Are car LED lights too bright?

modern car lights are daylight colour, old cars would have been a lot yellower. I don't know if manufacturers struggle to manage the way the sight is created compared to a filament with the reflectors in the heanlamps.

photonic_electrons said:

modern car lights are daylight colour, old cars would have been a lot yellower.

Fun fact - the yellower hues of the old lights were largely down to the technology used for the lighting filliment and these were quite limited in the wavelengths of light they produced and the energy required to make them work.

These days LED lights are the norm - much more efficient in energy consumption and a much wider range of light wavelengths making it easier to see - especially colours - for human eyes.

One downside if the increased blue wavelengths generated by the LED lights impact the human brain more, interfering with the circadian rythms and making it hard to sleep after being exposed to them.

Filament lights get bluer (whiter) when they are run hotter if I remember correctly. Of course run them hotter and they don't last as long although are more efficient. There is a tradeoff between life span and efficiency with the standard set at 1000 hrs which is the source of the conspiracy theory about how the manufacturers collude to keep themselves in business. Light colour was not really on their mind in those days, it was about getting a sensible efficiency without having to change bulbs too often at a time when most electricity was used by bulbs.

I do remember the incandescent daylight bulbs with tinted glass. The other issue with LED's could be chromatic rendition which means that if the led just emits one wavelength colours are harder to distinguish. If the bulb emits a proper spectrum then it becomes much better. I suspect that this is the source of the harshness of the light. Cars are all about saving money. If you save a pound on a car, that is £1'000'000 if you then make 1 million of them, your employer just gives you a free car as a reward.

The other issue with car lights is that legislation is very behind and specifies the wattage of the bulbs rather than the light output intensity, so in theory you could have something like 5-10 times the light now and it still be legal.

Filament lights get bluer (whiter) when they are run hotter if I remember correctly. Of course run them hotter and they don't last as long although are more efficient. There is a tradeoff between life span and efficiency with the standard set at 1000 hrs which is the source of the conspiracy theory about how the manufacturers collude to keep themselves in business. Light colour was not really on their mind in those days, it was about getting a sensible efficiency without having to change bulbs too often at a time when most electricity was used by bulbs.

I do remember the incandescent daylight bulbs with tinted glass. The other issue with LED's could be chromatic rendition which means that if the led just emits one wavelength colours are harder to distinguish. If the bulb emits a proper spectrum then it becomes much better. I suspect that this is the source of the harshness of the light. Cars are all about saving money. If you save a pound on a car, that is £1'000'000 if you then make 1 million of them, your employer just gives you a free car as a reward.

The other issue with car lights is that legislation is very behind and specifies the wattage of the bulbs rather than the light output intensity, so in theory you could have something like 5-10 times the light now and it still be legal.