Here I find it is very easy to find good LED bulbs with the strength and color profile of my choice and I have used LED in all rooms of my house for the last 10+ years without any failing so far.
You're falling for the "Europe is better than the US, of course" mindset. What you are actually seeing are partisans spinning a narrative to fit their ideology, not an accurate description of reality.
We have really high CRI bulbs here, too, and they're inexpensive. I can go down to the home store and buy them by the dozen. I'll bet you money that bulbs in the US and bulbs in Europe are mostly manufactured in the same place...
The in ceiling lights I bought to replace a bottom dollar Amazon light was are 94 and I’m pretty sure I bought the cheapest I could that would change temp to match my existing ones.
Your friend has shared a link to a Home Depot product they think you would be interested in seeing.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-Soft-White-A19-LED-60W-E...
Looks like GE’s Sunshine brand has a CRI of 97 and is $8.99 on Amazon.
GE Sun Filled LED Light Bulb, 60 Watt Eqv, Soft White, A21 Standard Bulb, Medium Base https://a.co/d/fLkL8wr
https://www.homedepot.com/p/EcoSmart-100-Watt-Equivalent-A19...
Home Depot's "Ecosmart" store brand, claims 95 CRI, and has admirable dimming performance even on the cheapo not-designed-for-LED dimmer I have on the fixture. And it has a more even and omnidirectional pattern of illumination than typical LED bulbs.
Of course, time will be the only real judge.
Cree, GE's "HD" line, Phillips' high CRI line, and I believe "Feit", the HD brand, also has high CRI bulbs.
You can only get Cree bulbs from HD via shipping; they don't stock them in store, at least in my area.
Phillips and GE HD bulbs are available in a lot of local hardware stores and even pharmacies.
I also don't buy the shitty cheap bulbs. I buy mostly Cree's high CRI dimmable bulbs, Phillips high CRI dimmable, or GE high-CRI bulbs if I can't find the Crees (Home Depot stopped carrying them in-store.)
The problem is that both the author and a ton of people in this discussion buy shitty, cheap, no-name bulbs and then they're shocked when they flicker, don't dim well, and fail often.
This whole discussion is a bunch of angry old men yelling at clouds because the guvmint won't allow them to waste 4x as much electricity to light their home.
Even high-CRI bulbs aren't a "perfect" replacement for an incandescent, but the energy savings, especially if you're in an area where you use air conditioning and thus the heat of an incandescent bulb equals more energy usage for cooling, is worth the small sacrifice.
- Fails after 12 months - Nice and bright while they last - 6 months in, 2 already burned out. - I've already had two die in less than 6 months
CRI isn't even something you can filter by on their online catalogues. At least the new EU energy labeling let's you see what the specs are.
https://www.waveformlighting.com/tech/what-is-cri-r9-and-why...
It's easy to make a bulb that scores higher than 80 - still, they usually have poor R9 (red reference light source) scores, which is noticeable.
