They light up the room pretty well, but I wish they worked as well as the old incandescents. I like the daylight color more then the soft yellow bulbs. When you turn them on they go from dimmest, to brighter, to brightest. (The soft yellow ones I bought in the past do the opposite.)The middle setting is not that much brighter than the brightest setting. Where I live it's extremely dark inside, so you need about four of them for the living room. 1 works ok for a smaller bedroom. (My original floor lamp, which had a metal top that directed light upward onto the ceiling, used the old standard 3 way bulb [before LED bulbs], and that bulb would light the whole livingroom by itself.