VISUAL QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF LED SPOTS IN COMPARISON TO LOW-VOLT AGE HALOGEN SPOTS

摘要

This paper presents the results of a 3 year long study carried out in the context of the PACTE LED project (2009 - 2012). Funded by ADEME (France's environment and energy management agency), this project was aimed at assessing whether 4 W (resp.5.5 W) LED spots could replace 20 W (resp. 35 W) low-voltage halogen lamps, offering similar quality of light. First, 10,000 LED spots with customized characteristics were produced by the project consortium. Then, various tests were conducted to assess the visual quality of these LED spots: 1) in laboratory, 2) on field in controlled environments (hotels), and 3) on field in uncontrolled environments (restaurants, cafes and shops). The results indicate that end users do see a difference between the light produced by LEDs and halogen spots, but that the majority of them (respectively 74.3%, 66.4% and 89.4%) are happy with the light produced by LED spots.