Energy saving bulbs compatible with old dimmers

[Laure]

Hi, trying to find energy saving bulbs compatible with old dimmer (that won't produce buzzing). Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[DetlefSchmitz]

I'm no expert as I've never used dimmers. But most old dimmers were designed around the properties of incandescent bulbs. Those bulbs took a lot of current and were pretty much just resistive, unlike leds. The subject comes up a lot here and the upshot is usually to buy a dimmer that is designed to cope with led bulbs. There is a brand that gets recommended a lot (which I forget, but someone else will come along with the name). Just replying so as not to give the impression of being stroppy in the other thread.

 

[ninjacat]

Varilite dimmers designed to work with dimmable LED lamps.

 

[Taylortwocities]

I recently bought a few dimmerable BC LED lamps from Ikea, to replace existing tungsten GLS lamps.
They seem to work ok with the existing dimmers, no flickering or buzzing.

 

[ericmark]

Energenie MiHome do a list of bulbs that will work with their electronic switches which don't need a neutral I have still had problems with some bulbs, it is near impossible to be sure a bulb and electronic switch combination will work without trying it.

Where I can, I use dimming bulbs, be it the dimmer control comes with the bulb, or the bulb uses zigbee or direct connection to smart life. Only when using a lot of bulbs would I consider unit a dimmer switch, and if using a lot, for example my living room main light has 8 x E14 candle bulbs, then likely the 48 watt will be high enough for the old dimmer to work anyway.

But seem to remember bulb shown cost me £9, it would be hard finding a dimmer switch and bulb for that price, and even if you did it would not change colour to give same ambiance as the bulb shown.

 

[Laure]

Thanks a lot for the advice. I'll try some of these and see if they work! We have two bulbs only, so will check the wattage.