Saffron 40W Replacement LED review: This LED’s a master of disguise (and little else)

We’ve seen plenty of evolution in the lighting aisle over the past decade, and that’s left some struggling to find bulbs with that old, familiar feel. Enter the Saffron 40W Replacement LED, which houses the lighting technology of today within the streamlined glass curvature of yesterday.

It’s a design that’s sure to please if you’re a lover of the incandescent aesthetic you grew up with, and you’ll be pleased to hear that Saffron keeps the look-alike act going after the bulb is switched on, as well. But compare this bulb with its less inconspicuous competitors, and you’ll see that the classic design is really all it has to offer. By almost every important metric — brightness, efficiency, color quality, dimmability, you name it — the Saffron LED lags behind the rest. That makes it a tough sell at $12, especially given that those competitors cost a little less.

Design

If you’re looking for an LED bulb that looks as little like an LED bulb as possible, then look no further. Mixed in with a lineup of incandescents, it’s nearly impossible to pick the Saffron LED back out.

It’s a design that certainly has me interested. Plenty of consumers favor the simple looks of yesterday’s bulbs over the clunky, heat-sink-centric newfangledness of today’s LEDs. A light that offers a classic build alongside modern performance is a pretty appealing pitch.

Still, today’s LED light bulbs focus on heat management for good reason. Just like with your laptop or your cell phone, LED performance tends to dip as things warm up. Without traditional heat sinks or some other thermal management system, you’d think that something would have to give.

To that end, Saffron’s team seems to have dialed the brightness down, rating its LED at 400 lumens instead of the 450 lumens you’d traditionally expect from a 40W replacement. It was even dimmer than that in our test lab, coming in at just 362 lumens. Brightness might not be as important with 40W replacements, which typically work best as accent lights, but still, that number is probably lower than you’d like.

40W Replacement LEDs

	Saffron 40W Replacement LED	Osram 40W Replacement LED	Cree 40W Replacement LED	Philips 40W Replacement LED	Ikea Ledare LED
Lumens (measured / stated)	362 / 400	496 / 450	483 / 450	479 / 470	658 / 600
Watts	6	6	6	8	10
Efficiency (lumens per watt)	60	83	81	60	66
Yearly energy cost (3 hr. per day @ .11 kWh)	$0.72	$0.72	$0.72	$0.96	$1.20
Color temperature (measured / stated)	2,947K / 3,000K	2,561K / 2,700K	2,608K / 2,700K	2,646K / 2,700K	2,632K / 2,700K
Other color temperatures (price difference)	6,500K ($0)	5,000K (+$1)	5,000K (+$1)	5,000K (+$1)	none
Color rendering index	76	78	80	80	88
Dimmable range	Not dimmable	3.8 – 100{8c54160eed80eb00ac4f5d74c8785e95142d89daf570f201b81dc7fdc31059f3}	3.5 – 100{8c54160eed80eb00ac4f5d74c8785e95142d89daf570f201b81dc7fdc31059f3}	0.8 – 100{8c54160eed80eb00ac4f5d74c8785e95142d89daf570f201b81dc7fdc31059f3}	6.3 – 100{8c54160eed80eb00ac4f5d74c8785e95142d89daf570f201b81dc7fdc31059f3}
Dimmer switch flicker/buzz	Severe	Light	Light	None	None
Lifespan	30,000 hours	25,000 hours	25,000 hours	25,000 hours	25,000 hours
Weight	1.90 oz.	3.05 oz.	3.70 oz.	4.50 oz.	4.10 oz.
Energy Star certification	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Warranty	1 year	5 years	10 years	5 years	None
Price	$12	$8	$10	$12	$5

You’ll get well over 100 lumens more from the Osram 40W Replacement LED , which uses the same 6W power draw and, at $8 per bulb, costs $4 less than Saffron. That also makes Osram the more efficient bulb of the two, putting out over 80 lumens per watt compared with just 60 from Saffron.

Saffron gets similarly outperformed by 40W replacement LEDs from Cree, Philips and even the Ikea Ledare LED , which sits on its own in a strange middle ground between the 40W and 60W replacement levels. Spec for spec, all of them offer better overall value propositions than Saffron — though none of them are nearly as good at imitating the physical look of an incandescent.