Claimed CCT ratings of bulbs

Trango

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Hello,
Today I bought a pair of Philips WhiteVision bulbs, now everywhere I looked till now they were stated as "4300K", while the ones I bough are state as "up to 3700K". Checked on Philips site and is the same (up to 3700K). Anyone know if they reduced the color temperature or was the original 4300K statement exaggerated and they corrected it?

Edit: don't get me wrong, they are still whiter than the standard bulb, just curious about the change
 
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Alaric Darconville

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Stillwater, America
Hello,
Today I bought a pair of Philips WhiteVision bulbs, now everywhere I looked till now they were stated as "4300K", while the ones I bough are state as "up to 3700K". Checked on Philips site and is the same (up to 3700K). Anyone know if they reduced the color temperature or was the original 4300K statement exaggerated and they corrected it?
The higher CCT of those "WhiteVision" bulbs is due to the tinting on the envelope, stripping red/orange/yellow light, leaving green/blue/indigo/violet light behind. It's still white, but is much more heavily skewed toward blue. They may have reduced that tinting somewhat, or have a variation compared to what sells in other areas (Philips UK still says 4300K).

Edit: don't get me wrong, they are still whiter than the standard bulb, just curious about the change
They're not whiter than a standard bulb. White light is white, it just tends less toward yellow than a standard bulb would. Your best bet is to get bulbs that do not tint the envelope to where the main portion of the beam is affected. The human optical system does not work well with blue light.
 

Alaric Darconville

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Well not really -- https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/12972WHVSM/whitevision-car-headlight-bulb -- "Maximum white light with a colour temperature of 3700 Kelvin"

I also checked with the shop, I they say that still a few months ago they (the bulbs) had 4300K on the box, just curious why this change.

https://www.philips.co.uk/c-m-au/car-lights/whitevision
...the increased brightness with up to 4300 K makes WhiteVision...

Again, they may have changed the depth of the tint on the envelope, or they do differing tints across the product line. A too-heavy tint to try to achieve 4300 K CCT with the remaining light means an underperforming bulb. Tint across the entire bulb envelope to achieve a CCT higher than what a high-performance filament actually emits means an underperforming bulb.

The WhiteVision is an underperforming bulb.
 
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-Virgil-

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Mar 26, 2004
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Hello, Today I bought a pair of Philips WhiteVision bulbs

What was your intent? No reason to avoid Philips bulbs, but the ones to get are their Xtreme Vision -- that way you get much better seeing for driving at night, compared to the "WhiteVision" bulbs.

As for the CCT numbers: it doesn't really matter, all these claims for this or that Kelvin temperature from bulbs with this or that blue/violet tint on the glass is a bunch of baloney. It's a marketing exercise, is all.
 

markr6

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Yeah I'm OK with any of the halogens really. I put a set of Sylvania XtraVision bulbs in my wife's car. 3200K and I would say that is spot on. They lasted almost exactly 1 year...burning out within 1 week of each other.

This time around I went with the Basic to be cheap if that's all they're going to last. OTOH my 13-year-old Jeep has the original bulbs as far as I know. I've owned it for 9 years and never changed a bulb. Pretty oldschool CCT though and I'd like to bump it up a little when the time comes. Or at least get better performance like Virgil said; that's the main thing.
 

-Virgil-

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Yeah I'm OK with any of the halogens really. I put a set of Sylvania XtraVision bulbs in my wife's car. 3200K and I would say that is spot on. They lasted almost exactly 1 year...burning out within 1 week of each other. This time around I went with the Basic to be cheap if that's all they're going to last.

Ooh, that's not a good cost/benefit analysis. You're much more likely to crash at night because you can't see well enough. Better bulbs have shorter lives, but they make a really large difference in how well you can see at night, see this thread.

OTOH my 13-year-old Jeep has the original bulbs as far as I know. I've owned it for 9 years and never changed a bulb.

...which means these original bulbs have lost a lot of their original intensity. "When the time comes" was years ago.

Headlight bulbs, even good ones twice a year, are cheap. Crashes are expensive.
 
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