01
The claim we refuse to make
Look at the ranking pages for any lighting query and you will find testing claims everywhere. One publisher spent 43 hours evaluating 14 lights and names the editors who did it. Another titles its page "We tested 50 torchiere floor lamps" and publishes no methodology, no data and no author bio at all. A third claims months of testing, evidenced by trying a six-pack of bulbs around a relative's house.
We have no lab, no test units and no lighting credentials. We could write "in our testing" anyway - it is unfalsifiable, it is what the category expects, and nobody would check. We are not going to, and refusing that claim out loud is a stronger signal than making one you have no way to verify.
What we publish instead is reproducible. Every number on this site comes from a source we link, or from arithmetic we show. If a figure here is wrong, you can find that out. That is not true of a testing claim.
02
The method, in six steps
- Compile the published specifications. Lumens, color temperature in kelvin, CRI, R9 where a manufacturer publishes it, power source, dimmability and mounting method - taken from the manufacturer's own page, the product manual or the retailer listing. Every pick carries a link to the page we took its numbers from, and the date we retrieved it.
- Compute what the room actually needs. Floor area times the published illuminance range for that room's use, which gives a lumen budget a reader can compare against a box on a shelf. Almost nobody in this category publishes this, and it is the number that decides whether a recommendation is sized correctly.
- Apply the renter filter. Every pick is classified by what installing it requires: plugs in, runs on a battery, sticks on with adhesive, screws into an existing socket, needs a ceiling box, needs a neutral wire. Anything requiring an electrician or a landlord's consent is flagged at the point of recommendation rather than in a footnote.
- Compute cost to run where it changes a decision - wattage times hours times a published electricity rate, with the rate and its date cited.
- State what we could not verify. Where a manufacturer does not publish a figure, the cell reads "Not published." Never an estimate, never a substituted plausible number. The omission is itself informative: a brand that will not publish CRI has told you something.
- Name at least one thing to skip in every roundup, including the cases where the cheaper option is the right one and the cases where the answer is not to buy anything.
03
What disqualifies a product
| Disqualifier | Why |
|---|---|
| Requires an electrician for its normal installation | The site exists for people who cannot rewire. A pick they cannot fit is not a pick. |
| Marketed for a job its published specs cannot do | Battery lights sold for kitchen counters is the standard example in this category. |
| Runtime quoted at one brightness and output at another | Two numbers that cannot both be true at once is a claim, not a specification. |
| No published output on a product whose job is brightness | It cannot be planned around. It may still be a fine object. |
| Discontinued or unavailable | Checked on the monthly availability sweep; replaced rather than left in place. |
A product with missing specifications is not automatically excluded - a standard-socket lamp genuinely has no output figure to publish, because the output is the bulb you fit. What we do is say which of the two situations applies, rather than letting a blank cell imply the same thing in both cases.
04
How picks are re-checked
| Cadence | What happens |
|---|---|
| Daily, automated | Price refresh across every pick. Prices older than 48 hours disappear rather than going stale. |
| Monthly | Availability sweep. Discontinued products are replaced, not left in place. |
| Quarterly | Specs re-verified against current manufacturer documentation; search results re-checked. |
| Annually | Rewrite pass on the main roundups; electricity rates refreshed and re-cited. |
| On an error report | Corrected within five working days, with a dated correction note on the page. |
Every page carries a visible last verified date reflecting the most recent of those. Prices are never typed into body copy - they render from a live data layer with a date stamp, and where no live price exists the page says "check price" rather than showing a number that may no longer be true.
05
Independence, and how we are funded
Sconce & Socket earns commission on qualifying purchases made through links on this site, at no extra cost to you. That funding model creates an obvious incentive problem, so here is how we handle it:
- Commission rate never influences a pick. Where a cheaper retailer is better for the buyer, that is the link we build, even where it pays less.
- No paid placement, ever. No brand has paid to appear here, and none can.
- No free products. We accept none, which is straightforward given we do not test.
- Every roundup names something to skip, including cases where the right answer is to buy nothing.
- A disclosure appears above the first affiliate link on every page carrying one, not only in the footer.
The full statement is on the affiliate disclosure page, and our corrections policy is on editorial policy.
06
Tell us when we are wrong
Specifications change, products get revised, and we make mistakes. If a figure on this site does not match what the manufacturer publishes, or a pick has been discontinued, or the arithmetic is off, tell us: info@sconceandsocket.com.
We correct within five working days and leave a dated note on the page rather than editing quietly. That is the whole point of publishing a method you can check - it is only worth anything if we act when someone does.