Are LED lights harmful?

[sportage]

LED lights have an extreme brightness to them.
Especially LED lamps now replacing the older florescent ceiling lights in many businesses.
In many cities, street lights are being replaced with LED lamps.
Business are replacing the old florescent fixtures with LED to save money in the long run.
What I have notice, that LED lighting can be quite extreme in brightness.
As bright as car headlights coming head-on.
So I wonder if there will come a day when it is determined that LED brightness and long term exposure can in fact be harmful to the eyes?
Especially in the workplace?
And might that cause business to reconsider using LED lighting for their employees especially in overhead workstations?

All it would take is just one study, and I doubt there has yet to be that study on the effect of LED lighting in the workplace and in the home on vision.
I know one lady that told me her company switched to all LED ceiling lighting and LED lighting in all cubicles.
She claims the LED workplace lighting became so bright and annoying that it gave her headaches and she started wearing sunglasses when working.

So... how bright is too bright?
And should there be a limit on brightness?
Can the piercing white light given off by some LED lighting actually become harmful?
And should Led lighting be studied to determine if it can be harmful on the eyes?
Should the government set a limit on LED brightness used in the workplace, and set guidelines for LED use in the home?
Could LED lighting actually be hurting people?

 

[disappoint]

What is harmful to the eyes is UV light. If I'm not mistaken fluorescent lights emit more UV than LEDs.

 

[Crono]

Bright lights in general can cause eye strain and trigger headaches and migraines. They can also interfere with sleep. I don't think LEDs are worse offenders overall except they can be harsher (depending on color temperature) and often are brighter than they should be for things like power indicators.

 

[DaveSimmons]

No.

Wifi will toxify your glutens though.

 

[olds]

Yes. The study has already been done. But, IIRC, it was on street lights.

 

[brainhulk]

Blue wavelength decreases melatonin production

http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side

 

[Ichinisan]

LEDs emit a narrower spectrum of light than others. Also, a single LED generally can't be seen in sunlight. You need a whole bunch of them.

 

[Ichinisan]

Blue wavelength decreases melatonin production

http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side

Incandescent lights are emitting pretty much all colors in the visible spectrum simultaneously, including blue (and wasteful infrared heat too).

 

[gorcorps]

There are different color temperatures of lights too. I'm noticing that a lot of businesses not matching the previous color temperature when buying LED lights, so they appear brighter even though there are LEDs that have a more "warm" appearance.

Daylight bulbs (5000k) are very white and IMO too bright for indoor use unless we're talking a workshop or area where you need to see well. On the other side is warm white (2700k) which would be better for most living rooms and such.

Basically, LED lights are fine but people are dumb and don't read what they're buying. From what I've seen the bright white bulbs are generally the cheapest, so it wouldn't surprise me if businesses used those without realizing what a difference it was compared to what they used previously.

 

[cbrunny]

cavemen didn't have LED lights so they must be bad for you.

 

[edro]

Your perception that LEDs are extremely bright or harmful are probably due to a few reasons.

1. Color Temperature - Most LEDs in recent history are 5000K+, which is very harsh to your eyes due to the scattering nature of higher frequency light. Switch to ~2700K and that issue goes away.

2. Optical Control - Many early LED lamps and fixtures did not put much emphasis on optical control or visual comfort. Optical control hurts efficiency, so many LED lamps and fixtures avoid it and just use bare LEDs, which result in high candela concentrations into your eye. The most visually comforting fixtures/lamps have a very diffuse optics or prismatic structure to break up the light source. Most LED office lighting now uses indirect optics, meaning, the LEDs are pointed up into the fixture (white painted surface) and then the diffuse light bounces down into the environment. This is very visually pleasing because the light is spread over the entire fixture instead of a smaller area like a lamp envelope. Visual comfort is all about candela per square meter (nit). 1000lm out of a lamp (9 sq inches) is much more harsh than 1000lm out of a 2x2' (576 sq inches) troffer fixture. This is why most traditional lamps have lamp shades.

3. Electrical Control - Some LED lamps/fixtures use very simple (cheap) electrical circuits that will produce high frequency flicker. Depending on the type of circuit, this flicker can be bad and/or be influenced by your local power source. Some cheap direct AC fixtures have a bad perceptive flicker which is similar to the old days of fluorescent flicker, and can make you feel nauseated.

 

[twinrider1]

All I know is the LED lights on police cars are too dang bright. It's fine when they're in pursuit. But when you approach a cruiser that has pulled someone over it is way too bright. They are blinding instead of illuminating. You can't see past them so you can't see what is forward of the lights as you approach.

 

[PJFrylar]

LEDs, like other light sources, have to undergo photobiological hazard testing that measures the danger to the skin and eyes. Nothing I've worked on has gone above risk category 2. At that level, you'll probably instictively avert your eyes if you look into it directly, but you can manage to do so if you wanted.

If you wanna read more: http://www.ul.com/global/documents/...s/UL Photobiological SS newBrand 110210 D.pdf

 

[Stopsignhank]

This sounds like the arguments that people had against the cars when they first came out. They are too loud, they go too fast, they scare my horse......

 

[feralkid]

All I know is the LED lights on police cars are too dang bright. It's fine when they're in pursuit. But when you approach a cruiser that has pulled someone over it is way too bright. They are blinding instead of illuminating. You can't see past them so you can't see what is forward of the lights as you approach.

I noticed that on an ambulance...holy smokes, brighter isn't always better, and these were actually painful to look at.

 

[feralkid]

This sounds like the arguments that people had against the cars when they first came out. They are too loud, they go too fast, they scare my horse......

Really? I haven't heard anyone mention any of those, although they have caused a measurable uptick in the vapors.

 

[gorcorps]

All I know is the LED lights on police cars are too dang bright. It's fine when they're in pursuit. But when you approach a cruiser that has pulled someone over it is way too bright. They are blinding instead of illuminating. You can't see past them so you can't see what is forward of the lights as you approach.

Agreed, especially at night. They need a night time mode

 

[twinrider1]

Agreed, especially at night. They need a night time mode

YES. Totally forgot to include that in my post.

 

[Imp]

The ones I've heard about were concentrated light source and blue light... Most A19 light bulbs I've seen have diffusers that take care of problem one. I've stuck to 2700k-ish bulbs, not sure if there's other blue light bleed out of that.

Flashlights are probably the biggest concern. I have a bunch and they're all clear lens, exposed single LED diode. Very concentrated light source, would not want to look into that directly.

 

[edro]

Flashlights are probably the biggest concern. I have a bunch and they're all clear lens, exposed single LED diode. Very concentrated light source, would not want to look into that directly.

Yes, do not look into high powered LED flashlights.
Not the mention the very deep collimating reflectors that generate very tight beams. (throwers)

 

[Capt Caveman]

A number of newer cars now use LED headlights.

 

[flexy]

Incandescent lights (light bulbs) are "basically" and simplified spoken a glowing wire, means their color temperature is very low, towards an as "warm" perceived red. And some LEDs have too high a color temperature which is "harsh", as others have pointed out already.

But it's not an issue of LEDs "per se", since you can also get "warm" LEDs with 2500-2700K and it's also not an issue of "brightness", and possibly not even of "LED tech" itself.
On the other hand, what you say is "practically" true. For example, a simple torch-light style LED (like for a bike etc.) with one single LED and one single AA battery is brighter than a comparable "old-fashioned" flashlight, now add that it has some harsh, cold/white color tone..and it's definitely more intensive. I remember buying this cheapo CREE torch off ebay, put in on my bike..and the first thing I noticed cars flashing me because I blinded them with that thing...

 

[Red Squirrel]

I think they can to some extent if you look at them directly at their brightest point. Most LEDs are very directional, a proper diffuser will make them safe, but a bad diffuser, or none at all may be dangerous. On same datasheets blue LEDs actually have a warning similar to on lasers. Blue is the most dangerous I believe, out of standard LED colors.

I've also always wondered about those security cameras that have IR LEDs. I wonder how bad those are for the eyes. IR is dangerous as you can't see it, so your pupil won't be affected by it. Ex: really bright IR won't make your pupil go smaller like other light will, so your eye will let more light in. Same reason it's very dangerous to look at broken or unplugged fibre optic.

 

[Imp]

Yes, do not look into high powered LED flashlights.
Not the mention the very deep collimating reflectors that generate very tight beams. (throwers)

It made me wonder about car headlights. When I still drove, I was tempted to get sunglasses for driving at night because of how often I was getting blinded and the afterimages being left in my vision. Same for walking around at night. Googling suggested LED headlights were in the ~1000 lumen range. My insane Maglite only does about 600 lumens on high -- a 60W traditional incandescent bulb is around 800 lumens but that radiates in every direction.

I've also always wondered about those security cameras that have IR LEDs. I wonder how bad those are for the eyes. IR is dangerous as you can't see it, so your pupil won't be affected by it. Ex: really bright IR won't make your pupil go smaller like other light will, so your eye will let more light in. Same reason it's very dangerous to look at broken or unplugged fibre optic.

Pretty scary since those IR LEDs on cameras usually come in big arrays and your eyes can't avert/blink. On the other hand, I haven't heard of anything going blind yet. There's actually a study out there about glass/steel workers getting cataracts or something from looking at things so hot that they glow -- lot of IR out of those.

 

[lxskllr]

I hate bright headlights. I don't even like them for myself. If I could get lamps like they made in the 70s, I would. Been thinking about getting light-medium sunglasses for driving at night. My regular sunglasses are too dark.