4 Most Popular T8 Light Shades

The most popular T8 light shades vary depending on where the installation will be, but several colors have become obvious favorites in businesses as well as homes.

T8 technology in fluorescent bulbs has raised the bar for the lighting industry making energy efficiency a standard rather than a specialty feature.

Lighting Terminology and Anagrams-Ratings and Indexes

Spectral Composition is the term used to evaluate what colors of the spectrum are allowed to come through the mercurial vapors and phosphors.

When you are under some fluorescent lighting, your skin tone looks dull and casts an unhealthy color.

This is caused by the spectral composition of the fluorescent bulb. Spectral Composition is gauged by CRI (Color Rendering Index).

A bulb with low CRI will make red appear dull and muted, emitting a brown tone instead.

This is the same reason your skin sometimes appears to have a yellowish cast to it under some lighting.

Spectrum Color

T8 lighting pioneers full spectrum output of the color index and scores anywhere from 75 to 95 in this index. Color Indexes are measured by the FSCI (Full Spectrum Color Index).

A certain type of phosphors is the reason for T8's ability to put out full-spectrum lighting.

Full Spectrum production in lighting is optimized for the best clarity for the way the human eye responds to color to allow maximum visualization.

Temperature Rating

Lighting has a temperature rating as well as color rating indexes. The term used to measure temperature in lighting is the CCT (correlated color Temperature).

The temperature is measured and determined by a term called Kelvin. For example, T12 lighting, an older and less pristine form of fluorescent, has a Kelvin rating of 3000, as do most typical light bulbs.

A 3000 rating produces warm or yellow tones. A 5000 Kelvin produces white colors.

6500 Kelvin is the rating of many T8 bulbs, which produces a blue and white range in colors. An example of 6500 Kelvin from the t8 bulbs is a bulb rated and named daylight.

If you have not experienced the lighting from a daylight bulb, you really should. Its name is absolutely appropriate. At a glance at a back porch with one of these bulbs installed, it will fool you into thinking it is noon in the middle of the night.

4 Most Popular Colors of T8 Lighting

Warm white has a CCT of 2700 Kelvin rating and is most often used in a residential home.

Neutral white has a CCT of 3000 to 3500 Kelvin. It is used for many common lighting needs.

Cool white has a CCT of 4100 Kelvin. They are used most often for office lighting.

Daylight fluorescent has a CCT of 5000 to 6500 Kelvin, which emits a bluish-white color. This color is very luminescent.

The technology involved in creating better and more vibrant lighting for consumers is being driven by the demand for quality bulbs that are energy efficient.

The desire for bulbs that produce virtually any color that the spectrum can create paves the way to further improvement in the lighting industry.