We are considering using Halo LED recessed cans for our kitchen and dining area. Our electrician is cautioning that these fixtures might not produce enough light (at least when there is a one-to-one swap of incandescent can + 65 watt bulb for a Halo LED fixture).   However the ratings from the product's brochure say that the LED fixture gives off more lumens than a typical 65 watt incandescent bulb.

Does anyone have a personal experience with these fixtures, specifically for kitchen lighting? Any recommendations or discouragement for this particular product?

I have been playing around with LED track lighting for our new home. (We're not can people.) What I've found is that there is a huge difference in light output from one company's 3W white LED to another company's 3W white LED. (They are generally all 12V.) With tracks, I can buy some adiditonal fixtures and stick them up there, but you probably won't have that luxury. In general, I like the light, at least the warm white LED's, but again, there is lots of variability. I'd encourage you to purchase a fixture or two, if you can't fid somewhere to go look at them, before you take the plunge. You can hook them up to a transformer and see what they do. Also, I'm not familiar with those fixtures, but if you decide to go the LED route, there's a significant difference between fixtures to "retrofit" a house, and fixtures for new construction. New construction fixtures that run off of 12 volts are (IMO) considerably better, but you'd be wedded to them most likely. Jeff

See if you can't find an in-person side-by-side visual comparison with the Cree LR6. The LR6 has higher luminous efficiency and noticably better color rendering than any of their competitors as of last spring. But it's a fast-moving market- what you know today may change 20 minutes into the future.

The LR6 (and most of it's direct competitors) has a narrower, more of a a PAR-cone light distribution than an R-flood or R-spot The LR6 puts out 650lumens for 12 watts of 120vac in, vs. 600 lumens for 15 watts of 120vac for Halo units I've seen.

A typical 65W R30 spot lamp puts out about 900 lumens, but in a wider beam spread than the LR6 or Halo LED. The mid-cone intensity of the LED fixture will be as high as that of a R30 spot, but the cutoff is pretty fast outside of the ~40-45-degree cone. If used as task downlighting this isn't an issue, but if used for ambient lighting the fringe will be noticable near the floor. If it's a countertop or eating-counter/table light, no problem, but it won't be quite as good for searching in the bottom shelf of the under-counter cabinets that fall near the edge of the beams. (With sufficiently close spacing that wouldn't be an issue either.)

Glare factor can be high with some LED fixtures too- placing them centered over a dining table may not be the greatest- placing them over the seating areas or the table edge will provide more pleasant & useful lighting. (This would be true for almost any recessed lighting in dining areas.)

Last, not least, make sure that the color temperature of any LED fixture you use in a dining or food-prep area is 3000K or lower- food looks a lot better with the reds saturated a bit. Some of the highest efficiency LED goods are practically sky blue- 5000K and up. Efficient, yes but it sure makes skin tones and food look like crap. (I'd only use those for security lighting, etc.)

Good blog post mrogers! From my experience both are fantastic products, but the CREE light color output is very good and is preferred by many. However, the Halo is a little easier to retrofit because it comes with a pig-tail connector just in case the Edison base on your can is bolted down or however.

LEDs are about as efficient as fluorescent lights - not significantly more like some believe. So you can use that as a guide to how many watts you want.

example: 11 watt CFL bulb, 660 lumens.

Make, that, about as efficient as self-ballasted compact fluorescents.  The LR6 & Halo cans aren't anywhere near T5 or T8 linear fluorescent efficiencies, and are still well behind pin-base (fixture-ballasted) CFLs.

But that's about to change- Philips has made an entry for the L-prize, which in order to meet the spec, is at parity with T8 linear-fluorescent efficiencies (90+ lumens/watt) with BETTER color rendering than cheap linear fluorescents (CRI 90+ mandatory.)  

The required price-points are also good: Year-1 MSRP for the PAR38 entry must be under $30, year 2 MSRP under $22, year 3 $14. There are no entries for the PAR38 version yet, but compare that price/performance to the current price/performance of the Halo or LR6! (Twice as efficient as the Halo at half the price, more than 50% more efficient than the Cree.)  I expect somebody to step up within the next year.  For the complete prize specifications, see:  http://www.lightingprize.org/pdfs/LPrize-Revision1.pdf

I like the Cree LR6, but expect to see both cheaper & better options by the time my CFLs burn out.  It was the first to beat CFLs on both efficiency and color rendering.  The PAR-type photometrics makes them more suitable for some applications than others though.

Cree has hit 186 lumens per watt - but you can't buy one yet.

http://www.cree.com/press/press_detail.asp?i=1259701233981

Watts as measured at the LED die, with no optics, no specified color rendering or temperature...

Don't hold your breath on finding that in 90+ CRI edison base assembly, eh?