Home DIY

The noise is coming from the switch rather than the bulb.

Some dimmable lamps/switches use horrible switch-mode power supplies that whine like mad at lower than maximum throughput.

I put an LED bulb in my dimmable bedside lamp and there's a definite whine there, luckily Mrs GB can't hear it and it doesn't bother me enough to do anything about it.

(I definitely have the most sensitive hearing in the house, surprising as that includes my 10yo who hasn't had a chance to ruin her hearing yet. Had a 3 night stay in a holiday cottage earlier this week and I was the only one that could hear the chirp every 30-40 seconds from a smoke alarm with a low battery.)

The bulbs I just bought from screwfix say dimmable. I've jsut replaced it as the one before flashed when dimmed. The noise is coming from the switch rather than the bulb.

That just means the bulb has a circuit in it that detects what the dimmer is trying to do and adjusts its brightness to match.

The problem is most dimmers are simple cheap circuits that need a minimum load (i.e. number of watts) to work properly. LED bulbs can't compensate for that.

You either need to get a different dimmer that's happy driving a small LED load or resign yourself to app-controllable bollocks.