When choosing driving lights or a light bar, it can feel like there are a hundred different abbreviations and words you need to know. From watts, lux, lumens and the Kelvin colour temperature, there are many ways to assess the quality and strength of an LED light.
- Read our blogs on colour temperature and lumens vs lux to learn a bit more about what makes a great light.
However, one abbreviation you should definitely pay attention to is the CRI of your new LED light.
To make things a bit easier, we have reached out to MadMatt to help explain what CRI means and why it’s essential that the light you choose has a CRI that’s right for your needs.
What is CRI?
Colour Rendering Index (CRI) measures a light source’s ability to display colours accurately when compared to natural sunlight. A higher CRI indicates more realistic color representation under artificial light.
The CRI rating is expressed as a number between 0 and 100. Objects under natural sunlight have a CRI of 100. Measuring artificial light with a CRI is a way of gauging how effective the light is at rendering accurate colour. Are the blues looking blue, and are the reds looking red? A CRI of 70 – 90 would be an adequate light on the road, allowing you to see accurate detailing and colour differences.
Since the advent of LED lights, the CRI rating has become more critical. LEDs have much greater strength than halogen lights, but with this strength often comes a cooler colour temperature, which means your light must have a high CRI to counteract this. Recent improvements in LED technology mean that we can now offer unbeatable lighting power, combined with a high CRI rating across our entire range to give you accurate and detailed vision.
Why is CRI important for driving lights?
For vehicle lighting, CRI can be incredibly important. A flat white light that doesn’t show the correct colouring means that animals and wildlife might be more challenging to distinguish. Driving 100 km/h down the highway, you want to be sure you can accurately tell the difference between a kangaroo and a bush up ahead. In addition to colour, detail is also significant for driving safely; the varying road conditions and weather patterns you will experience in the Australian outback mean that without a high CRI, distinguishing between different elements on the road will be challenging.
At Ultra Vision Lighting, all our driving lights and light bar products have a CRI of between 70 to 75 across our 4000k, 4500k and 5700k colour temperatures.
Watch the video
But don’t just take our word for it. MadMatt, our resident expert in all things driving accessories, has taken the time to explain some of the nitty-gritty about CRI and why it’s an essential factor in choosing the right driving light for your vehicle. Watch the full video below.
Video Transcript:
Introduction to Light and Colour Rendering Index (CRI)
“Light and how it works is obviously a very technical subject, and there are experts in that field. Now, I’m not one of those experts, but I have done some research, and I’ve come to two key points that I want to talk to you about today that pertain to the Kelvin scale.”
Understanding the Colour Rendering Index (CRI)
“The first point we want to discuss is the CRI—the Colour Rendering Index. How is that important to us as four-wheel drivers or for someone using driving lights on their vehicle? The CRI index ranges from 0 to 100, where 100 represents pure sunlight. This index refers to how colours appear under pure sunlight. For instance, does the grass look green under pure sunlight? Does the water look blue? At a CRI of 100, colours appear as they naturally do under sunlight.”
Evolution of LED Lights and CRI
“In the early days of LED lights, you may recall turning them on and noticing that the leaves on trees looked washed out, almost white, and the colours appeared poor. That was because those early LEDs had a very low CRI. Nowadays, we’re able to produce LEDs with a very high CRI, even up towards 90 and 100, which is amazing. However, it’s been found that if we have a CRI of around 70 in our driving lights, we get a really good representation of the colours while driving at night.”
Practical Considerations for CRI in Driving Lights
“You might be asking, “Why wouldn’t I want the highest CRI I can possibly purchase?” Well, you might for certain requirements, but consider this: when you have a 100 CRI or a very high CRI, it’s ideal for tasks like colour matching in an editing suite, where accuracy is crucial. However, when you’re driving at night, you’re not trying to colour correct anything—you just want the trees and the road surface to appear natural.”
CRI and Detail Recognition While Driving
“Another important aspect of a good CRI is how it influences the detail in the scene you’re viewing. For example, if you’re driving down a road with potholes, bumps, and various contours, or in an environment where kangaroos, lions, cheetahs, or elephants might cross the road, you need to spot all of that detail at speed. The higher the CRI, the more detail your eyes will pick up from the scene as you drive. This is another reason why choosing driving lights with a CRI that suits your needs is crucial.”
