Light bulbs Full light bulb test results

Energy saving lightbulbs

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Our testing has found big differences between the light bulbs you'll see on the shelves of high street shops - the worst take many minutes to come to full light and expire long before their claimed lifetimes while being significantly more expensive to run than Best Buys.

  • We leave our light bulbs burning for 5,000 hours continuously - the equivalent of five years' average use
  • We subject three samples of all the bulbs we test to 30,000 on and off switches to see how durable they are
  • With the best performers, all three bulbs survive testing; the worst fail at just a few thousand switches.

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