Last updated: February 2, 2022
To really get the best yield possible out of your indoor cannabis grow, you want to make sure that all parts of each of your plants are getting even light coverage. LED grow light bulbs can be a quick and easy way to add to the total light output of your main grow light system, further optimizing your veg and bloom phases to increase potency and total yield.
Finding the right LED grow light bulbs for indoor cannabis cultivation can be very tricky – because the market is saturated with bulbs that are meant for growing other plants. To help you out, we sought and tested a wide variety of LED grow light bulbs to create this list of reviews. And by the end of this article, you’ll know everything you need to choose the right bulb for you.
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Best Overall |
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Haus Bright AC85-265V LED Grow Light Bulb |
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Best Value |
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CANAGROW LED Grow Light Bulb |
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Premium Choice |
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highydroLED Led Plant Grow Light Bulb |
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Esbaybulbs Full Spectrum E26 LED Grow Light Bulb |
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MIYA 3030 LED Grow Light Bulb |
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Of all the LED grow lights we reviewed, this one from Haus Bright blew us away at every turn. High powered? Check. Easy to install? Absolutely. Full spectrum lighting? Sure thing. Top that all off with awesome customer service and a decent warranty, and this easily made our pick as best overall LED grow light bulb.
Pushing out nearly 5000 lumens per bulb, these LED grow lights are strong enough to grow a plant on their own but work even better in multiples. E27 bases are compatible with most common light fixtures, making them incredibly easy to install. With a full spectrum of light, they’re also suitable for every phase of a cannabis grow.
The downside? These bulbs are so popular – they’re not always available. So, if you see them for sale, snatch one up quickly! Because they might not be there the next time you look.
To conclude, we think this is the best LED grow light bulb available this year.
With nearly a 10-year history in the cannabis grow light business, CANAGROW has seen a lot of technological developments come and go. This is evident in their ingenious LED grow light bulb offering: The only chip on board (COB) bulb that we found, it packs a huge amount of light power into a small and easy to install package.
For those that don’t know, COB style bulbs are the most recent advancement in LED technology. By jamming many LED chips into a smaller area, light intensity is concentrated and increased – while maintaining excellent energy efficiency.
So, when we saw that CANAGROW had a chip on board style LED grow light bulb, we were intrigued! And really, it lives up to the hype: An excellent output of full spectrum light, great heat dissipation, and wide compatibility with standard light fixtures easily make it the best led grow light for the money. Back that up with a 30-day money back guarantee and 2-year warranty, and it’s a fine little light, indeed.
The only downside? It’s not completely water resistant. In damp or humid grow rooms, the life expectancy is severely diminished. But, for the money, we think this is the best LED grow bulb.
100-Watt LED grow light bulbs aren’t so easy to come by, but they’re the top of the line choice for adding light to an existing grow. Powerful enough to grow plants on their own, they really shine when used to support a larger light rig – adding that crucial last step of complete light coverage for your plants. In this way, a small investment in bulbs can give an impressive boost to your total yield.
HighydroLED’s grow light bulb impressed us with its qualifications as a 100-Watt bulb: Full spectrum light makes it suitable for every grow phase, without sacrificing energy efficiency to do so. With an aluminum radiator shell, it gives minimal heat while operating and is compatible with almost all standard light fixtures.
Coming as a 2-pack, these bulbs are a slightly larger investment than many others we reviewed. In our opinion, though, they’re absolutely worth the price.
Depending on the layout of your indoor grow, you may have more than just one shady spot once your cannabis has completed its veg phase. Because light coverage and canopy penetration are so vital to getting the biggest yields out of your bloom, it’s a wise choice to supplement your main light rig with enough smaller bulbs to illuminate all your plants evenly.
If the situation described above sounds familiar, that’s where the Esbaybulbs LED grow light bulb set comes in handy. Four lightly powered bulbs are offered at a bargain price, making them ideal for filling out any shady areas in your canopy. Compatible with standard lighting fixtures, their full spectrum light and energy efficient design make them easy to use and effective for growing.
Will you use these on their own for a grow? They’re not nearly high powered enough. But to fill in any shady areas in an already thriving grow, they’re a fantastic product for the price.
One of the big advantages of LED grow lights is their lack of heat production. Whereas other high intensity discharge (HID) lights put out a lot of heat and require serious ventilation, LED grow light bulbs rarely add much heat to your grow.
As an accessory to HID lights, the MIYA 3030 might be the perfect fit to fill out any shady areas. Its large, diffuse design means that it adds essentially no heat at all to your grow – a highly desirable quality when your ventilation system may already be struggling to keep up with the heat put out by HID lights.
Its 50 Watts of power won’t impress anyone, but full spectrum light makes it suitable for any phase of a grow. Use it when heat is a concern, but otherwise choose a more powerful LED grow light bulb.
It’s a sad fact of buying any light bulbs that you’re never sure how long they’re going to last. Even the best of designs can fall prey to defects or environmental damage, making them a tricky choice to invest in.
That’s why we like this LED grow light bulb option from SANSI: Aside from the standard features that you always want in a bulb, they offer a 5-year, unlimited warranty on all their bulbs. So, while individual bulbs are expensive relative to their power output, they’re also a safe investment for the future.
Full spectrum light and compatibility with standard light fixtures make it an easy addition to your grow room, but don’t expect to get too much power out of it: At just 10 Watts, it’s one of the weakest bulbs we reviewed.
So far, every bulb we’ve reviewed has required a light fixture with a standard sized socket to operate it. But what if you’re looking for an LED grow light bulb package that includes everything you need to get started using it right away?
That’s where this offering from KINGBO will be most useful. As a fully integrated accessory lighting system, it comes with a 2-head adjustable lamp that is highly flexible and gives great light coverage. As an all-in-one package for adding light to your grow room, it’s an excellent choice.
Full spectrum light makes it suitable for any phase of your indoor grow, but at just 50 Watts of power it’s best suited as an accessory light. Efficient heat dissipation makes it a good option for rooms that don’t have much ventilation. Add in a 1-year warranty, and the KINGBO is a safe option for filling out any low light coverage areas in your grow.
There are plenty of LED grow light bulbs out there designed specifically for cannabis cultivation, but this isn’t their only potential purpose. Most other plants require far less power and intensely focused light to thrive, meaning that more traditional styles of bulbs work perfectly fine for them.
We’ve included the Miracle LED plant growing light bulb on this list specifically to illustrate this point. At just 12 watts, and with a wide, diffuse design, it’s not going to do much of anything for a cannabis plant – but it’s excellently equipped to grow herbs and greens hydroponically.
When you’re searching for LED grow lights, it’s important to remember that not all bulbs are created equal. With the recent explosion in their popularity as lights for cannabis cultivation, plenty of companies are trying to jump on the indoor growing bandwagon. Marketing their bulbs under the auspices of being good for indoor gardening, they’re most often only suitable for herbs and greens.
Case in point: These bulbs from Bluex. One look at them will show you they resemble nothing so much as a standard light bulb. With a wimpy 9 Watts of power per bulb, they’re not suitable at all for growing cannabis, even though they do provide full spectrum light.
In short, save these bulbs for your indoor herb garden but keep them away from your weed.
GE is perhaps the most well-known name in lighting, but this offering of theirs is more suited to growing herbs and flowers than anything cannabis related.
Nine watts of power isn’t enough to contribute even as an accessory light for your indoor cannabis grow, even though it is a full-spectrum bulb. While the quality of light is even and pleasant on the eyes, its bulky and fragile design would make it difficult to install even as a reading light.
Look towards other LED grow lights for your cannabis growing needs.
There are three common uses for LED grow light bulbs in cannabis cultivation:
But no matter the purpose you’re choosing an LED grow light bulb for, there are still three things that you need to look for:
You can find LED grow light bulbs in a very wide range of power ratings: From the tiny 9-Watt bulbs meant only for herb gardening to intensely focused 100-Watt grow solutions, there’s a size of bulb for anything you might need.
Generally, lower-power bulbs should only be used as an accessory to a larger light system. They’ll help fill out any coverage areas that are missed by your main overhead, ultimately leading to greater yields during the flowering phase.
Medium- to high-powered bulbs can be used for setting up small cloning boxes by positioning them close to young plants. But if you’re planning on using one of these LED grow light bulbs as your main source of light for a single plant grow, it’s essential to choose the highest powered bulb you can afford; the increase in yields will easily be worth the extra investment.
Because you’ll be screwing most of these bulbs into an existing light fixture, it’s important to check for hardware compatibility. E26 is the standard size for North American light fixtures, while E27 is standard across most of Europe. While an E27 might technically work in an E26 base, it’s important to note that they weren’t designed specifically for this; as a result, bulbs used in this way may suffer a diminished lifespan.
Image Credit: tdfugere, Pixabay
When you’re looking for LED grow light bulbs, it’s full spectrum or nothing. Basically, there’s no reason to invest in a bulb that only covers a portion of your growing phases when full spectrum bulbs are available at an almost identical price. Do yourself a favor and limit your search to only those bulbs that cover a full spectrum of light.
We were most impressed with the Haus Bright AC85-265V LED Grow Light Bulb out of every LED grow light bulb that we reviewed; its combination of intense power and reliability made it stand out well above the crowd. For sheer value, though, you shouldn’t ignore the CANAGROW LED Grow Light Bulb – it’s a solid competitor to even our #1 pick.
Thanks for taking the time to read through our list of reviews! We know it can be hard to sift through all the available options when looking for an LED grow light bulb, so we hope this list has pointed you in the right direction. If you take the points in our buyer’s guide into consideration, we’re confident that you’ll be able to find the perfect light for your indoor grow.
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