LED, Fluorescent or Halogen? See Your Kitchen in a Better Light
Why fluorescent and halogen are on their way out, and how to read an LED spec sheet: lumens, kelvin, colour rendering, drivers and rated life, with Newmatic lighting examples.
Open an old kitchen cabinet and you can date the house by its lights. A flickering fluorescent tube with a buzzing starter says the 1980s. A row of little halogen capsules, hot enough to scorch a fingertip, says the early 2000s. Both are on their way out: the European Union stopped most sales of fluorescent tubes in August 2023, and the small G4 and G9 halogen capsules a week later.
So in a new kitchen the real question is no longer which technology. It is which LED, and the answer lives on the spec sheet. Lumens, kelvin, CRI, voltage, watts per metre: the numbers look dry, but they decide if your tomatoes look red and if the driver gives up in its second year.
This piece is a short guide to reading those numbers, with a little history so you know what you are replacing. For where to put the lights and how to switch them through an evening, our companion guide on planning kitchen lighting after dark picks up the story.
The starting point
For a new kitchen, choose LED. Then compare lumens rather than watts, check colour rendering as well as colour temperature, and size the driver for the full load.
Four technologies at a glance
Type
How it makes light
Watch for
LED
Semiconductor chip
Driver, colour quality, heat sinking
Fluorescent
Gas discharge and phosphor
Mercury content, ballast, phase-out
Halogen
Filament in halogen gas
Heat, phase-out of common capsules
Incandescent
Heated filament
Mostly heat, little light per watt
In this article
Why the old bulbs disappeared
An incandescent bulb makes light by heating a thin wire until it glows. It is a lovely, warm light and a poor use of electricity: energy agencies have long put the share that leaves as heat at around 90 per cent. Halogen lamps are a cleverer version of the same idea, with a filament sealed in halogen gas. They run brighter and longer, but very hot, which is why a halogen capsule inside a cabinet could make a shelf of spices warm to the touch.
Fluorescent tubes work differently. An electrical discharge excites mercury vapour, which gives off ultraviolet light, and a phosphor coating inside the glass turns that into visible light. They were far more efficient than filaments, which is why they lit kitchens and offices for decades. The catch is the mercury. Under its hazardous-substances rules, the EU ended most sales of T5 and T8 fluorescent tubes in August 2023, and a broken tube still needs careful clean-up and proper disposal.
LED stands for light-emitting diode. A small semiconductor chip gives off light when current passes through it, and because each chip is tiny, LEDs can be built into slim strips, shallow profiles and small round downlights that fit inside kitchen furniture. They need a driver to supply the right low-voltage current, and that driver becomes part of the system you are buying.
LEDs are not cold. The heat is smaller and goes backwards into the fitting rather than forwards into the room, and it still has to be carried away. That is the job of the aluminium body in a good profile. A chip that runs hot fades and shifts colour sooner, so the housing matters as much as the light.
Count lumens, not watts
For a century we bought bulbs by watts, because brighter bulbs used more power. LEDs broke that link. Watts tell you how much electricity a light uses; lumens tell you how much light comes out. A traditional 60-watt bulb gave about 800 lumens. A decent LED gives the same from around 8 to 12 watts.
So read the lumens first, then look at the watts to see how efficiently they are produced. And remember that lumens leaving a fitting are not the same as lumens landing on the worktop. A frosted cover, a narrow beam or a recess set deep in the cabinet will all change how much light reaches the chopping board.
The savings add up quietly. Swap a 40 W light for an 8 W one giving the same output, run it four hours a day, and you use about 46.7 kWh less a year. That is one fitting. Real savings depend on the actual products and how long they are on, so compare the fittings you are being quoted rather than assuming every low-wattage lamp is equal.
More lumens are not always better. A very bright point source can look harsh and throw hard shadows, while a lower-output continuous strip spreads light more evenly along a counter. Look for a total that suits the task, delivered softly.
What kelvin can and cannot tell you
The kelvin number describes the colour of white light, not its strength. Around 2700 to 3000 K looks warm and slightly golden, like an old filament bulb. Around 4000 K looks neutral, closer to an overcast morning. Higher figures look cooler and bluer. A 4000 K strip is no brighter than a 3000 K one with the same lumens; it just looks crisper.
In the Newmatic catalogue, the AP98 lighting profile comes in 3000 K warm light and a 4000 K white option. The warmer version tends to flatter timber and feels relaxed at the end of the day. The neutral version keeps whites white and suits a cooler palette of grey stone and pale lacquer.
Neither is correct in the abstract. Warm oak, dark lacquer and white quartz each shift under different whites. Ask for a sample and hold it against your actual worktop and door finish. A colour that looks right on a showroom wall can turn your chosen stone faintly green at home.
Keep the whites consistent along any one run. A 3000 K strip under one cabinet and a 4000 K strip under the next makes the same worktop look like two different materials. If you want a warmer accent somewhere, choose it on purpose and check it with everything else switched on.
CRI, and the red it leaves out
Colour rendering is how faithfully a light shows colours compared with a reference light such as daylight. The usual measure is CRI, the colour rendering index, scored out of 100. It is a separate number from both lumens and kelvin, and on the spec sheet it is often the one people skip.
There is a wrinkle worth knowing. The standard CRI score is worked out from eight fairly soft test colours, and the strong red known as R9 is not one of them. Yet red is exactly what a kitchen is full of: tomatoes, peppers, raw meat, a bowl of strawberries. A light can score well on CRI and still make a steak look grey. If a supplier lists R9, a positive and preferably high figure is a good sign.
Newmatic lists the DL340 three-light set with CRI above 80 and the CV54 silicone strip with CRI above 90. That puts the strip in the higher band, which is useful where food and natural materials are on show. Even so, the number is a guide, not a guarantee. See the light on your own worktop before you decide.
Good colour can still be spoiled by glare. A high-CRI strip with no diffuser, reflected in polished stone, will be pleasant to measure and tiresome to live with. A frosted cover costs a few lumens and is usually worth it.
Dots or a line
LEDs come in two basic shapes for cabinet work: points and lines. Points are small round downlights that throw pools of light. Lines are strips or profiles that lay down an even band. Each has its place, and the choice changes the character of a kitchen more than most people expect.
Pools of light from points look crisp and architectural on a shelf or inside a glass cabinet, and they make a feature of whatever sits beneath them. Along a long counter they can leave gaps between the pools. A line gives more even light along a run but can look plain if there is nothing to catch it.
Newmatic’s AP98 recessed profile is a line. The catalogue describes a 10 by 10 mm profile with an aluminium body and a polycarbonate cover, in lengths from 0.5 to 2.5 metres. That small section has to be routed neatly into the cabinet, so agree the detail with the cabinet maker early.
The DL340 set is points: three small LED downlights with a driver and touch controller. Each light is listed at 1.8 W and 152 lumens, with 4000 K light. Three of them suit a short run, a shelf or a cabinet interior better than a long prep counter.
Do the driver arithmetic
Most cabinet LEDs run at low voltage, usually 12 or 24 volts, supplied by a driver that converts mains power. Matching the voltage is only step one. The driver also has to deliver enough power for everything connected to it, and the dimmer or controller has to be designed for that driver.
A real example makes the point. Newmatic lists the CV54 silicone strip at 12 V DC and 10 W per metre, in a five-metre length, so a full reel draws a nominal 50 W. The LD69 driver is listed at 12 V, 3 A and 36 W. One LD69 cannot run the whole reel; it would be asked for more than it can give.
So the lighting plan should list the actual lengths of strip and the driver for each run, with the margin the product instructions call for. A driver with several output sockets does not have several times the power. Running a driver flat out in a warm, closed cabinet is a reliable way to shorten its life.
Dimming needs the same care. The LED, driver and controller must be designed to work together. An old wall dimmer from the halogen days will often flicker or hum with a new low-voltage strip, even though both technically turn lights on and off.
Ratings and rated life
Accessories such as door sensors and touch controllers carry their own ratings, and those ratings say where they can safely go. Newmatic’s range includes both, but a sensor that suits a dry pantry shelf may not suit the cabinet over the sink.
The IP code is the one to read. IP20 means the device is protected against fingers and large objects, with no protection against water at all. Near a sink or kettle, look for fittings with a water rating and follow the manufacturer’s guidance on placement.
Newmatic’s catalogue gives a 35,000-hour lighting-life figure. At four hours a day, that is the best part of twenty-four years. Rated life is measured under set conditions, though, and it describes the LEDs rather than every driver, connector and cable around them. Heat and installation quality decide how much of that figure you actually get.
So plan for maintenance even with long-life lights. Keep drivers and connections reachable without taking the kitchen apart. File the model numbers and a simple wiring sketch with your kitchen paperwork, so a replacement part can be matched without guesswork.
Label each circuit by what it does: prep counter, display shelf, pantry. Note which driver and controller serve it. If one strip fails years from now, the electrician can find and fix it without disturbing the rest, which matters when several identical-looking connectors hide in neighbouring cabinets.
Take the spec sheet to the showroom
Before you choose, put four numbers side by side for each candidate: lumens, kelvin, CRI and watts. Then add the driver rating and IP code. If a product will not tell you those, that tells you something too.
Then look at the real thing. Hold a strip under a sample of your worktop, put a tomato and a slice of bread under it, and see whether they look like food. Numbers narrow the list. Your eyes make the final call.
Our kitchen lighting plan for after dark covers placement, sensors and evening routines. When you are ready, bring your cabinet drawing and material samples to Newmatic to compare the profiles, downlights, strips and controls side by side.
The best kitchen light is the one you stop noticing. The food looks right, the counter is easy to work at, and nothing buzzes, flickers or glares. Get the numbers right and that is what you are left with.
