How we rate: the method behind every recommendation

A buying guide is only worth as much as the process behind it. So that you can put our recommendations into context, we set out this process on this page: where our data comes from, what we judge a lamp by, what our ratings mean and where their limits lie. More about the project is under About us, and named responsibility is on the Our team page. This page is about the how.

The editorial process in five steps

Every buying guide and every data check follows the same process. It keeps recommendations comparable and stops them depending on the mood of the day:

1. Set the topic and selectionWe decide which lamps come into question for a use case at all, for example floor lamps for the living room or SAD lamps with 10,000 lux. Relevance and availability in the shops decide, not the size of the commission.
2. Gather the dataFor each candidate we collect the facts that can be documented: lumens, kelvin range, lamp holder, design, features and controls, exclusively from manufacturer and retailer sources.
3. Assess it from the light's point of viewWe check how well a lamp does its job in the room in question. The basis is our lighting knowledge on brightness, colour temperature and glare-free light, not a pure data sheet comparison.
4. Award and justify the ratingEvery recommendation gets an editorial rating and exactly one honestly named drawback. That keeps visible which compromise you accept with a model.
5. Check and keep up to dateBefore publication we check figures, links and labelling. Errors reported later and changed data sheets are followed up afterwards.

Where our data comes from

We base every statement on traceable sources and say where a figure comes from. Three sources form the foundation:

• Manufacturer and retailer information: We take technical values such as lumens, kelvin, wattage, lamp holder and dimensions from official data sheets and product pages. Because this information comes from marketing, we label it with phrases such as according to the manufacturer and do not round anything up to look better.
• Documented user experiences: We review publicly available ratings and experience reports to identify recurring strengths and weaknesses in everyday use, such as flickering when dimming or a fiddly app. We deliberately give individual outliers little weight.
• Product data via the Creators interface: We obtain images, titles and general availability in the shop through the Creators API of our Amazon affiliate programme. That keeps the product image and link correctly matched to the right item, without us inventing images or data ourselves.

What we deliberately do not do: pass off assessments by third parties as our own results. If a product title in the shops advertises a third-party award, we shorten it accordingly and rely on our own, honestly labelled assessment.

The rating scale: why there is never five out of five

Our editorial rating theoretically runs from 1.0 to 5.0, but in practice our recommendations almost always sit between 4.0 and 4.5. That is no coincidence but intentional: only lamps that do their job well make it onto a comparison page. Within this good field, the tenth-point steps distinguish which model offers the more rounded compromise of light, features and price band.

We do not award a flat 5.0 as a matter of principle. A top score with no deductions would claim that a lamp exists with no compromise at all, and that is dishonest. Every product has to give something up somewhere, be it brightness, controls, build quality or simply price. That is exactly why every recommendation from us comes with at least one clearly named drawback. The 4.5 marks our strongest recommendation in a category, and the 4.0 a model that is still good but involves a somewhat larger compromise. If the same product appears on a category page and in a data check, the rating is identical, because it describes the product, not the page.

What we judge a lamp by

Our rating combines several criteria, which carry different weight depending on the type of lamp. For a desk lamp glare-free light counts for more, for a floor lamp the effect in the room. Roughly speaking, we weight four areas:

• Light quality: Does the colour temperature suit the purpose, can the brightness be sensibly controlled, and does the lamp cause glare or flicker in operation? We explain the basics in the lumens-to-watts chart.
• Everyday practicality: Controls, stability, footprint and build quality decide whether a lamp remains convincing after unpacking.
• Flexibility: An E27 lamp holder can be retrofitted and made smart, while a built-in LED often offers features straight from the factory. Both have their place, depending on your requirements.
• Value for money: We place each lamp in a rough price band and ask whether the performance on offer fits it. What light costs to run is worked out in our guide to LED power consumption and costs.

What we do not do: the limits of our method

Honest advice also means naming your own limits. We do not run a lighting laboratory and we do not publish self-measured lux or lumen values. All technical figures come from manufacturer and retailer sources, and we make that clear instead of faking precision of our own. Likewise we do not quote up-to-the-day prices, because these can change hourly. Instead we work with price bands such as entry level or mid-range, and you always check the actual price directly in the linked shop.

We also stay cautious on the subject of health. A SAD lamp can help through gloomy months, but it is an aid and does not replace medical treatment. If you suspect signs of winter depression in yourself, you should have it assessed by a doctor first. And for hard-wired ceiling lights or outdoor lighting we point out the limits of DIY: if in doubt, a 230 V connection belongs in the hands of a qualified electrician.

How we handle affiliate links

TopLampenReviews is funded by labelled affiliate links, including from the Amazon affiliate programme. If you buy through such a link, we receive a commission and your price stays the same. This funding changes nothing about our ratings: the size of the commission has no influence on selection or order, and manufacturers cannot buy placements from us. If a cheap LED bulb in an existing shade gives the same light as an expensive new lamp, we say so, even if we earn less from the sale.

Every purchase link carries an advertisement label and is technically marked as advertising. That way you can see at a glance where a paid link sits and where editorial text is. You can find more about our stance and the principles of the whole network on the network page and in our guides section.

Corrections and currency

Technical data changes, models are revised, links go out of date. That is why our pages carry a visible date of last update, and we follow up changes as soon as we notice them or they are reported. If you spot an error, a kelvin figure is wrong or a link leads nowhere, write to us via the contact page (in German). We check every report and promptly correct documented errors, because accuracy is the core of a credible buying guide. Legal details about the operator are in the legal notice (in German), and everything about how your data is handled is in the privacy policy (in German).