I think your statement is totally true. If you do rely on a bold for many months out of the year I think you need a meter. When I got my meter I was absolutely shocked at how little UVB was coming out of some of the Long bulbs I bought. I did not have my meter when I had my mercury vapor bulb, I wish I had. very long story short, I use high output bulbs and fixtures. Also these fixtures are about 15 inches above the tortoise and turtle which is another reason I use the high output. If they were just 12 inches the others might work okay, but even when I tested those very little was coming from them.Hmm... I should take this back. The more I thought about it, I realized there's not a lot of supporting info about that. I created a thread.