Coloured LED Light Bulbs

Yes, coloured light bulbs are still available, and they are available in LED. BLT Direct offers a wide variety of Coloured LED Light Bulbs, in many different shapes, sizes and wattages. These can range from yellow to pink to purple, but also to colour changing RGB light bulbs, allowing you to change the colour of your light bulb to whatever suits you at that time. These light bulbs also boast the benefits of LED technology, LED bulbs are inherently more cost-effective, efficient, healthier for the environment and last longer than older coloured light bulbs such as incandescent, halogen or metal halide coloured bulbs.

This is not to be confused with colour temperature selectable light bulbs, which are sometimes referred to as ‘colour changing’. The difference between colour temperature selectable and coloured light bulbs is that colour temperature selectable bulbs are based on changing between three colour options: Warm White, Cool White and Daylight, whereas coloured bulbs refer to beaming actual colours rather than shades of white.

Many studies have shown the benefits of coloured LED lighting over traditional warm white, cool white and daylight light bulbs, attributing certain colours such as green and red which help encourage relaxation and sleep. Furthermore, colours such as pink encourage plant growth due to the mixture of red and blue colour being a favourite for plants to absorb. LED bulbs are also much more healthy for the planet than traditional incandescent or metal halide bulbs.

Smart Coloured LED light bulbs also have the added benefit of relaxation and stress reduction due to the ability to tune the brightness and colour exactly to what you need. Furthermore, settings can be activated with apps such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home to automatically change the colour or toggle the power of lights depending on the time. Meaning you do not have to worry about whether you turned the lights off after you left for work or having to get up in the night to switch off one light you may have left on.

If you own a Smart RGB light bulb, how you change the colour depends on the product and can be found in the technical specification. The most common way to change the colour of a light bulb is through your mobile phone using an app created by the manufacturer:

1. Download the App from the Manufacturer
2. Connect your phone’s Wi-Fi to the light bulb’s Wi-Fi signal
3. Return to the app and reconnect to your household/office Wi-Fi to sync them all together
4. Change the colour as you see fit

It is also possible to sync your light bulb to your Amazon Alexa/Google Home/Apple Siri, allowing you to change the light bulb colour by simply talking to your personal assistant:

1. Download the relevant app, for example, Amazon Alexa
2. Go to Devices
3. Click the Light Bulb and it should sync to the personal assistant
4. To demonstrate it works say something like ‘Alexa, change bulb to purple’

There are many other options you can create using personal assistants or the manufacturers app, it could be as simple as creating a schedule to turn the lights off at 2am everyday or change the light bulb colour to green every Saturday morning at 11am. You can also get more advanced by creating groups, which change multiple devices at once to your pre-desired effect. To ensure you get the best out of your bulb, be sure to read the manufacturer’s guide on how to set up your colour changing bulbs.

Coloured light bulbs come in two variants. The first variant of a colour light bulb has a specialised LED chip inside them to produce the desired colour, this is what is used in colour changing RGB light bulbs. Using a microcontroller inside the bulb, the controller can manipulate the power and brightness of each chip to create thousands of different colours ranging from a bright red to a subtle green. The second variant is a warm white light bulb with a simple coloured finish. Due to the white light passing through the coloured glass or plastic, the bulb gives off the colour of the finish, commonly found in festoon lights for instance.

The purpose of a coloured light bulb is down to the person using it. Whether you want to install a set of green light bulbs in a room to help you relax after a long day at work, want to add a pink splash of colour to your child’s bedroom, draw attention to an object in your house to accentuate its feature or you want to add some lights for an upcoming party, the choice is yours.

Colour-changing light bulbs use red, green and blue (RGB) LEDs to create their range of colours, changing the combination of which colours are on and which are off depending on the colour chosen. This allows the microcontroller to create many different shades of different colours without any lights seemingly being turned on or off in the process.