What LED GU10 spotlight must you choose

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I learned on the hard and expensive way that all GU10 LED spot lights are not the same.

I imported a load full of the GU10 globes which contains 18 x SMD LEDs.

Unfortunately I found that they are not as bright as I hoped they would be. If you need a GU10 spot light for a room where you want to set a mood, then this GU10 is for you. They are however not as energy efficient as one thinks. They still use 14 watts. They are about the same brightness as a standard 30 watt tungsten spot light.

Because of this little mistake I decided to import samples from ten different suppliers. This was a very costly exercise, but was worth every cent.

I learned that the GU10 with 3x 1watt LEDs or 1x 3Watt LEDs are much more effective.

In these LED spot lights you get:

• The real cheap models which is not very bright
• The bit more expensive model with Taiwanese LED Chip which is a good all rounder.
• The good model with CREE chip, my opinion is that it is a bit over rated for the GU10 spot lights, the difference is not that big compared to the Taiwanese chip.

What is very important is to look at the beam angle of the globe.

The picture below illustrates the Beam Angle:

The beam angle you choose for your GU10 spot light depends on how far the lights are apart in your home.

Some suppliers will claim that their lights emits 600 lumens of light, but they do not tell you that the light has a 10 degree beam angle. When you install a light like this you will realise that you have a hell of a bright little spot on your floor with darkness around the spot. The more focused the beam of light the brighter it is.

In my opinion anything lower than 45 degrees are useless.

I personally like the 60 and 90 degree beam angle lights. 60 Degree beam angle is more or less the same as the conventional tungsten GU10 lamp. The 90 degree beam angle is nice because you do not see a bright spot at all, it has a very even light but can be a bit weak. If you need a light to read or work, rather go for a 60 degree beam angle, if you just want a light in your sitting room, go for a 90 degree beam angle. If you have lots of lights close to each other you can go for a 45 or 60 degree beam angle.

Energy effectiveness?

I wondered about this. They say the GU10 spot light has 3x 1 watt LEDs, but a LED operates at 3 volt and you have to bring down the current from 220 volt to 3 volt and that will also absorb some energy. I am happy to report that I measured all of the samples I tested and they all ranged between 4 and 4.6 watt in total. Although it has 3x 1 watt LEDs it is normal that it will use more than 3 watt because of above mentioned reason. 4.6 watt is acceptable.

A normal conventional tungsten GU10 spotlight uses 50 watt. This means that the LED GU10 uses 10 times less energy than the old fashioned types.

The old fashion GU10 spot lights also tend to blow frequently. The LED GU10 is rated to last 30,000 to 50,000 hours. Obviously I have not tested that yet, will take me some time to do it.

The globes might be expensive, but imagine you can use a tenth of the energy each month and you can stop replacing bulbs all the time.

Heat Ranges:

White - 5000-7000 K
Natural white - 3500-5000K
Warm white - 2700-3500K

Warm white has a yellowish colour, the same as the conventional tungsten globes. Natural white is close to sunlight and white or cool white sometimes have a blue tint.

White (or cool white) is the brightest and warm white the least bright of the range.

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