The 7 Best LED Tube Lights In India Reviews and Buying Guide

In this buying guide, we are going to discuss all the important factors that you must check for in an LED tube light. Going through them will help you in determining the brightness, compatibility, and power consumption of the LED light.

1. Lumens for Brightness

A lumen is a unit that is used to measure the intensity of brightness that the tube light can generate. The higher the lumen value is, the brighter the light is going to be.

For household usage, you can buy a tube light with a 1600 lumen capacity. If you are planning to buy it for the office or a larger space, you should buy a tube light with at least 2000 lumen brightness or even more, depending on the space.

2. Lumens per Watt

The correct way to measure the efficiency of a light is by checking how many lumens can the tube light produce per watt.

Tube lights used for domestic purpose should offer higher than 85 lumens per watt. For office use or for commercial purposes, the efficacy of the light must be higher than 100 lumens per watt. Higher efficiency means that the tube light is going to be more economical in a long run.

Let’s say that the total requirement for your home lighting is 15400 Lumens.

• If you buy a tube light with 110 lumens-per-watt, the power consumption will be only 140 watts.
• Similarly, if the light offers 100 lumens-per-watt, the power consumption will be 154 watts.
• For lights with 90 lumens-per-watt, the power consumption will be 171 watts.
• For lights with 80 lumens-per-watt, the power consumption will be 192 watts.
• For lights with 70 lumens-per-watt, the power consumption will be 220 watts. When you compare it to lighting with 110 lumens-per-watt, it needs almost 57% more power.

Here, you can notice the difference clearly. If you are selecting a lighting with 70 lumens-per-watt, the wattage consumption is increasing by up to 57% than that of the lighting with 110 lumens-per-watt.

3. LED Tube Light Color Temperature

LED tube lights are available in a wide range of color temperatures. This color temperature is measured as Kelvin (K). You must understand and consider what Kelvin color will suit the best according to your usage.

If Kelvin value of a tube light is low, the light will appear yellowish in color. The higher the Kelvin value of a tube light is, the bluer the light is going to be. While selecting a tube light, make sure that you are keeping the color temperatures consistency across a particular area.

Check below table to know the suitable color temperature based on your requirement.

Note:

While buying an LED tube light from a local company, you might notice that there is no mention of color temperature specifications in Kelvin. Instead, they simply label the product as “Office White” or “Natural White”. Whereas, if you are buying an LED light from a good brand, they always mention the actual specifications. This way, you can be sure of the color temperature that you want to select.

4. CRI (Color Rendering Index)

CRI is rated on a scale from 0 to 100. Only sunlight is classified as a source of light with 100 CRI. Under a light scoring CRI of 100, the colors look exactly the way they should appear.

Thus, the higher the CRI value is, the better the colors are going to appear. If the CRI is low, colors are going to look bad, or sometimes even worse.

For places like jewelry stores, art galleries, museums, or in places where objects are kept on display, you will require lighting with higher CRI. If you are buying a bulb for residential lightings like a kitchen or living room, there is no need to select one with a very high CRI.

Lighting with CRI below 70 makes colors appear washed out. In worst-case scenarios, they even change the color of the objects. For example, the lights that you see in highway fixtures are generally a very yellow light with a very low CRI. In such conditions, it is difficult to differentiate between the colors.

5. Understanding LED Tube Sizes

Tube lights are mostly sized with labels of a “T”, followed by a number such as T5. Here, “T” stands for tubular or tube i.e. the shape of the light bulb. The number represents the diameter of the bulb in eighths of an inch. Hence, T5 means the bulb has a diameter of 5/8”, T10 means 10/8”, and so on.

One pointer that you need to remember is the narrower the diameter of the bulb is, the efficient it is going to be. Thus, you will notice that the narrower tube lights are generally more expensive.

Earlier when incandescent tubes were used, T12 (1.5-inch diameter) used to be the standard size. However, these days, T8 ( 1 inch diameter) tubes are considered as the most popular choice. It is a standard size that is used for household as well as office lighting. When compared, T5 (0.625 inch) is a better and efficient choice of lighting. However, the price (current pricing) of these lights are not worth it for most of the household applications.

Note: Most of the tube lights use a similar bi-pin base. Thus, different sizes of tube lights will not require different fixtures. But it is going to be helpful if you check the milliampere (mA) requirement of the ballast first.

6. Ballast Types

All the incandescent and fluorescent bulbs need ballasts in order to operate. This is not the case with LED bulbs though. There are two different types of LED bulbs available in the market with respect to the ballasts:

• A plug-and-play LED (which you easily replace with the incandescent bulb)
• A ballast-bypass LED (where you need to a little bit of wiring work to remove the old ballast).

Are you wondering which one should you select? Well, performance-wise, both are equally good. Hence, the decision boils down to the overall price. Here are some pointers that you can consider:

While some T8 plug-and-play (also referred to as direct replace) LEDs work only with magnetic ballasts, others work with electronic ballasts only. Thus, make sure that you check it in the package instructions.

7. Lifespan

You can check the expected lifespan of the tube light on its box before buying it. Ideally, an LED tube light is expected to work for at least 30,000 hours. If used on a regular basis.

8. Compatible with Smart Switches

In the era of smart houses, compatibility with smart switches can turn out to be an important aspect to look for. In smart houses, smart switches are one of the primary requirements. While buying an LED tube light, you should make sure that the light is compatible with the smart switches.

9. Expense in the Long Run

In traditional bulbs, there is a lot of energy wastage while turning energy into heat. This is where LED lights are helpful in preventing wastage and saving money. When you buy an LED tube light, you might feel that the upfront cost is more than the amount you pay for traditional bulbs. But the lifetime cost of an LED light is much lower than that of traditional bulbs.

10. Dimmable LEDs

For an appropriate atmosphere, you will need the correct amount of light. In most of the cases, dimmers work by removing the measure of power that is sent to the knobs. Thus, lesser power is drawn which dimmers the globule.

If you want to use LED lights with a dimmer, you will have to consider two options. Firstly, you can look for an LED tube light that is compatible with any traditional dimmer. Secondly, you can entirely change the previous switching system and replace it with an LED compatible dimmer switch.

11. Price

You can buy an LED tube light within a price range of Rs. 300 to Rs. 600. The price might vary depending on the watts.

12. Warranty

You should buy an LED light from a trusted brand that offers a warranty of 1 to 2 years. Buying them from a reliable brand is helpful in the long run.

Yes, these lights are good for reading. The specialty of LED lights is they don’t cause any harm to your eyes while you are reading or doing any other activity that requires concentration. However, we suggest you to not look or glare directly to the LED light as it might cause you some discomfort for a while.

No, LED tube lights don’t require a conventional choke that is used for fluorescent tube lights. The LED tube lights are actually driven using LED drivers. These drivers require a constant voltage supply.

LED tube lights are 30% more efficient than fluorescent tube lights. Also, LED tube lights are noticeably brighter and provide better light quality comparatively. They are also helpful in saving a lot of energy. Unlike ordinary tube lights, LED lights don’t flicker. Hence, considering all these factors, LED lights are better than fluorescent lights.

LED lights offer a longer lifespan than ordinary fluorescent lights. Generally, the price of fluorescent bulbs is lesser than the LED tubes.
However, LED tubes can last for an average time of 50,000 hours i.e. 15-16 years whereas fluorescent bulbs can last for an average of 25,000 hours i.e. 7-8 years.