Am I the only one not impressed by these 60 watt bulb replacements? 60 watt bulbs leave my entire place looking dim and depressing, sure good colors are nice, but if I can't see anything, what does it matter?
My light fixtures were designed for a few 100 watts, replacing them with these 60 watt LEDs may save me power, but at the cost of my eyesight!
I am more interested in true 100, or even better, 150 watt, replacement bulbs. Get those in a good package size with some energy savings!
It's amazing how widely people vary on light. It's observable across major cultures, or even different families.
A Japanese IKEA I went through recently had a display which would allow you to switch between 'Japanese' style lighting' and 'Western' style, with western style being dimmer, and with warmer color temperature.
I immediately found the Western one more comforting, relaxing, while my wife (Japanese) prefers the brighter one. Internal lighting in Japan is almost uniformly overhead neon, without the baffles you'll see in many North American offices.
I've grown used to it, but would rather work in the dark.
I'm sure there are many people that, like you, feel that these LED bulbs are too dim. If you're at all curious though, I'd recommend that you find one and give it a shot, many of them /feel/ brighter than the numbers would lead you to expect when compared to an incandescent.
It might be better to compare on the basis of Lumens, as watt's are a measure of power instead of brightness[1].
I grew up in Korea and moved to the West (USA & Canada) in my late teens. I found the lighting very annoying almost as soon as I stepped foot in my first dorm room. Even when I rented my own place later on, I could never make my living room look "proper", since none of the apartments I've lived in had any lighting fixtures in the living room. No amount of indirect lighting can compensate for the lack of several thousand lumens, daylight color, right in the middle of the ceiling. I can see why other people find 2700K 60W "relaxing", but to me it feels like perpetual twilight, some sort of reenactment of Rembrandt's paintings.
Ditto for "desk lamps" that can't evenly illuminate two Letter-sized sheets of paper side by side (the typical dimensions of an open textbook), let alone the whole desk. To this day I still don't understand why students buy those. Maybe they just put them on their bedside tables in case they need to find their way to the bathroom at night.
On the other hand, everyone's computer screen is too bright for me. My screens are usually set to 25%-40% brightness unless I'm using it outside on a sunny day. So I suppose people do have varying tastes about illumination.
There was an interesting article in the NY Times recently about the meaning of comfort and specifically compared the difference between cold overhead lighting in Japan and warm side lighting in Norway.
I actually threw out all my flourescent bulbs and bought a truckload of incandescents while they were still available because the flourescent light was too dim and "hollow" to feel comfortable.
I am not sure LEDs are any better, I believe the cheaper ones have huge spectrum gaps.
My light fixtures were designed for a few 100 watts, replacing them with these 60 watt LEDs may save me power, but at the cost of my eyesight!
I am more interested in true 100, or even better, 150 watt, replacement bulbs. Get those in a good package size with some energy savings!