Welcome to The Lamp Guide!

Confused over the many odd light bulb choices available on the market today?

No clue what type of lamp to choose? 

The Lamp Guide will give you reliable information on the lighting technologies and lightbulb models available for the home market, as well as lumen tables for different lightbulbs for easy overview.

The Lamp Guide is a free and independent lighting information service for the general public. It is not affiliated with or sponsored by any company, organisation or agency. 

The Lamp Guide's mission is to provide accurate and well researched information in order to balance and complement the often inaccurate, confusing or insufficient information on lamp labels and government agency sites. 

The Lamp Guide is primarily based on and intended for the EU home market but some of the information may be useful globally. 

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Quick Lighting Technologies Overview

There are currently 4 major lighting technologies developed for the home market, plus 1 minor:

1. Incandescent
2. Tungsten halogen (= improved incandescent) 
3. Compact fluorescent (CFL) 
4. Light emitting diod (LED) 
5. Electron stimulated luminescence (ESL) - new and still marginal technology only available in the US as a low lumen reflector lamp, so details not included in this overview or elsewhere on this site. 

SPD charts: housecraft.ca, www.lamptech.co.uk • Photos: www.prweb.com
Lamp images: clasohlson.se, lysman.se 

For more details on the 4 different lighting technologies, see:

a. Incandescent Light Info
b. Halogen Light Info
c. CFL Light Info
d. LED Light Info

Sources: Lamp catalogues, Swedish & German consumer tests, 20 000 hour incandescent bulb 
Power Factor graphs: Power Factor • Photos: © Kevan Shaw  

For explanations on lighting terms, see Lighting Basics

For references and more details on health risks, see Light & Health

Also see our Facebook page and interact to ask questions: The Lamp Guide