The best high-CRI LED bulbs

CRI is a score out of 100 for how closely a light source reproduces colors compared against a reference of the same color temperature. It is not about brightness and it is not about warmth - a 2700K bulb and a 5000K bulb can each score 95 or 80.

What it changes is whether a room looks alive. Under CRI 80, reds go brown, wood grain flattens, green vegetables go gray, and skin looks slightly unwell. Under CRI 95, the same room with the same lumen total reads as noticeably brighter and warmer, because the colors in it come back.

This is the most under-rated fix for "my room feels dark." If the arithmetic in the lumen guide says the room is adequately lit and it still feels gloomy, CRI is the usual culprit.

Red matters more than its share of the spectrum suggests, because skin tone, wood, cooked meat, brick and most warm textiles all depend on it. A bulb with a good CRI and a poor R9 will still make a room look faintly wrong, and you will not be able to say why.

Our practical rule: a manufacturer that publishes R9 has probably measured it and is probably confident about it. One that publishes neither R9 nor CRI has told you something too. Where a figure is not published, we write "Not published" rather than substituting a plausible number - the omission is data.

High-CRI bulbs cost more, so put them where the difference is visible and stay cheap elsewhere:

• Worth it: kitchen counters, reading chairs, bathroom mirrors, dining tables, any desk used for detailed work, and rooms where you display anything colored.
• Not worth it: hallways, closets, garages, stairwells, utility rooms, and anywhere a light is on for under a minute at a time.

The mainstream option in the picks above is the interesting case: a widely available bulb publishing CRI 95 at ordinary supermarket pricing. It does not publish R9, so it is not the top pick here - but it changes the calculation for whole-home use, because you no longer have to choose between accurate color and buying a bulb per room.