"Cool" lightbulbs

My home office tends to get warm during the day. Unfortunately, working in the dark won’t work for me. Does anyone know of any lightbulbs that don’t produce a ton of heat? Versus getting lamps?

Philips 420224 10-Watt L-Prize Award Winning 60-Watt LED Light Bulb

Unfortunately, the market did its work and shut down this product since it was ‘too expensive” (and too effective for its own good as a price-fetching profit vector🙄): Philips since abandoned their own research and no longer offer any bulb with comparable spectral fidelity (light/color quality), but stock may linger if you hunt. Is capitalism the best or what?

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Well any LED light is going to be far cooler per lumen than any other option. If you get as 15W bulb that is the lumen equivalent of a 100W incandescent, then it will be outputting 15W into the room instead of 100W the old incandescent lamp would have.

This may be helpful: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-led-desk-lamp/

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@PHolder is correct that LEDs in general create orders of magnitude less heat than incadescents; in terms of the best available quality while you’re at it, last time I researched it a few months ago I wound up on these (it was research for curiosity’s sake; I haven’t bought any):

https://www.waveformlighting.com/full-spectrum-led-lighting

The spectral coverage on these is better than the Philips ones’ was, BTW (no idea how well they’re selling, though a 1/3rd-to-1/2-off sale worries me for their market longevity/viability.)

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I already have LED bulbs in the fixture in question.

In all honesty, I think it might just be the size of the room. It’s the smallest room, which is why I use it as an office. Even with the ceiling fan and AC on, with the lights on it just doesn’t get that cool in here.

I would think you, plus computer, monitor etc. are going to produce way more heat than any LED will.

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It sounds like you have an issue with your AC. LED bulbs give off relatively little heat, and should not overpower the combined cooling effects of air conditioning and a fan. The recessed lights in my office ceiling have LED bulbs and they are cool enough to touch even after running for hours.
I would start by ensuring that your AC is sufficiently cooling the air. Check the air temperature at the return vent (where air is returned from the house into the cooling unit), then check the air temperature at the supply vents (where cooled air flows back into the house). You can do this by taping a small thermometer to the vent. The temperature difference should be 17-20 degrees Fahrenheit. While you’re measuring the temperature at the supply vents also take note of how much air is blowing out; perhaps your overheated office space is not getting enough air.
Good luck!

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That’s what I’m thinking. I think the small size of the room is the issue. The rest of the floor works fine, AC wise. Its just this little room. I do know that if I turn the lights off, it does feel cooler in here.

Possibly air flow issues, they do happen in smaller rooms. Sometimes you crack a door and it feels a lot cooler because the airflow actually has somewhere to go. Easy way to find out is if you have a hard time keeping a door still when cracked open it will either try to close constantly or open depending on which direction has the most air flow.

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A very outside possibility, but some LED bulbs do give off quite a bit of heat from the package of electronics in the base. I just checked three Bell brand 9 watt bulbs that have been on for an hour or so, and while the glass envelope is only warm, the base of each is hot enough that it would probably burn me if I kept holding it there. It’s a very small heat source, but it’s possible that you can feel the effect in a small room, especially if the lights are relatively close to you.

I doubt you’re going to find any light source without some stray heat, so improving the AC may be the way forward.

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Oh, I know I won’t find a light source without heat. Was just wondering if anyone knew of LED lightbulbs that produced less heat. I’ll figure something out.

When bulbs are given a wattage rating, that is for input wattage. One can presume that a fair amount of the input wattage is converted to heat, this is necessary because of physics. Still a bulb with a lower wattage, like LED, is going to produce less heat per lumen, no matter what other conditions exist.

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A more drastic option is something like a Sun Tunnel… basically a way to get light from the outside into the room using total internal reflection. Models exist with a light in the tunnel to replace the sun when it is unavailable. That, of course, requires some construction on the home, which is probably a far more drastic solution to your problem than you originally envisioned :wink:

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If I wanted outside light, I could just open the blinds on the windows behind me. But then the sun glare would cause an issue on the monitor.