EMFBase
Sources & emitters

LED lamps and low-cost drivers

The switch-mode driver inside a cheap LED lamp can put measurable high-frequency harmonics on the circuit and produce visible flicker; well-filtered drivers do neither.

dirty electricityhomeworkplaceschool

Last verified 12 August 2026.

Also searched as: LED bulb, LED driver noise

Category
dirty electricity
Emission bands
Driver switching harmonics
Environments
home, workplace, school
Duty cycle
While the lamp is on.

Field strength by distance

Mitigations, most effective first

A/B test lamps on the same circuit with a dirty-electricity meter and keep the quietest.
Driver quality varies by more than an order of magnitude between lamps at the same price point.
Prefer lamps that state low flicker percentage and EMC compliance figures.
Flicker and conducted emissions both trace back to driver design.

Why no value is published at 30 cm

Emissions are driver-specific and conducted rather than radiated; compare lamps by measuring the same circuit with each lamp fitted.

Measure with

  • Dirty-electricity (line harmonics) meter
  • Light flicker meter

Related records

  • Dimmer switch and phase-cutting controls

    Phase-cutting dimmers chop the mains waveform and inject harmonics from a few kilohertz up to about 1 MHz onto the building wiring — the classic source of what practitioners call dirty electricity.

    Sources & emitters

Sources

  1. sbm-2024 Building Biology Evaluation Guidelines for Sleeping Areas (SBM-2024) — Institut für Baubiologie + Nachhaltigkeit (IBN), 2024. ngo, link checked 2026-08-12.

Same record, other formats