The most important part of dimming is allowing the user to adjust light levels from dark to super bright in seconds. Ultimately, it depends on what type of dimming your LED bulb and/or LED driver are compatible with but if you are building your own setup, you can choose for yourself. If you are just looking for recommendations, then skip to our Top Dimmer Recommendations below.
0-10V Dimming
This type of dimming became very popular for commercial fluorescent lighting. The nice part is it can work well for LED installations as well so is a popular choice when retrofitting fluorescent lights especially. Control of the lights is performed by a dedicated DC voltage signal that ranges from zero to 10 volts. Understand the name now? This allows the controlled light to operate at 100% light output when full voltage is passed through and 0% output when no voltage is passed through. The brightness of your light changes in tandem with the voltage level of the control signal.
Leading Edge Dimming
Leading edge dimming (also referred to as forward phase-cut, incandescent or TRIAC dimming) is the most common dimming method.
The majority of these dimmers are TRIAC Dimmers which phase cuts the AC waveform at the start (leading edge) which reduces the amount of electrical current the bulb receives.
This type of dimmer is installed in most homes as it is ideal for high voltage applications which most legacy lighting required. The biggest problem with TRIAC dimming is sometimes there is a buzzing or flickering of the light. This can happen from the vibrations that are caused from the chopped-up AC signal.
Thankfully a lot of newer TRIAC dimmers have taken this into account and taken precautions to avoid the flickering. You will see many dimmable LED drivers or LED dimmers label as a flicker-free design. Make sure you do your research and find a quality dimmer, you can start at our top recommendations below.
Trailing Edge Dimming
A trailing edge dimmer is a much less common form of dimming. This was discovered after leading-edge became the standard and is better for low voltage lighting like LEDs. Because it is such a rare form of dimming, it is not as commonly used as you might think.
Instead of cutting the waveform at the start, the trailing edge cuts the trailing edge of the AC sine wave. This limits larger jumps in voltage that happen in leading-edge dimming because the waveform cuts out when it is already on a steady decrease.
Limiting the large jumps avoids the common flickering issues that happen with LEDs and TRIAC dimming. However, like we addressed above, leading edge dimming has welcomed advances in research and technology that have cut these issues out anyways.
