Dear Reader:

It should come as no surprise that some LED product lines perform at a higher quality than others, and in determining which are statistically at the higher end of the market in advance of a system purchase makes a good deal of sense. For a few extra dollars, the Facility Manager can provide his/her employees with brilliant lighting that adds to their well-being, as well as their productivity.

The quality of each light fixture on the market is rated on a scale of 1 to 100, and this scale is known as the color rendering index. There are 14 shades of color within this rating system, and a rating agency assesses how well each color is rendered by the respective lighting technology for each of these shades – or at least the first 8 of them. The 8 are the least saturated of the colors in the indexing system, and the fluorescent lighting industry only concerned themselves with the renderin...