If you use a garage door opener and it's suddenly stopped working with its remote opener after working fine for years, you might need to take a look at your light bulbs. At least if you changed them right before the garage door opener stopped working.

That's because a door opener works with its remote control on radio frequencies, just like remote controlled cars and even household wireless phones. And like any electronic device, a light bulb can produce electromagnetic fields with the potential for interfering with those wireless devices.

This is especially a concern with the rising adoption of LED light bulbs, whose drivers (a part inside the bulb) actively produce a field in a range that can interfere with garage doors. Some bulbs have been known to prevent garage doors from opening, or even to open them on their own!

Rest assured, you can still use LED bulbs for your garage lights, even within the garage door opener. You just need to buy light bulbs that don't cause this problem. How do you do this?

Well the fact is, a little shielding inside the LED can keep most of the Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) from escaping and can allow your garage door to work just fine. Unfortunately, with consumers demanding the lowest price possible on LEDs, plenty of companies have tried to meet that demand by foregoing quality issues like this shielding. We've spoken before about the risks of buying LED bulbs from unknown brands that don't have US reputations to uphold and may not be around to back up their warranties. We can add this to the list of risks.

While we can't guarantee that a name brand LED bulb will work with your garage door, we expect it to give you excellent odds. Especially because name brand LEDs should be marked with the FCC logo showing FCC compliance -- this includes minimizing RFI that would keep a garage door from working. If you see that logo, it's likely that the bulb will work without issue.

Of course if your garage door opener has stopped working with its remote, make sure to check the batteries in the remote before you take additional steps like buying new light bulbs. But if new LED bulbs seem to have caused the problem, look for a brand you can trust and an FCC label and you should be in good hands. Since we only carry LEDs whose brands we trust, you may want to look at our selection here. And while they last, you may want to consider this package of non-dimming A19 LEDs here for a great price per bulb.

Will those low-cost bulbs solve this problem? They should. The back of the package begins with the following:

"This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: 1.) This device may not cause harmful interference, and 2.) This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation."

We have just dropped pricing on 2-packs of Sylvania BR30 LEDs. While supplies last, these are just $4.50 for the 2-pack ... or $2.25 per bulb. These are dimmable on compatible dimmers and rated for 25,000 hours of use. They're designed as 65W incandescent replacements.

For a name-brand LED, this may be the best value you can find. But hurry ... at this price, we don't know how long we'll have remaining stock!

You can check out our broader selection of BR30 LEDs here (including colored BR30 LEDs!)
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Colored light bulbs are a popular addition to party settings, and can be used in everyday settings to add ambiance alongside general lighting. They can even help promote a theme within a room ... or within a community.

Some colored light bulbs are seen more often than others. For instance, we see see greens and reds during the Christmas season and orange lights around Halloween; and colored bulbs are sometimes used in porch lights to promote certain causes: blue for police (especially fallen police) and sometimes for autism awareness; green for veterans; pink for breast cancer; and so on. Sometimes a community will also encourage the use of a certain color to support something local.

One of the less common colored bulbs you'll see is the purple light bulb. Also useful (especially with orange) for Halloween, purple lights are also used in October by those trying to raise awareness of the problem of domestic violence. (October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.)

But purple is also a soothing color that can be used indoors to provide a gentle atmosphere throughout a room, or it can partner with general lighting to cast a special glow in one area, perhaps across a collection on a bookshelf, or hidden behind a plant or furniture to add a purple hue to a wall.

As with any colored light bulb, use of a purple light bulb indoors is limited to your imagination. And the purple LED we carry is a great way to create these effects without using much energy.

So if purple is your thing, how will use use purple lighting to enhance your home?

One of the frequent questions we come across is what the difference is between BR30 and PAR30 light bulbs. This has nothing to do with the technology of the light bulbs, like halogen or LED. This is about the shapes and what they're used for. There are a couple things you should know when choosing between the two:

1. Their Faces have the Same Width
The number "30" indicates the width of the face of the bulb in 1/8 inches, so both are 3.75" wide. This allows them to fit into common 4" recessed lighting cans. They could also be used in 6" cans, but they'll leave more space to all sides. This is just a different look that you may or may not like. If you don't care for it, then you could move up to PAR38 or BR38 / BR40 bulbs instead.

2. The Main Difference is in Light Distribution
We consider BR lighting to be optimal for general lighting while PAR lighting is good for emphasizing certain areas or objects. PAR lights tend to put a harder edge to their lighting with more shadows outside their beam. So while BR lighting might provide more consistent light throughout a room, PAR lighting might give more emphasis to a sitting area (for instance) while more dimly lighting the rest of the room.

3. PAR30 Bulbs have Two Neck Options
PAR30 bulbs are commonly used in both recessed lighting fixtures and track lighting, so they come with short neck and long neck options to accommodate this usage. PAR30 short necks are more often used in track lighting while the long necks are often used in recessed lighting cans. BR30 bulbs do not offer this option.

4. PAR Lamps are More Often Used Outdoors
If you're going to use lights outside, the lamps (aka bulbs) need to be "wet rated" -- or they need to be used in a fully-sealed fixture that doesn't let moisture inside. (If the bulb is "damp rated" it can still be exposed to moisture in the air, but not direct water.) Some PAR30 lamps are wet rated; BR30 lamps are usually not. So if you need a wet rated bulb, check the packaging or online listing before buying to make sure, since there is no fixed standard about this. You can find our wet rated PAR30 LEDs here.

We hope this helps you make the right decision between these two types of lamps, and encourage you to visit Lighting Supply to place your order online, or to give us a call for help placing your order.

We've been hard at work behind the scenes at Lighting Supply to bring more value than ever to our customers, and we're starting to roll out the changes!

We recently brought in many new products from Sylvania LEDVANCE and we've done away with the requirement of buying certain products (like fluorescent tubes) by the case. Just buy whatever number of bulbs you need.

Today we're announcing two more conveniences for you:

• Our call center is now open until 8pm ET (M-F) to answer your questions and help you place your orders.
• We now offer same business day standard shipping of in-stock items when you place your order by 8pm ET.

This is meant as a convenience for all our customers, and expect it to especially assist those in other time zones with more help and same day shipping through the end of common business hours.

We look forward to sharing other positive changes with you over time!