What Does CRI Mean and How does it Impact LED Lighting?

Did you know that all light isn’t created equal?

Some light renders color better than others. If you’ve ever had trouble telling the difference between black and navy clothes in your closet, it could be that your lighting source has very low CRI.

Color Rendering Index (CRI), is the measurement of how colors look under a light source compared with actual sunlight. The index is measured from 0-100, a perfect 100 indicating that colors under the light source appear the same as they would in natural light.

CRI is also an important measurement for wholesale lighting suppliers. It’s used to discern naturalness, hue discrimination, vividness, and color naming accuracy.

According to experts, “high CRI is generally a desirable characteristic (although of course, it depends on the required application). If your goal is to illuminate a scene such that the colors all reveal as they would naturally (typically an important requirement in the retail merchandising industry for example) then you want a high CRI.”

Did you know…?

• Lights with a CRI measured greater than 80 are considered to be more than acceptable for most applications
• Lights with a CRI that is measured greater than 90 are generally considered “High CRI” lights
• High CRI LED lighting uses a fraction of the energy used in traditional lighting, while still rendering beautiful, vibrant colors
• California’s Title 24 initiative provides financial incentives for the installation of efficient high CRI lighting

Also Consider CCT & Foot-Candle When Looking for High Quality LED Lighting

Along with CRI, there are two other measures of a high or low quality light you should be familiar with. CCT stands for Correlated Color Temperature (known as Color Temperature for many lights), and a Foot-Candle is a measurement that describes the total amount of light hitting your target area.

A foot-candle is a measurement that describes the amount of light reaching a specified surface area as opposed to the total amount of light coming from a source. From a user’s perspective, foot-candle is a much more important measurement, because a certain amount of light is always lost to light absorption, reflection, and/or dissipation.

Because lighting is so important for our ability to accomplish tasks in the workplace or at home, wholesale lighting suppliers use foot candles to measure the illuminance, or the amount of light that is hitting a surface. This allows architects, contractors, and builders to understand the type of lights they’ll need to install in a certain type of space for a specific application.

Trust RP Lighting + Fans as Your Preferred Wholesale Lighting Supplier

At RP Lighting, we have quality products value-priced to meet your lighting upgrade needs. We also have knowledgeable associates who can assist you in choosing the appropriate products for your specific application. Check out our 2019 product catalog for more information! Click the link on our homepage to download the newest catalog.