We also get to sift through lots of data in an attempt to make sense of company's announcements relating to the performance of their products.

For luminaires, the US DOE's Commercially Available LED Product Evaluation and Reporting (CALiPER) program is helping to address many of the issues surrounding performance claims and how these are presented to customers. See page 4 of the September/October issue for an update.

For LEDs themselves, accurate dissemination of results remains an issue. Sift through the LEDs Magazine website and, despite our high standards, you'll find examples of data originating from LED makers that are confusing or misleading.

A big issue is the wide number of variables that affect LED performance. Unless many data points are presented, it can be almost impossible to make a meaningful comparison, or alternatively it is very easy to jump to the wrong conclusions.

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This article was published in the September/October 2007 issue of LEDs Magazine.

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