i've been shopping for bulbs all night.

on second thought, it seems like these bulbs may be difficult to replace due to the geometry of the fixture. i only have a few mm to play with, and the replacements are all quite wide. i might not be able to find a bulb that fits.

we'll see what kind of data comes back. what i did was turn everything off except the background use - two led bulbs in the bedroom, appliances (including the modem) and the laptop/monitor setup in the bedroom -  and leave the lights in the bathroom on for one hour each, over three combinations - both bulbs, and then each separately. that should let me understand what kind of usage i can assign directly to the bulbs, and whether it's really as bad as it seems. the background is about 0.15. the two of them running together is probably going to be as high as 0.5, indicating that each of them is equal to the background. and, when a single bulb is equal to all of the appliances, two led bulbs and a computer, that bulb is a problem that needs to go.

if it's as bad as i think, i may just take the bulbs out and buy a lamp, instead. or, if i can find an led floodlight, i could just stick with that.

i now need to test the other switch through three combinations - just the fan, the fan & the led and the fan & the ir light. this will help me understand just how bad the ir light is, and whether it's really worthwhile to replace it or not.