Can't dim enough

I have replaced as many of the lights in my house with LED bulbs as I can. There are two lamps that I purposefully have not swapped out, and those are the lamps we use as night lights for my kids. The incandescent bulbs are capable of dimming FAR more than any LED bulbs I've tried.

Why?

I understand how dimming has traditionally worked. I also understand the way that LED bulbs work around that technology. What I don't understand is why that limits the lower end dimming limit. Is it because they simply can't make the diodes put out that little light? Are they not able to separate them for individual control?

I recently had my son's bulb burn out and had to replace it with the only incandescent I had on hand. Are there any LED bulbs that can dim really far?

It's my understanding that LED dimming does it by using PWM (i.e. on for a bit, off for a bit, repeat). To dim, you reduce the number or length of "on" periods.

Once you go below a certain frequency, it becomes really noticeable as flickering. So they don't do that.

Might this be a place where a smartbulb is needed? I'm assuming a smartbulb could dim further as it could shut off LEDs not just pulse them. Of course this means needing a smart switch or device to do the dimming.

That makes sense Roger. Sigh.


Perhaps, though I have some Hue bulbs in my house and they're not much better, if at all. I have the lamps plugged into Lutron Caseta dimmers because Caseta is my favorite home automation product line of all time.

We never used nightlights, our kids didn't seem to mind. Dimming very low on LEDs is a problem, as Roger says if you get really low you can see noticeable flicker.

If the night light is too bright, you might consider covering it with something that will only let a little of the light come through it. Even something as simple as aluminum foil with a couple of strategically placed pinholes might do the trick.

We tried really hard to get our son accustomed to no nightlight, but he wasn't having it. We never tried with our daughter.


That would look pretty awful, as the nightlights are just their table lamps on their nightstand. We just use those because all the lights are automated and it's easy enough to do that. If I can't find a solution I'm probably just going to give in and use a more traditional night light that plugs into the wall.

Could you replace them with those blue glowing night lights? Something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Elsent-Bright-Night-Light-Sensor/dp/B073M28VC9

<edit>Not replace the lamp, but the night light function. When the lamp is turned off, those night lights turn on due to the light sensor

Although, perhaps some other color than blue, because blue light during the evening/night has been linked to health issues.

Yeah, I mentioned that if I can't get this working I'll just use a more traditional plugin type of nightlight.

But I would get a light that was - at most - in the white spectrum. Blue would drive me nuts. We currently have these in the bathroom, where there's no lamps (naturally).

All LED bulbs in our home are the Philips "Warm Glow" LED variety, which actually shift to warmer color termperatures as they dim, much like incandescents do.

Our house is very much a sub-3000K space everywhere except my workshop. Even there, I had to try a few different work lamps before I found one that was as white as possible without any hint of blue.