The more light is why can see better but the higher K is an illusion. You are seeing more flash back of cement etc. At 5k and more greens and browns of nature tree, grass, etc become two dimensional. I used to make high end lighting and many experiments showed that arc light with high K temp made it very hard to see things in the real world.

I like the 5k in the city but it's not very good in the country at all. Fortunately my high beams are like 4300 and make everything turn 3d the second they are engaged.

Just as when you aim your headlights up away from the ground it will "seem dimmer" because you aren't making a bright spot right in front of the car, the higher Temp K will give you more flash back that gets more light to your eyes but from nearer objects. Lower K has a farther reach so you can see things farther away.

Interesting.

High kelvin bulb ratings are a meme and unrealistic. Why anyone would willingly spend hard-earned money on making their eyes strain more than necessary is beyond reason. Sure, the colors blue and purple are pretty neat I suppose, but to buy lights to emit at those spectrums is retarded and completely useless. Personally I think 4300K (slight yellow spectral radiance) to 6000K (very light blue spectral radiance) is ideal for reduced night driving eye strain, depth perception and more accustomed to the human eye needs.



Sunshine w/o clouds at zenith produces a light about 5500K - corrected for light absorption through earths atmosphere. The surface of the sun is 5750K and appears white. Because the surface of the sun emits all wavelengths equally and is "full spectrum", we ideally want a bulb that does the same thing. But this is tricky. Even though there are many bulbs out there that are "full spectrum", some wavelengths in the spectrum are more present than others. Without rambling about physics too much, Kelvin and the visible spectrum are not proportionate but we need a comparison. We don't see in Kelvin, we see in nano-meters of the electromagnetic spectrum.


Using Wien's Displacement Law, we find that a bulb that is color corrected for 6000K will emit visible light to my eyes at 500nm which is an absolute sweet spot in the visible spectrum IMO. The 4300K bulb emits around 660nm which is too predominately red and leaning toward the outer limit of the human eye. Mind you, the 4300K bulb is "full spectrum" and works just fine, but know that this CCT is heavier on the red light emission. Bonus: an HID bulb with a 10,000K CCT emits at about 290nm! :rofl: The bulk light emission and peak wavelength is completely useless because the human eye cannot even see it. But the box says full-spectrum HID bulbs, bro! I can drive my Honda Civic just fine!



BTW, I put the 6000K version in today: https://weisslicht.com/collections/d...22512023666769

Good choice. That's what I installed together with their halo leds. Perfect and absolutely love them.

Makes me feel better about the 6000k bulbs I recently installed.

I'm narrowing in on replacement bulbs...
 

I cannot figure out the difference between Philips Xenon X-tremeVision gen2 Xenon car headlight bulb compared here:

https://www.philips.co.uk/etc/philip...2S1,85122XV2C1

Any help, please?

Higher K lights work ok in concrete jungle settings but will remove almost all depth perception in the country. I’ve been working in lighting development including building LED landing lights for planes since 2003 so I have a little bit of experience in the subject. I have a portable xenon search light that is 5500k and can send a spot over half a mile but when you beam it onto a tree even at close range the spot looks almost purely two dimensional.

The factory knows what they are doing you should never go higher than 4300 for high beams but I like 5000 for city driving it pairs better with concrete and I’m a religious user of high beams in the country and the mix of 4300 and 5000 works great. (Depth perception at distance with the 4300 and close up lighting of roadway at 5000)

It’s literally dangerous to use higher K for high beams as you will lose a great deal of depth perception any higher than 4300k. Something clearly important to avoid hazards as well as simply aim for the apex of curves while driving.

Asphalt, stone, shrub, trees, leaves; they are all “tuned” to lower K light. The further you stray from 4000, the less well you can see any of those things.

That’s a nice solution. Reminds me of when I had a motorcycle, the high/low been switch was either:or but the switch for safety sake was “make before break” so if you held it in the middle you got both and holy shit that was a lot of light. I may have used that too much as I did blow out my stator (MC equivalence of alternator) but it was very helpful. I may look into that driving light v. fog light however fogs aimed into the ground to light up the fog line on the road is very helpful and I have my headlights aimed at 0.0° which helps more than brighter to see farther.