Cree adds color rendering to LEDs; targets medical, retail uses

LED lighting firm Cree on Monday announced the addition of color rendering index options to its XLamp line of LED bulbs, bringing improved color accuracy to energy-efficient bulbs.

Specifically, the company is adding 80, 85 and 90 CRI options to its XLamp XP-G and XP-E warm white LEDs and targeting medical, retail and architectural applications. The reason: some applications require better color accuracy, to properly render the colors of the objects they're illuminating.

Cree says increasing the color quality of its previous generation of high-CRI white LED meant decreasing the efficacy. The new bulbs improve on that, and are another step toward improving the quality of energy-efficient light bulbs.

"Our high CRI XLamp LEDs can deliver light quality comparable to halogen with better efficacy than fluorescents," Cree marketing director Paul Thieken said in a statement.

For lighting geeks, specifications of the new high-CRI XP-G:

• Luminous flux of up to 107 lumens at 350mA in warm white (3000K).
• Efficacy of 102 lumens per Watt.
• Designers can create systems that are 70 percent more efficient than a traditional halogen PAR38 lamp and deliver similar high color rendering.

The bulbs are similar to standard, normal-CRI models, and "may" work in existing systems. They're available now.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com