I find that daylight (5000K-6500K) is a lot more common than neutral-cool white (3500K-4100K) in typical consumer CFLs and LEDs (in the USA). This seems backwards to me as most commercial applications tend to stick to neutral temperatures. My best guess is that "Daylight" is simply a more attractive label than "White", "Neutral", or "Cool White". I understand the appeal of daylight in certain applications, but I feel like neutral temperatures are much more versatile in a home environment and fit in better in places where warm white lights are also used.

We have 4000K LEDs here in Israel.
CFLs are rare in neutral colors here in Israel. They are mostly 2700K, 6000K and 6500K.
I've two Osram Dulux EL Longlife 23W/840 and Dulux EL Economy 21W/840 in my father home.

My guess is the home installations either tend to use lower intensities and mainly at the evening before sleep, so the lower CCT gets more appropriate.
Andthe other use is then really complementing the real daylight, where the daylight color is more suited.

The 4000K is way too much representing "the work", so people tend to not bring that totheir homes...

Checking my CFLs, 60% are daylight 6500k, 38% are warm white 2700k and 2% colored. I have no 4000k cfls.


My guess for this is unlike tubes, most CFLs and LEDs are imported from Asia, especially China, where due to the tropical climate daylight is more common. They make warm white as now it is getting popular as accent lighting. But neutral white is still not as used in Asia as it is in other places.

I think the home users have strong preference towards the edges

Some want "White" light, and the "White" they know means cool daylight, not cool white. I think most of them would choose the daylight if presented with it and the cool white lamp side by side, as the daylight is "Whiter" to their liking

Some want "Warm" so thats straightforward

Few want anything inbetween so it seems

Over here, at my wholesaler there is a small selection of 4000K E27 LEDs, however - It is much more limited than the 2700/6500K, no different styles - only the plain white plastic A-shape, and most interesting : Virtually all of them are the edge case wattages - Either the <5W <400Lm, or >20W >1800Lm ones. Very few if any in the middle wattages which are most commonly used at home. Also, they are all from only one manufacturer (out of a few that the shop carries)

Looking at my CFL collection, I would say 70% are warm white, 15% are daylight (5000K), around 13% are daylight deluxe (6500K), and only two are cool white.

I looked at the LED selection at Home Depot and could not find any cool white ones.

imo neutral is more commercial-ish or industrial, back when fluorescent tubes were being sold in my country no "regular" retailer had neutral tubes available, it was either warm or daylight, I had to look for a wholesaler of commercial and industrial lighting, and got a 3x cases of each size we use, all T12 as they last longer, it's only for the kitchen, laundry room and basement, so the CRI isn't that important.

I honestly like 5000K the best, tho I do like 4100K as well. The newer 5000K LEDs look better to me than the older ones, they are much more of a pure white, while older 5000K lamps often were more blue, but even older 5000K LEDs aren’t as harsh of a blue as like a 6500K CFL is. 6500 Kelvin is too cold.

At Carmel hospital, 4000K LED and T5 becoming popular. In the storage of Carmel hospital, every dead 865 color 21W T5 lamp is replaced by 840 color lamp.

Looking at my CFL collection, I would say 70% are warm white, 15% are daylight (5000K), around 13% are daylight deluxe (6500K), and only two are cool white.

I looked at the LED selection at Home Depot and could not find any cool white ones.

I see daylight CFLs much less than soft white CFL due to their wide replacement by daylight LED. Back in the day, daylight CFLs were quite common. For LEDs, I’d say 60% are warm white and 40% are daylight, daylight LEDs are more common.

I honestly like 5000K the best, tho I do like 4100K as well. The newer 5000K LEDs look better to me than the older ones, they are much more of a pure white, while older 5000K lamps often were more blue, but even older 5000K LEDs aren’t as harsh of a blue as like a 6500K CFL is. 6500 Kelvin is too cold.

I've noticed this too. I was used to 5000K CFL being a cold bluish color so when I tried modern 5000K LEDs, I was pleasantly surprised by their white, slightly warmer than natural daylight (as 5000K should be) color. I wouldn't use them everywhere myself but they're definitely a lot more useful than older daylight CFLs/LEDs imo.

I still find it bizarre that with CFLs they initially pushed blue 6500K (which I'm half convinced are largely even colder than they say they are) as the primary alternative to 2700K.

That is your perception of what is "neutral white". It is different for everyone

Besides plain variability between individual people, the statistic also varies by region : The closer people live to the equator, the higher CCT is what most of them consider as white. My observation confirms this :

I live in Israel and have been through virtually all my life. The white of 6500K CFLs (not LEDs) does look like neutral white to me. 4000K is clearly less white, though i still accept it as "white enough", while admitting that it (Fluorescent 4000K, not LED) does make less eye strain in the long term, which makes it preferrable for actual use, even if it is less "white"

I would say that "blue" starts at 7000K++, not 6500K

5000K is not something that i ever seen here, whether on sale or installed. I would guess (from my imagination) that 5000 or 5500 might be the other end of the range which i consider white

Many people i know dont regard 4000K the same way i do, and do prefer 6500K unconditionally. Others prefer 2700K. Although it never was a "rule", the claimed correlation does seem to exist :

 - More of the 6500K guys were either born here, or came from other countries of the Middle East or Morocco (even if back there they probably used incandescents, and even if they are old enough to have used incandescents through most of their lifetime regardless of where they lived)

 - More of the 2700K guys came from Europe or by extension Russia (including the Asian part)

Also interesting to note is that the correlation is slowly fading out. Back in the 00's the 6500K guys were the first to widely and quickly adopt CFLs as soon as cheap CFLs appeared. They bought them just to get the 6500K light. 20 years on, it seems like people's preferences are now less related to their country of birth, and many have now more mixed different CCTs in the house

In Britain (a country where the weather is very often cloudy) they call 3500K "white" and 4000K "daylight" (atlest back when they had their own independent lamp production, so up to the 80s/90s)