'Watts' happened to electric light bulbs?

[Alsatian]

At one time you went into a shop and your choice was - 40watt,60 watt or 100 watt, now your confounded with choice:

Fitting: large bayonet cap, small bayonet cap, large edison screw, small edison screw, twist fitting.

Bulb type: led, compact fluorescent (cfl), halogen etc

Shape: candle, tornado, golf ball etc etc

Colour: white, warm white, daylight white, plus other colours etc etc

Wattage: here's where it gets REALLY confusing (to me anyway!) it's now shown in lumens not wattage!

I had to replace my bathroom light bulb recently and went into Wilkos - I must have been staring at the array of lights for a good 10 minutes and still didn't find an exact replacement!

I felt as if I'd sat a MENSA test - and failed miserably!

[kromercap]

At one time Chesterfield used to be involved a significant amount of this country's lamp manufacturing.

(They are called Lamps, by the way, not bulbs.)

We had our own standard bayonet fitting, called B22. Everyone used it, and British factories produced all that we needed. We didn't really know, or care, what the rest of the world did.

But things changed, like they do, and suddenly we were a small part of a global market, dominated by Far Eastern manufacturers.

They don't care how confused you are, they just want to give diverse markets the choice.

And then, of course, the EU banned "normal" incandescent bulbs lamps.

So the CFL and LED makers ramped up to meet the sudden increase in demand. Of course the old wattage ratings don't apply to new technology. They were based on how much current the lamp draws from your house supply (how fast they make your meter spin).

LED lamps produce a ridiculous amount of light for very few watts, so the makers wanted to let you know this. The Lumens rating is supposed to be a standard measure of how much light a lamp produces, regardless of how much power it uses to do it.
It's not, of course, it's a con. There are so many ways of measuring Lumens that it makes the whole thing a farce. The good makers stick to the NPL certified standards, everyone else just makes the numbers up as they wish.

If you want advice, then buy the most expensive lamps in the shop, or at least one from a well known name. I know this goes dead against what most people in this country do, but seriously there is a big difference between quality manufacture and cheap Chinese-made supermarket own brand.

Don't know what kind of range Wilco's stock, but if it was my money I was spending, I'd be looking for something a bit better than their stuff.
 

[Sorastro]

We're the same, we end up buying cheapo's from Wilko, Poundshop et al basically because I haven't the patience to go round the shops, and besides that is all that seems to be on offer nowadays or as I say maybe I'm not looking hard enough.
I also find 90% of what's on sale are screw type, so much so I found one shop selling fitting converters, bayonet it into the fitting so you can then use a screw bulb.

But your right, the range on offer is mind boggling, as you say 40 60 or 100 watt THAT WAS IT.... and that's all you needed. I blame the Yanks for a lot of this, in the late 60's early 70's the "modern" housewife copied a lot of what the Americans were using including subdued lighting.
A couple of years ago now we were taken for a meal in town the table had "subdued lighting" so subdued I could hardly see a bl**dy thing, so when the waitress came round during the meal and asked if we needed anything I said " Yes a torch" she said "Is there not enough light?" and before I could answer the rest of the table piped up "No we are fine thanks"
I very rarely saw my dad change a "blown" light bulb. When we first married and got our first home changing a light bulb was a rarity but now over the past twelve months I've bought 3 packs of 3 bulbs, and I'm on the third pack with one bulb left in it.