I'm done with Cool White!

RetroTechie

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Oct 11, 2013
Messages
1,007
Location
Hengelo, NL
Over the years, my preferred range in LED tints has hovered around the warmish side of neutral (around 3000-4000K color temperature). Both flashlights and general purpose lighting. But as far as flashlights go, they've been lagging behind that preference. Mostly because lights didn't come in NW, or came in NW where I had preferred WW.

Recently bought another Convoy S2+ (also NW), together with orange peel reflector and some warm white LEDs. The latter meant to repair another light whose LED got damaged during a re-assembly mishap.

That repair was done, and now I have a brass light (originally from CNQG) with beautiful warm light coming from it. Immediately upon completion, first thought was: "Oh I like this sooo much!". :twothumbs Which made me mod that newly bought S2+ as well. Reflector smooth -> orange peel, LED neutral -> warm white (around 3000-3200K color temperature). It's almost too warm tint (for EDC uses), but still very happy with result.

So... I'm done with Cool White. Serious! :xyxgun: Even for the smaller AAA lights. What I have in CW can stay - until I get a good replacement. If I ever buy a light again with a CW emitter, it'll be solely for the purpose of modding with a NW or WW LED asap after arrival.

Seems I'm not alone, and manufacturers have -slowly- been picking up on this trend. Something else I noticed: in general lighting (AC powered bulbs, fluorescent & their LED based replacements) it's either some 'daylight' tint (think factory ceiling CW), or warm white. Nothing in between - no neutral white LED bulbs to be found anywhere. :duh2::thinking:

Your thoughts?
 

trailhunter

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 2, 2014
Messages
1,095
I like CW for mountain bike riding, neutral white didnt provide the details I needed. Neutral white for the casual flashlight use.
 

MAD777

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 31, 2015
Messages
4,443
Location
White Mountains, NH, USA
I find that I can see details and depth outdoors much better with warm tint. Cool tints make everything appear blueish-grey an flat.
 

eh4

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Oct 18, 2011
Messages
1,999
I can't help but think that cool white efficiency comes down to marketing, they grabbed the notion of peak retinal response and ran with it, without looking deeper into visual perception.
Sure the glare is brighter...
 

FRITZHID

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jun 20, 2011
Messages
2,500
Location
Icelandic wastelands of Monico, WI
I've modded every modable light I own to either n219 4000k or 351D 4000k, I can't stand cw light. The 219 lights have mostly been dedomed so they are closer to 3500k now.
CW light gives me a headache, and the color rendering just... sucks. My 2¢
 

LetThereBeLight!

Enlightened
Joined
Feb 26, 2014
Messages
635
Maybe I'm weird (actually, I qualify by virtue of being a flashaholic, haha) but here's my take.

I believe the nighttime exists for a reason. I believe things at night are not supposed to look like the way they do when the sun is out.

Am I missing something?
 

Thetasigma

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 10, 2015
Messages
1,197
Location
Michigan, USA
I no longer own a light with anything colder than 5000K which is borderline blue to my eyes at night. My favorites of late have been 3500K R9080 219Bs, a gorgeous warm light with beautiful colors.
 

Cosmodragoon

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jun 7, 2018
Messages
79
Good for you! Cool white had kept me away from modern LED flashlights since their introduction back in the day. A few months back, I decided to join the community here and start doing some research. I eventually found a bunch of excellent flashlights with warm or neutral tints that I can run on Eneloops far into the future. Now I'm pleased as punch!

Here are few notable winners for me:

- The Jaxman M2 at 4000K effectively retired my big ol' incandescent Maglites. I know big lumens are all the rage but this provides enough light for my outdoor activities on a pair of AA cells.

- The TerraLux Lightstar 80 has proven to be my favorite around-the-house and basic project flashlight. It feels great in hand to the point of actively trying to not play with it. The yellow-beige light it shines is at just the right level for most anything I want from it.

- The Massdrop Brass AAA rides easily in my shirt pocket despite the weight. It is the prettiest light I own with its Nichia 219B and the mode spacing is perfect for my needs. My dream light would replicate the maximum output picture of this light for extended periods, maybe on 2xAA or 2xAAA.

Speaking of "dream lights", I'd love to see a Lightstar 80 reworked for a Nichia 219B. I have no experience modding flashlights though and I'm not sure learning is in my immediate future.
 

idleprocess

Flashaholic
Joined
Feb 29, 2004
Messages
7,197
Location
decamped
Prefer neutral tints, but still cycle a few cool white keepers around nonetheless. Not doing color separations, auto paint matching, or anything that truly mandates high color accuracy, so it's just preference. We're long removed from the days of the Luxeon Lottery and ~65 CRI being really good, so modern 6500K isn't as bad as it once was.
 

novice

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 19, 2006
Messages
1,033
Prefer neutral tints, but still cycle a few cool white keepers around nonetheless.

This is pretty much where I am at, also. I have some very "keepable" lights (to me) that are CW, but I won't be buying any more CW lights that I am not planning on having modded. Wish I was skilled at doing this sort of thing myself, but I am happy to have been a patron to some of the skilled CPF'ers that do this sort of thing well.
 

RetroTechie

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Oct 11, 2013
Messages
1,007
Location
Hengelo, NL
I believe the nighttime exists for a reason. I believe things at night are not supposed to look like the way they do when the sun is out.
Given that for many 1000s of years, night-time activity for humans involved candles, burning rags or lumps of fat on a stick :candle: or similar crap (and incandescents for well over a century), perhaps dark-adjusted eyesight works well with fire-like light. Not saying it does, but wouldn't surprise me.

Not to mention sleeping vs. awake changes in our biochemistry, which (among many things) may affect eyesight as well. I happen to be a night owl, maybe that plays into my preference for warm(er) tints. Who knows...
 

Lumen83

Enlightened
Joined
Sep 21, 2017
Messages
551
Am I missing something?

Possibly. The importance of color vision for picking up details particularly when they are moving or you are moving. If the tint is cool enough to wash out the color, you are not picking up on details as efficiently. Bluer tints will make you feel more awake though. More alert, but less capable of picking up on details and reacting to the environment. How much of this is practically measurable vs. theory? I don't know. But, from my experience with night hiking and running, the difference is very signifficant.
 

staticx57

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Dec 2, 2011
Messages
1,749
Location
NJ
So one of these is cool white...
ZCA1WQx.jpg


PkmFNtn.jpg
 

ChrisGarrett

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Feb 2, 2012
Messages
5,725
Location
Miami, Florida
If I need to see something in the dark, I couldn't care less what the tint is, or the beam pattern/profile. The differences are insignificant to my need at hand.

When National Geographic asks me to travel on down to the Amazon region and catalog Poison Arrow Frogs, or I take up nighttime portrait painting, then maybe those above things will matter.

Chris
 

AZPops

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 9, 2011
Messages
1,640
I work nights (outdoors for most of the night, no office), so for my use, I found cool white works best! I have a emitter swapped Rotary with a 219 Nachia but, since I'm edc'ing my Rotary during the daylight hours. I just carry the 250, as it's already in it's holster. Although warm tints are nice, IMO, it doesn't have the lux (?) I need, or want while working.

I guess what I'm saying is, there is a use, or purpose for different tints.

Pops
 
Last edited:

slumber

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Sep 22, 2011
Messages
1,795
Location
The Alamo
I use and enjoy both. I find cool white contrasts better against ambient lighting. Indoors or in really dark environments I prefer a warmer tint.

What's the color temperature of moon light? That's been a source of night time lighting for longer than fire and candles. I know dark adapted vision doesn't see color very well.
 

idleprocess

Flashaholic
Joined
Feb 29, 2004
Messages
7,197
Location
decamped
I like CW for mountain bike riding, neutral white didnt provide the details I needed. Neutral white for the casual flashlight use.
I find that I can see details and depth outdoors much better with warm tint. Cool tints make everything appear blueish-grey an flat.

Some contrasting experiences here. Our sense of sight uses surprisingly mediocre eyes to gather raw data that's transformed by the finest known image processor in nature - the human brain - to form the images we perceive. Perception is so much more than the realtime signals from the optic nerves - a combination of working memory of what's been scanned the last few seconds and immense volumes of fill-in-the-blank borne from experience fill in a lot of the picture. This suggests to me that within certain bounds of color accuracy, an individual can condition themselves to a set of cues that may not work for another individual under the same conditions.

Having suffered Angry Nichia Blue and Luxeon Lottery phenomena of >10 years ago, I feel I can speak with some confidence than today's cool white tints are better than they were back then.

I can't help but think that cool white efficiency comes down to marketing, they grabbed the notion of peak retinal response and ran with it, without looking deeper into visual perception.
Sure the glare is brighter...
Within the constraints of how the lumen is defined and with some attention to color accuracy, cooler tints push more lumens per watt than warmer tints simply as a reality of how white LEDs work - converting the blue light from the LED die to lower frequencies invokes unavoidable losses.

On the perception front, a given number of lumens, cd, or lux of cool white is broadly perceived to be brighter than the same value of warm white.

I believe things at night are not supposed to look like the way they do when the sun is out.
Within the realm of flashlights, this is generally true. Noon sunlight at the equator during the solstice on a cloudless day is something like 6000K. Because of context - sunlight so bright as to force the pupils to snap nearly shut - this is not perceived the same as a 6000K flashlight in the dark where any reasonable number of lumens, cd, or lux of handheld light source won't do the same for your pupils as the sun - there's still very likely darkness at the periphery of your vision even after many minutes of constant exposure.

Given that for many 1000s of years, night-time activity for humans involved candles, burning rags or lumps of fat on a stick :candle: or similar crap (and incandescents for well over a century), perhaps dark-adjusted eyesight works well with fire-like light. Not saying it does, but wouldn't surprise me.
Our eyes are clearly well-adapted to daylight given our broad preference for diurnality. Humans have clearly used fire since pre-history, but its inherent color inaccuracy suggests that we're not very well-adapted to it. Artists have noted the changing light qualities of sunset for a good millennia or more - that magical ~30 minutes a day likely a sensory accident - that happens to coincide with the artificial sources of light at our disposal from pre-history through the early 20th century. It was the invention of the carbon arc lamp in the early 20th century then the fluorescent lamp closer to mid-century that first introduced the masses to high CCT light sources.

Due to reasons of history I mentioned previously, since the incandescent light was the dominant residential light source until somewhat recently, and it contrasts with the cooler CCTs common in workplaces warm tints hold broad popularity for their warmth, soothing nature, and association with pleasurable leisure time. There's also the documented phenomenon of blue light's suppression of somnolence (sleepiness) that could also explain the general - but not universal - preference for warm tints in residential settings despite the availability of cooler tints; i.e. even my dislike for nearly-universal 2700K won't abide by 5000K lighting in non work areas my residence.
 
Last edited:
Top