Explaining Lumens

Q: I've seen you mention how many lumens per metre your strips have but I don't understand what this means exactly.

A: In simple terms, Lumens is an indication of how much light comes from a single bulb. The higher the amount of lumens, the greater the bulb's intensity. Unlike a conventional bulb, which deals with wattage, Lumens can be calculated to an almost fine art, allowing you to actually control how much light you want to scatter across any given room size and thus create the ideal living space. 

Because lumens vary, much like a light bulb that's available in varying wattages, we must think along similar terms and calculate in accordance to what a typical bulb puts out in order to light an entire room. 

The most commonly installed bulbs in homes are incandescent or LED, the latter of which is increasing in popularity as regular light bulbs become obsolete. If we look at the following, we can start to understand a little better about how to go about replacing:

Incandescent Bulb:

40W = 450 Lumens

60W = 800 Lumens

75W = 1100 Lumens

100W = 1600 Lumens

150W = 2600 Lumens

LED Bulb:

6W = 450 Lumens

10W = 800 Lumens

13W = 1100 Lumens

18W = 1600 Lumens

24W = 2600 Lumens

Some great examples of High Efficiency LED strip lighting includes our HL-LS2835HEB-96NW-IP00-24V 2300 Lumen per metre, HL-LS3528HB-240NW-IP00-24V 1500 Lumen per metre and HL-LS3528B-120NW-IP00-24V 840 Lumen per metre strips, to name but a few. The examples here are all 4000K Natural White but options are available in 2700K-3000K and 5000K-6000K, so the choices are endless. 

In summary, Lumens represent a true brightness of a given bulb and not the level of power needed to actually light it. Effectively, what happens is that in order to achieve similar or better results when replacing older bulbs, you have to calculate for a greater amount of lumens, so more bulbs would be required but with an overall greater efficiency. 

Note, however, that the above list of bulbs is not standard. Watts divided by lumen output equals efficiency and as such, we offer several efficiencies on our led strips and it's the customer/installer's job to decide what works for them in terms of watts per metre and lumen output; so how bright do you need your room and can its width and height accommodate your selection?

Be weary of any suppliers who do not state the lumen output and CRI of their strips, as it may bring into question doubt over their quality. At Hi-Line, we promise to provide accurate and detailed readings of all our LED strips, along with downloadable datasheets and Photometric measurements, so you can be guaranteed that we offer the highest quality strips currently available on the market.

If you get stuck, you can always visit Our Website and use the refine filter to narrow your options. For more information on how to navigate the website, take a look at our video guide here: