000K. My Opple Light Master 3 even reads CRI 100. So for me right now, it's just going to the drug store and buying a bulb, like before the ban.