seeker_of_no_light I am very sorry. This is the flicker of the new Paulmann leds. Dont buy them. They were cheap, but that is not what i wanted.
Flicker Free LED Lightning it's the most important thing! Which one to buy?
Flicker of my hue light bulbs(color and white). 2712 nits spikes. 100% brightness.
My best led is from 2015. I only have one of it(Osram). Even the "bad" IKEA bulb from 2015 is better than anything new i have in my flat. Tested all of my light bulbs and lightings. Some of the old LEDs are ok, all new ones are super-flickery. 
No wonder my eyes are hurting all the time.
I will test green&co at the weekend, didnt return them until now.
a month later
Hi everyone! I'm new here, but have been bothered by flicker for many years. I've finally had enough and decided to do something about it.
Thanks to @hayder1983 I became aware of the Opple Light Master and created a resource to help everyone find genuinely flicker-free light bulbs (and other products in the future). Have a look here: www.flickeralliance.org
What really surprised me is that one of the best-performing light bulbs I've found so far is also one of the cheapest. And it's from IKEA. They released this new series of light bulbs about a year ago and most (but not all) of them in the product line are genuinely flicker-free. Check out their press release here.
I would love to hear your feedback, what I can do to improve the site, what other products would be useful for you to have tested, etc.
Best,
Thomas
beacon I have used Ikea bulbs and did not like the color spectrum. Not terrible, but not good either,
beacon thanks for the resource and the effort you put into it! Right now I'm fine with my light, but I'll make sure to check out some of the bulbs you already tested.
9 months later
- Edited
hayder1983 Same with me. Cannot use the newer LED's
Like you, halogen globes are fine for me.
I found "flicker free" LED's are just as bad as non flicker free for me. The accuracy of the color temperature is far more important.
I would agree with that. I remember the old cheap CCFLs that didn't have much in terms of phosphor.. the bad ones, things looked almost black and white.
22 days later
- Edited
I use light bulbs from Dollarama. There is one type from Luminous LED that is flicker free for me. https://www.dollarama.com/en-CA/p-a19-60w-led-day-light-bulb/3065795 (Confirmed with 240fps slow motion of my iPhone). In general Luminous LED regular size bulbs have been flicker free for me, while LED Life does flicker.
I also use some light fixtures from Philips with the "Flicker-Free" moniker and they're flicker free for me. They're PAR16 bulbs from Philips. https://www.amazon.ca/Philips-470021-PAR16-Glass-Bright/dp/B072Q3RW3N/ref=sr_1_1?crid=OZB5XO49WGCA&keywords=philips+par16&qid=1697571811&sprefix=philips+par1%2Caps%2C78&sr=8-1
Also confirmed to be flicker-free with 240fps slow motion using my iPhone.
Philips "Flicker-Free" line has been pretty good to me. I have purchased "Flicker-Free" from other manufacturers and they were not flicker free for me.
I just want to add that not all Philips Hue line light bulbs are flicker free. The lower lumens ones were flicker free for me, but the higher lumen ones do flicker. I ended up returning them since even if they go up to say 1600 lumen and can change color they're useless to me if they flicker. They don't advertise the Philips Hue line to be flicker free either, for example this one, https://www.amazon.ca/Philips-Hue-Colour-Ambiance-Medium/dp/B09KZCNRSL/ref=sr_1_3?crid=174Q6W68XUDSO&keywords=philips+hue+1600&qid=1697639187&sprefix=philips+hue+1600%2Caps%2C67&sr=8-3
Nowhere does it claim it's flicker free or that it's "EyeComfort". But the one I linked should be basically their most expensive and most premium light bulb. Both High Lumen and can change colors. Unfortunately it flickers. Well, it flickers under some settings at least. When I changed them to color (then it defaults to a low brightness value) they were okay I believe, but when set them to their highest brightness they were flickering for me.
4 months later
FYI @Jen told me about the 40w Sylvania bulbs (these are also on the Flicker Aliance site). They have amazingly low flicker as measured with my Thorlabs PDA100A2. The flicker is 0.0797%, You can buy them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019KKEV9G
Here's the waveform. It looks a little jagged but keep in mind this is zoomed 10x and the detector is very close to the bulb.
I've bought a few more bulbs (some Amazon Basics, a Waveform, and some Ikea Solhetta bulbs). I'll report back if I find anything good.
GregAtkinson curious to hear what the best ones are. I have heard the maxlite ones are also good?
It bothers me that no flicker testing site is explicitly testing the bulbs during the warm-up phase. If you are reacting to flicker instantly, even if it's just a fraction of a second, a light that takes a while to reduce its initial flicker is a no-go. Even if the flicker becomes low later on, the bulb would trigger the symptoms every time it is turned on. Granted it is more difficult to test for initial flicker, but IMO it's absolutely mandatory.
I would not have thought this at first, but over time it became clear to me that if a flickering light source causes long-lasting symptoms "within a short time", it actually can take only a fraction of a second. A quick glance can be all that's required. After looking away or turning the light off it would take another few seconds for the symptoms to fully appear. I urge everyone to consider this.
KM I would not have thought this at first, but over time it became clear to me that if a flickering light source causes long-lasting symptoms "within a short time", it actually can take only a fraction of a second
I had a pretty bad headache for hours yesterday, I think caused by testing a flickering bulb for roughly one minute. So short exposures can cause big problems for me as well.
With the next two screen shots, I got all my equipment set up and then turned on the light so I could see the warm-up period. For these two bulbs I didn't see anything odd during that period.
- Edited
Here's an Amazon Basics that has very low flicker. I have not tried the bulb myself. It looks way worse than the Sylvania bulb a few posts above, but the Sylvania bulb has amazingly-low flicker.
And here's that Maxlite bulb that also has very low flicker. These bulbs have been working well for me for a long time. It's unclear to me which one would be better for my eyes, but in reality they're both probably fine.
In general, my theory is that thin, smooth, and not vertical/not a high slope lines on a waveform are generally non-headache-inducing (as long as the flicker is 5% or below). Note the Y axis for this screen shot of an incandescent bulb is +-500mv, which is 10x the Y axis for the previous screen shots.
GregAtkinson FYI @Jen told me about the 40w Sylvania bulbs
Please beware - these 40W Sylvania bulbs do cause brain injury for me - just slower than most other LEDs currently sold. We've put them in the common hallways of our apartment building since there isn't a better option, but I made myself sick trying to use them inside my apartment too. I'm back to using incandescents at home. You can see my health and flicker meter testing for these and other bulbs here: https://www.flickersense.org/testing-leds-and-screens
Here's an Amazon Basics 100w 2700k. Not very good. Also, note that the Y axis is twice what the other LED bulbs are. I was hoping for better based on how the 75w daylight one did. Also, to @KM's point, the waveform was even worse when it first lit up, but I didn't grab the screen shot quick enough.
I haven't done it before, but perhaps by increasing the waveform buffer value from 64 to a much higher value, the input could be recorded (buffered) for several minutes? That way we could go back to when we turned the bulb on. Just an idea.
KM perhaps by increasing the waveform buffer value from 64 to a much higher value, the input could be recorded (buffered) for several minutes?
That would work. I don't know how to increase the buffer size, but with Picoscope 7 it seems to capture one waveform per second, so you'd get a minute's worth of waveforms.