How to choose the right light LED bulb for your pendant light

Choosing a pendant style to suit your room is hard enough! But what about light bulbs? Snap Lighting and Liquid LEDs have teamed up to help you choose.

There are a few considerations when choosing the right bulbs-

Base connection
Style
Colour
Brightness/lumens
Dimming

Choosing the Right Light Bulb Base Connection

The first thing you need to consider is the base of the bulb. This needs to match the light fitting you’ve chosen.

Snap Lighting has made it super easy for you! All Snap Lighting pendants have E27 Edison Screw fittings, and Snap Lighting only sells E27 Edison Screw LED globes. Simple!

If you decide to buy bulbs somewhere else, such as Liquid LEDs, make sure you select the right bulb base to match your light fittings. Liquid LEDs have a great guide to bulb bases if you need a little more detail - https://www.liquidleds.com.au/pages/different-types-of-led-bulb-socket

Choosing the Right Light Bulb Shape

The choice of bulb style and shape is very personal, and depends on the style of the light fitting as well as other decor in the room. Here are a few guidelines to get you started-

Stick to the theme.
- If you’ve got vintage light fittings, use a vintage LED globe like an Edison shape - https://www.liquidleds.com.au/collections/vintage-edison-led-light-bulbs.
- If you’ve got modern fittings, choose a modern LED bulb
If it’s hidden - it doesn’t matter!
- For mostly-enclosed light designs the bulb is hidden. So we suggest you get the cheaper frosted LED bulbs and move on.
Screw the guidelines - let your personality show!
- Liquid LEDs have an incredible range of globes including spiral filament, oversized bulbs, tubular bulbs and many more! Go nuts!

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Choosing the Right Light Bulb Colour

The colour of light impacts the overall look and feel of a room. So which colour is right for you?

White Lights:

The choice of white depends a lot on what you plan to use the light for. In general, warm white is for relaxing rooms like bedrooms and living rooms. Cool or natural white is for working areas such as studies or kitchen benchtops. Liquid LEDs has taken a more in-depth look at the different white colours here - https://www.liquidleds.com.au/pages/how-to-choose-the-right-colour-of-led-bulb

Coloured Light:

Typically the choice is between warm and cool white bulbs. But some may prefer purple or green! For those who want something a little different, colour change smart globes might be a good option for you. The Philips Hue range is the market leader in smart lighting and is sold by Snap Lighting here- https://www.snaplighting.com.au/globes?category=Pendant+Globes+-+Smart

Choosing the Right Light Bulb Brightness

Bulb brightness is measured in Lumens, but that can be a little bit difficult to understand in reality. This comparison table should help clear it up a bit:

So depending on the size of your room you can choose the brightness you want. As a rule of thumb, for general lighting (bedrooms, living areas, etc) allow about 100-150 lumens per square meter. For work areas (studies, kitchen benchtops, etc) 200-300 lumens per square meter is more suitable.

If the bulb is simply decorative and the room is lit another way, then a fairly dim bulb will be adequate.

If this is all too hard, then one simple solution is to choose dimmable globes with a high brightness - then you can’t go wrong!

Choosing a Dimmable or Non-Dimmable Light Bulb

Dimmable globes are a great option if you can’t figure out what bulb brightness you need for your room. They’re also great for multi-use spaces - especially in the working-from-home era where the dining room table becomes your office for part of the day!

For a dimmable LED globe to be dimmed, your light switch must be fitted with a dimmer switch. Many modern LED globes are dimmable with older dimmers, but your best bet is to fit LED dimmers. Otherwise you can risk the bulb flickering and having other issues. Liquid LEDs has put together a great dimmer guide to help you if you need - https://www.liquidleds.com.au/pages/led-dimmers

We hope that helps! Any questions feel free to contact us