CRI — Colour Rendering Index — measures how faithfully a light source shows colour compared with natural light, on a scale to 100. Sunlight scores 100. A candle scores close to 100. Most LED lighting sold in Singapore scores around 80.

At Ra80, roughly a fifth of colour fidelity is gone — and it is not lost evenly. Reds fade first. Wood turns grey-brown, leather goes flat, skin looks tired, food looks less fresh. The room is bright, but everything in it is slightly wrong.

Illustration of the effect. Colour rendering varies by object and light source.

R9: the number inside the number

Here is the part most brands leave out. The general CRI score (Ra) averages only eight pastel test colours — none of them a saturated red. Red rendering is measured separately, as R9. A bulb can score Ra80 while its R9 sits near zero.

Red matters more than any other colour at home. It is in skin tones, timber, leather, brick, tomatoes, a glass of wine. Low R9 is why food photographs badly in some kitchens and why faces look washed out in some mirrors.

Every KAYVA product is Ra95+ with R9 above 50, and both numbers are backed by an independent test report. If we cannot verify a spec, we do not print it.

The honest trade-off

High CRI costs lumens. A Ra95+ bulb produces less raw brightness than a Ra80 bulb of the same wattage, because rendering colour faithfully takes energy that would otherwise go to raw output. We think the trade is worth making — you renovated for colour and texture, not for lux readings. But you should know it exists.

How to buy with this in mind

Ask for the actual test report, not the listing claim. Look for the Ra value and the R9 value — if a brand publishes only "high CRI" with no number, or a number with no report, treat it as Ra80 until proven otherwise. Then choose your colour temperature — our Kelvin guide covers that half of the decision.