GE Grow LED Light Bulb, PAR38 Flood Light, Indoor LED Grow Lights for Plants, Seeds and Greens, Balanced Light Spectrum, 25,000 Hours Lifespan, 50 PPF, 1 Pack (Packaging May Vary)

Seeing as how popular indoor container gardening has become - and, accordingly, how lucrative it now is to sell indoor grow lights - it is a bit difficult to find a light that you feel at all confident will actually be effective for your indoor plants. I’ve scrolled through what seems like countless products that purport to emit awesome spectrums that are totally sweet for plant growth (and, oddly, seem to feature the exact same “wavelength graphs”), or that tout their (sometimes slightly deceptively calculated) wattage - despite the fact that a fixture’s wattage tells you near to nothing about how useful a light will be in aiding a plant’s growth (wattage is, put simply, a measure of the amount of electricity used to run an electrical device, not a measure of that device’s energy output). It’s been a confusing and sometimes demoralizing search (well, as demoralizing as online shopping can honestly be), and I’ve felt very much in over my head I’m trying to choose a product that won’t be a waste of money or harmful to my plant friends.I am reviewing this particular product very positively, not simply because it works and is bright and has seemed to be very helpful in my attempt to keep a fussy dwarf orange tree alive over the dark cold winter, but also because I appreciate having been given the kind of information a consumer actually needs when trying to find a good, effective grow light.You’ll see the term “PAR” right in the title of this product, front and center; PAR, or Photosynthetic Active Radiation is essentially a measurement of light emission within the photosynthetic range of 400-700nm, which is the area of light that plants use for photosynthesis, or to grow. This is a really valuable specification to have in selecting an effective grow light, and I can’t imagine why so many of the other (often even more expensive) grow light fixtures for sale here don’t include this information in their listings.Hopefully, I haven’t come off as overly pedantic, I don’t mean to lecture anyone on the science of plant grow lights (admittedly, I know very little myself!), but I do remember my first searches for a good, solid grow light fixture and how frustrating it could be to feel that I wasn't getting any really useful information from so many of the products I found. I spent quite a bit of money on fancier-looking, often more expensive but ultimately less useful lights before I found this one, and I hope that this information is helpful to you, prospective buyer! I wholeheartedly recommend this bulb to anyone who needs some bright, direct auxiliary light for their indoor plants. One last point: this bulb is quite heavy (not really suitable for gooseneck/clip on task lamps), so keep that in mind while making your decision.

I decided to go with this grow bulb because it was the only one I could find that listed it's ppf value in the specs. I had also been previously using the GE BR30 LED grow light (16 micro miles/second) for about 7 months prior to receiving this one and I felt like my plants were doing really well, but I wanted to see if they could do better, grow faster, and produce larger leaves. I don't yet know if 50 micromoles is ideal for my indoor plants and environment (I have them on a shelf next to my western facing window in southern California where it's always sunny), but I will give an update when I see the results. The bulb is heavy, weighing in at 1.2 lbs on my scale. However, fortunately, my lamp can handle the weight. I'm using the Ranarp Ikea work lamp. I have it positioned to give as many plants a boost as possible while prioritizing my FLF, but I could position it to prioritize the top shelf no problem. I've taken a few photos with the footcandle readings at different positions of my setup so you can get a visual of the amount of light you'll get at different distances. My FLF is 26" away and gets ~758 fc. Bottom shelf 44" away gets ~558 fc, second shelf 32" away with the light directed at it ~997 fc, third shelf 24" away gets ~222 and top shelf 22" away gets basically nothing from the light. Hopefully that makes sense... The bulb gets pretty hot but I can keep my hand on it for about 15 seconds, not comfortably though. It's bright, but not harsh and a little on the warm side, much like the BR30 but a bit brighter. Gives my plants the beautiful spotlight they deserve. 👌

I think I didn't actually need a new bulb as it turns out. My Black Knight was developing green in the new center growth but I believe it was actually just being blocked by one of my taller Pachyveria.Regardless I don't have a lot of space to create a strong or efficient light set up for my table of succulents and I learned in my first go around that most single bulbs or wands on Amazon seem to be advertised unfaithfully to their real life performance. There's only so much a single bulb under $40 and under 50w can output so your expectations must be realistic for what can be achieved in this range. There's a lot of fancy looking multi-colored LEDs claiming extremely high PPFD beyond their capabilities. This bulb claims PPF 50 with no PPFD claim, which is the more important measurement. At 6-12 inches it seems to have a reasonably good PPFD based on the condition of my succulents after 3ish weeks. I am running it for ~14 hours a day because I get little to no natural sunlight in my house or even in my yard for that matter.My last bulb also had no PPFD measurement but advertised " about 1000umol @12" ". It was one of the pink/purple type LED supposedly optimized for non-vegetating plants. It kept my plants in decent color and not stretching but the coverage area wasn't great. This one so far seems to be a little more effective than that one was, possibly due to being full spectrum daylight. My Black Knight is looking a little more dark and all the green is gone, still nice and compact in the center, wish I thought about taking pictures before. Also the other bulb had a cooling fan while this one does not, so that's a big plus in my opinion. I got a new succulent in the mail that was poorly packaged and bent. I have it on the edge of the light area and it's beginning to stand up normally after being watered.I'm happy with the purchase, it works for my limited space and it's nicer to have the daylight color over the pink/purple. There's no outrageous claims for output beyond the wattage capabilities.Update 8/31/22I'm struggling to find the right height for this one. I don't think it's actually any better the one I had before, which leaves me to be of the opinion that all bulbs in this similar price range probably have similar output. My variegated Platyphylla has turned from green with red stripes to almost solid red. But my most compact echeveria (some Laui hybrid) that has done the best for me so far has lost some of its form at a 8-12 inch height. The bent succ never corrected but I think that's because the shipper actually killed it, I'm not certain there was anything I could do in this case. But I do rotate all my succs on a regular basis and they aren't straightening up very well.