Which reminds me, I actually did trip over a kerb while walking my daughter's friend home with her after dark about three weeks ago - due to the new lighting, you just can't see that it's there until you trip and are pitched onto the pavement into a spot that triggers a nearby household security light if anyone passes.

Weirdly, I was a bit pleased with this after the event because the resulting scrape on my knee was the first I'd had in decades and it made me feel about twelve again (stop laughing at the back!), but I doubt that a pensioner would find anything positive in a broken hip.

Agreed. I hate light pollution and a torch covers up the darker spots only when needed.

I absolutely loathe energy wastage, and lighting up streets like a blooming Christmas tree really bothers me.

Mind you, I'm just happy walking around in the dark to be fair. I never switch the lights on about the house if I'm just walking into a room to fetch something, so maybe I just have extra good eyes.

Yeah the street lights in small towns and villages are usually 20 - 30 feet between each light so big black areas between each part. With the old orange lights the light was able to spread now these LEDs don't diffuse the same amount of light.

http://luxreview.com/article/2015/07...-them-in-dark-

They've replaced a lot of sodium streetlights with LED ones round here. On the positive side, they're a good white colour (no blue tinge) and the light on the road and pavement is nice and even, not in pools as many people complain about. On the down side, there's no light pollution into people's gardens anymore so you can't see your way along the garden path, and it's harder to see when there's rain on the ground as you're only getting light from the closest streetlight whereas the old sodium ones used to overlap quite a bit which was useful in the rain due to the way light reflects off wet surfaces. Also, they're not as good for security cameras and dash cams. At low light levels, our eyes are more sensitive to white/blue light and less sensitive to orange light, so the LED ones look as bright as the sodium ones when actually they're dimmer, but cameras are equally sensitive to all colours of light so everything looks much dimmer on my security camera now.

Ha ha hah, same here. I'm nearly always first one into the office and often get good natured moans at this time of year for not turning on the lights when I unlock.

It's a bit more tricky in the evening but that's because after spending all day starting at a computer screen it takes my eyes a bit longer to adapt.

There is a technical reason, the cooler (more blue) LEDs are more energy efficient. That's because white LEDs are actually made up of a blue LED with a yellow phosphour in front of it to give an overall white light. The phosphours aren't 100% efficient at turning blue light into yellow light, so the light is more efficient if a greater proportion of it's output comes directly from the blue LED and not the phosphour.


Nope, warm white LEDs are 2700 - 3000K to match incandescent lighting, if it's 5000K it's going to look blue. 4000K looks white like moonlight (that's the colour they use round here).

If that is the case it is a shame because they are useless. They look bright when you look at them but the amount of light they give out is negligent. I currently have twelve 40 watt incandescent bulbs in my living room. If I have to change to LEDs I will probably need about a hundred to get the same amount of light. I did phone and ask our local council to switch the new street lights off because at least then we would expect it to be dark. The person I was speaking to thought I was joking.

It seems this is about the directional quality as much as anything so why can't you put a diffuser around the LED to spread the light?

I have a security/courtesy LED light on my garage which was too directional so I put some grease proof paper over the front and that works - at least its better anyway (with some loss of output but I'm ok with it)

That would be complicated for the council. Our council took 3 visits to change a street light. Even though the next lamp was burnt out as well. Said he'll need to come back another time as he said he only had one light in the van.

you sure they are incandescent ? i haven't sold one of those in about 3 years do you mean halogen

leds are getting better and brighter all the time. like for like id take LED ..i have 6 led lamps in my kiitchen (i have a 3 spot plate and a 3 spot bar ) and i seriously when they are on there is more than enough light (in fact i can usually get away with one of the fittings being off)

LED output is measured in LUMENS yes? so as long as you replace your old light with the same rating they should be exactly the same light output, everything else is subjective.

Same here and they work well but I went to Homebase in Altrincham last night and their new LED lights in their carpark are utterly useless, ridiculously dim.

Eloquently put and as a bonus, spot on to.

That's how powerful they should be in streets. The ones round here were showing a decent amount of light when they were first installed, but then the light got turned down not long after.

We have some LED and some of the orange ones where I live. The LED ones are pooling the light below them so there are dark spots, no dark spots with the orange ones. I like the orange ones.


I've found the complete opposite, I used to be able to see to put the key in the lock with the orange one but since they've replaced the one nearest me with LED I have to use my phone to see the lock.

It makes me think the problem is with the implementation not the technology. Our council actually removed half the old lamp posts yet the result is at least as good to my eyes. I'm also not a youngster - I view things through 50 year old eyes that have spent 30 years staring at computer screens.

I just tried an experiment and half way between the two lamp posts near my house I still have enough light (just) to read my Kindle even though it doesn't have a backlight. I have to tilt it back and forth but it's readable.