The best dimmable LED bulbs

The box says dimmable or it does not, which makes it look like a binary. In use it is a spectrum with at least four separate qualities, and none of them are printed anywhere.

The dimming floor is the one that decides whether you are happy. A bulb that will not go below about a third of its output is unusable for evening living-room light, because a third of 1,500 lumens is still 500 lumens - brighter than many people want a whole room at 10pm.

Before blaming a bulb, be clear that a large share of dimming complaints are the dimmer. Older leading-edge dimmers were built for incandescent filaments, which drew a lot of current and smoothed the chopped waveform with thermal inertia. An LED does neither, so the same dimmer produces flicker.

And many of those dimmers specify a minimum load, commonly around 40W. Three modern LED bulbs might total 24W, which is below the threshold, and the bottom of the dimmer's range goes unstable as a result. Adding a fourth bulb helps slightly and does not fix it - which is exactly the report people make.

The full diagnostic, including what to change if you own the place and what to do if you rent, is in why dimmable LED bulbs flicker. Do that before buying a third brand of bulb.

For a conventional dimmer, buy a bulb from a manufacturer that publishes dimming behavior rather than just the word. The Philips Ultra Definition is dimmable and rated flicker-free at CRI 95, and the Waveform 95 CRI BR30 is the reflector equivalent. Where the fitting is sealed, the Feit enclosed-rated A19 dims and tolerates the heat.

If you rent, there is a shortcut that avoids the whole problem. Leave the wall dimmer at full and put a smart bulb in the fitting. It dims in its own driver, so dimmer compatibility stops mattering, it reaches a far lower floor than most wall dimmers manage, and nothing in the wall is touched - which matters because replacing a dimmer is electrical work needing permission.