If your home has high ceilings, first off, congratulations on your palace. Second, you might need some extra oomph in your light bulbs since they’re up so high. Thing is, if you’re looking for BR30-shaped LED floodlights, most options in the lighting aisle won’t come much brighter than 700 lumens — bright enough for normal use, but probably dimmer than what you’re looking for.
Cree’s new floodlight was designed with high ceilings in mind.
Chris Monroe/CNETThat’s where Cree’s newest LED light bulb comes in. At an asking price of $11 per bulb, it’s a 100W replacement floodlight that puts out 1,500 lumens, which is just about as bright as BR30-shaped bulbs get.
Like most LEDs, it’s efficient, too, with an actual power draw of just 16.5W. Use it to replace a 100W incandescent floodlight that you use for an average of three hours a day, and you’ll knock about $10 off of your yearly power bill. In other words, it’ll pay for itself in just over a year of use.
After that, it’ll keep saving you money for decades thanks to the 22.8-year lifespan. Cree backs that up with an industry-leading 10-year warranty.
From the looks of it, Cree got just about everything right with this bulb. Not only is it bright and efficient, but it also dims exceedingly well, showing absolutely no visible flicker with any of the switches I used in testing.
