We’re all used to choosing our light bulbs by Watts (W). The Watt is a measurement of how much energy a bulb or luminaire uses. Informally, Watts have been used to describe how bright a bulbs is - a 50W bulb being chosen for task lighting and 15W for decorative lighting, etc.
In reality, incandescent lighting has always been hugely inefficient - with only 10% of the energy ever converting to light. Nevertheless, Watts have driven our choice of light bulb.
However, with new lighting technology (such as the filament LED bulbs sold here on Retro Bulbs) Watts is no longer the correct unit to look for when you’re truly considering the brightness of the LED bulb you want.
Instead, Lumens is the unit of choice. Lumens (lm) is best regarded as the 'total amount' of visible light emitted from a source. For lighting the higher the lumens value of the lamp, the more light it emits.
The good news is that Watts are still useful as a guide: as a casual rule, the higher the wattage of a LED Bulb, the higher the lumen - but this is not always the case.
Unbranded LED bulbs that use cheap, inefficient components can still produce poor quality, feeble light. In contrast, the more Lumens the lamp produces per Watt of energy used, the more efficient it is at producing light.. We’ve tested all our filament bulbs here at Retro Bulbs to ensure they meet the claims of the manufacturer.