Sylvania

Sylvania light bulbs cover every socket in the house: everyday LED A19s, TruWave, filament bulbs and floods, slim LED fixtures that replace the bulb, and the incandescent specialty bulbs and fluorescent tubes that older fixtures and appliances still take. Homeowners and contractors buy them room by room. The TruWave A19 and several fixtures let you set the color at install, so one product covers several rooms.

SYLVANIA is the North American lighting brand of LEDVANCE, headquartered in Garching, Germany, with its North American headquarters in Wilmington, Massachusetts. The company traces its roots to 1901, when Frank Poor became a partner in a small Middleton, Massachusetts, business that renewed burned-out light bulbs. LEDVANCE separated from OSRAM GmbH in 2016, was sold to the Chinese lighting company MLS Co., Ltd. in 2017, and uses the SYLVANIA name under an agreement with ams OSRAM. LEDVANCE LLC holds the license for the SYLVANIA trademark in general lighting, which makes LEDVANCE the company behind the bulbs and fixtures on this page.

Everyday A19 bulbs: match the dimmer first

Most household sockets take a medium-base A19, and choosing between Sylvania’s A19s mostly comes down to whether the fixture is on a dimmer. The ECO A19 is the whole-house swap: a 24-pack of 2700K soft white, the warm color people know from the old 60-watt bulb. The 14W A19 runs a brighter 3500K with a 10-year rating, and it’s non-dimmable, so it belongs on plain switched fixtures. Sylvania also makes a larger A21 daylight LED, a small A15 soft white and a three-way soft white LED for lamps with three-way sockets.

The mistake that comes back most is a non-dimmable LED on a dimmer circuit: it flickers, buzzes and fails early. On a dimmer, use a bulb marked dimmable and dim it only the way the package or the bulb’s markings say. If an old dimmer built for incandescent bulbs still flickers with a dimmable LED, replace it with an LED-rated dimmer.

TruWave: choose the color once it’s in the room

TruWave is Sylvania’s line designed to cut unnecessary blue light. The TruWave A19 dims and has five selectable color settings from 2700K to 5000K, so it’s the bulb for a room where the color is still undecided. Use 2700K to match the old incandescent look. Around 4000K is closer to natural light and easier on the eyes for long reading, which makes it the setting for a desk or reading lamp. For a garage or laundry room that just needs daylight, the 8W TruWave comes fixed at 5000K and dimmable, in a 16-pack.

Filament bulbs for the vintage look

The white filament line gives you the look of an old filament bulb built on LED parts. A filament LED needs a smaller heat sink, so more of the bulb is glass and the light spreads nearly 360 degrees. That spread is what a clear pendant or an open cage fixture needs. Both filament bulbs dim. Watch the color. The clear A19 filament is 5000K daylight, a crisp blue-white that looks cold in brass or amber glass, so use it where you want bright white light. For chandeliers and candelabra sockets, the B10 is 2700K soft white on a candelabra base. At 300 lumens a bulb, a five-arm chandelier of B10s puts out 1,500 lumens.

Floods, spots and track bulbs

Recessed cans and track heads take PAR and reflector bulbs. A PAR bulb uses a parabolic mirror to focus light into a tighter beam, which makes it the pick for floods and accent lighting. A BR spreads softer, wider light, and that suits a can over a kitchen counter. Sylvania’s ULTRA LED glass PAR bulbs come in PAR20, PAR30, PAR30LN and PAR38, and the ULTRA LED reflectors in R20, BR30 and BR40. The number is the size, so read it off the bulb you’re replacing. For track lighting, the TruWave PAR16 on a GU10 base replaces a 50-watt halogen at 3000K and dims. Never put a lamp in a fixture smaller than its specified minimum dimensions, because the heat has nowhere to go.

Read the base and the wattage rating

The number in a base code is its diameter in millimeters. E26 is the medium household screw base, E12 is candelabra and E39 is mogul. GU10 is a 10 mm twist-in and GU24 is 24 mm. Pin bases run from 4 mm on a G4 up to 12 mm on a G12, and most pin-base bulbs are MR16s, compact fluorescents or HID lamps. After the base, check the fixture’s wattage rating. A bulb at or under that rating is safe, and one over it can overheat the fixture and its wiring. An LED labeled as a 100-watt equivalent can go in a 60-watt fixture as long as the fixture’s size and shape fit it, because the LED draws far fewer actual watts. Pull the old bulb and read the code printed on its base.

LED fixtures that replace the bulb

The 12-inch flushmount with night light has a bright outer ring for general light and a dim night ring for after dark, in a white metal frame. It’s made for hallways, kitchens, foyers and bedrooms, and the night ring is the reason to choose it for a hallway outside the kids’ rooms. The 6-inch Slim Microdisk downlight is wet-rated with an IP-rated design for bathrooms, laundry rooms and kitchens. Its 90 CRI shows skin tones and paint colors true at a bathroom mirror.

Both fixtures dim and have five color settings from 2700K to 5000K, so a six-pack of downlights can light a bathroom at 3000K and a laundry room at 5000K. Set the color on each fixture before it goes into the ceiling, because changing it later means taking the fixture back down.

Under cabinets, the TruWave 18-inch light bar is low profile with three color settings. The Natural Series bar is built to extend an existing run, so add the same series that’s already under the cabinets and the color will match. Outside, the LED security light is hardwired and wet rated for driveways, entryways and garages. Mount it high and aim it down the driveway, away from neighboring windows.

Grow lamps for starting seedlings

With a short growing season, tomatoes and peppers get started indoors. Sylvania’s Full Cycle grow bulb is a PAR38 LED built for growing herbs, vegetables, flowers and fruits indoors with little or no sunlight. It runs cool enough to sit close to plants without leaf burn, and the grow LEDs carry a 3-year satisfaction guarantee. It’s rated for up to 18 hours a day in the 6-12” seedling stage and up to 12 hours a day in the 18-30” vegetative and flowering stage. The bulb is non-dimmable, so run it on a plug-in timer set to 18 hours for seedlings and 12 hours once plants reach the vegetative stage.

Incandescent specialty bulbs and fluorescent tubes

Sylvania still makes the incandescent bulbs that some sockets need: candelabra B10 and G16.5 bulbs for chandeliers, small E17 bulbs in T7, T20 and S11 shapes for appliances, 7-watt night light bulbs and small A15s. An oven light is the clearest case for keeping one on hand, because the bulb has to take the oven’s heat, and heat is what burns out a filament early. Use the bulb the appliance manual names, in the same wattage, and let the oven cool before you unscrew the old one.

For shop and garage lights, Sylvania makes T8 and T12 fluorescent tubes in 20-inch to 8-foot lengths, U-shaped T8s, and T5 mini lamps. The number after the T is the tube diameter in eighths of an inch, so a T8 is 1 inch and a T12 is 1-1/2 inches. The tube has to match the ballast in the fixture, so read the old tube’s code, length and pin style (8-foot tubes often use a single pin) before you buy. Cold matters too: standard T8 tubes are rated down to -4°F and T8 Slimline tubes to -13°F, so an unheated shop on a January morning may start slowly. Fluorescent tubes contain mercury, so take the old ones to a recycling drop-off.

Other Sylvania lines

Sylvania also makes MR16 pin-base bulbs, T5 mini lamps on a G4 base, T3 halogen and incandescent lamps, and 300-bulb icicle Christmas light sets. The 3157 and 7443 are Sylvania car bulbs from a separate automotive line.

Sylvania lines at a glance

Line	Specs	Where it goes
ECO LED A19	9W (60W equivalent), 750 lumens, 2700K soft white, medium base, frosted, 7-year rating, 24-pack	Whole-house bulb swap
LED A19, 14W	14W, 3500K bright white, non-dimmable, 10-year rating, 4-pack	Switched fixtures with no dimmer
TruWave A19, 9W	9W (60W equivalent), 800 lumens, selectable 2700/3000/3500/4000/5000K, dimmable, frosted, 2-pack	Kitchens, offices, reading lamps
TruWave A19, 8W	8W, 5000K daylight, dimmable, 16-pack	Garages, laundry rooms, workshops
TruWave PAR16	6W (50W equivalent), GU10 base, 3000K, dimmable	Track and accent lighting
White filament A19, clear	6.5W, 800 lumens, medium base, 5000K daylight, dimmable, 2-pack	Clear pendants and cage fixtures
White filament B10, clear	3.5W, 300 lumens, candelabra base, 2700K soft white, dimmable, 4-pack	Chandeliers and candelabra sockets
12-inch LED flushmount with night light	20W, 1550 lumens main / 50 lumens night ring, 5 selectable CCTs (2700K-5000K), 80 CRI, dimmable, about $2.41 a year to run	Hallways, kitchens, foyers, bedrooms
6-inch Slim Microdisk downlight	12W, 1000 lumens, 5 selectable CCTs (2700K-5000K), 90 CRI, dimmable, wet-rated, white, 6-pack, about $1.45 a year to run	Bathrooms, laundry rooms, kitchens
TruWave 18-inch under-cabinet bar	Selectable 2700K/4000K/5000K, low profile	Under kitchen cabinets
LED security light	14W, 1500 lumens, 5000K daylight, hardwired, wet rated	Driveways, entryways, garages
Full Cycle LED grow bulb	20W PAR38, 30 micromoles/s, 80 CRI, non-dimmable, frosted, 15,000-hour life, 6-pack	Indoor seedlings, vegetative and flowering plants

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find the right Sylvania bulb for my fixture?

Match the shape code on the old bulb first. The letter is the shape and the number is the diameter in eighths of an inch, so an A21 is about 2.6 inches across, one size up from the everyday A19. That extra width can keep a globe from closing or make the bulb rub a lamp shade, so check the room inside the fixture before you move to the bigger bulb.

How bright a Sylvania LED do I need to replace my old bulb?

Go by lumens, not watts, because an LED makes the same light on far fewer watts. An old 60-watt bulb put out about 600 to 800 lumens, and a 100-watt-equivalent LED puts out about 1,600 to 1,800. The 60-watt level is plenty for a bedroom or a reading lamp, and a living room or office usually needs the 100-watt level.

Do Sylvania LED bulbs need time to warm up?

No. Sylvania LEDs come on at full brightness right away, so they’re the better swap for compact fluorescents that crawl up to full light in a cold garage or on a winter porch. They also give off no UV or IR radiation and contain no mercury, so there’s no UV hitting fabric under a lamp and a broken bulb is only broken glass or plastic to sweep up.

What do I replace a Sylvania CFL bulb with?

A screw-in CFL swaps straight to an LED bulb of the same shape and base. For a pin-base CFL in a recessed can or wall fixture, LEDVANCE makes LED replacements for pin-base CFLs, and some run on the fixture’s existing ballast while others need it bypassed, so match the pin base and check which kind the fixture needs. Old CFLs contain mercury, so take them to a recycling drop-off, not the trash.