Outdoor lighting should be prioritized as much as indoor lighting. Your outdoor space is the first place people get to see and experience before they get into your home.
So if you put a lot of effort into getting your indoor spaces to look bright and beautiful, you should ensure your outdoor space is well lit and welcoming.
Whether it’s a residential or a commercial building outdoor lighting will do the following for you.
Aid Safety: When your outdoor space is bright enough, it’ll be easy to navigate when it’s dark, so tripping, falling, or sustaining injuries can be avoided. It’ll also be easy to see if anyone is lurking around with a bad intention so having a well-lit outdoor space can help to prevent criminal actions.
Add Beauty: Proper lighting of your outdoor space will switch up the mood or feeling that your outdoor space gives, making it more attractive by highlighting the creative parts of your outdoor architectural structure instead of leaving it plain.
Increase Comfort: With good outdoor lighting, it becomes comfortable to carry out regular outdoor activities without fear even when it’s dark e.g grilling, constructing, swimming in your outdoor pool, etc.
To achieve all these, it’s important to know what types of light are best for your outdoor space and the things you need to consider before getting your lights.
Why Led Lights are Great for Outdoor Spaces
LED technology keeps growing massively. It has proven to be a solution to many lighting challenges in indoor spaces and is now being incorporated into outdoor spaces as well. To see how and why you should use LED lighting indoors, check out these blog posts – Can Led Strips Be the Main Source of Light in a Home and 22 Unique Uses of Led Strips in Covid 19 World.
LED lighting for outdoor spaces seem to be the people’s choice compared to other types of light and here’s why:
Consistent Bright Light:
Unlike other kinds of lights that only produce bright white light when they are new and later reduce quality to start producing yellow, orange, or even pink light later, LED lights consistently produce bright white light for a long period depending on the color temperature or the color rendering index of light you choose.
Color temperature determines the color of light that will be produced from lighting fixtures. Lighting produced can range from a very warm yellow or orange color to a very cool white or bluish-white color.
The color rendering index determines how close the color of objects will appear to be under the LED light to how it appears under normal day-light.
The advantage LED light has over other types of lights is that it has a wide range of color temperature and color rendering index to pick from and it consistently maintains the quality you choose from the start.
This means that you can choose LED lights that make your outdoor spaces look exactly like it would have looked during the daytime thereby eliminating fear and making people as comfortable as possible to carry out regular activities in such an environment when it’s nighttime.
Check out the types of lights and their available color temperatures and color rendering indexes in the table below.
Light Types | Color Temperatures (Kelvin) | Color Rendering Index | Light Color Produced |
Incandescent Light Bulb | 2700k | 95+ | Yellow |
Fluorescent Light Bulb | 4200k | 62 – 80 | White |
High and Low-Pressure Sodium Light | 1800k – 2200k | 0 – 25 | Orange |
Halogen Light Bulb | 3000k | 90+ | Yellow – White |
High-Intensity Discharge Light | 1800k – 6000k | 0 – 60 | Orange – Light Blue |
Mercury Vapor Light | 5600k – 6000k | 45 | White – Light Blue |
LED Light | 2700k – 6000k | 65 – 95 | Yellow – Light Blue |
From the table above, you can deduct that LED lights can be supplied in different ranges of color temperature and Color rendering index depending on a person’s choice of lighting mood.
This 12 minutes video by Back Pack Hack explains and gives visible examples of different Color temperatures and Color Rendering Indexes.
Energy Saving Capacity:
For outdoor lighting to perform its needed functions there might be a need to put your light on for eight hours or more when it’s dark. Leaving lights on for that long usually requires a substantial amount of energy consumption.
LED lights are known for energy efficiency as they transform electricity supply directly into light using a semiconductor. With this, no energy supplied is wasted and you need only minimal energy to keep the luminaires working.
LEDs also produce directional light at 180 degrees compared to other lights that produce lights at 360 degrees. Some of the lights produced at 360 degrees are directed towards the sky in an outdoor space. This will need to be reflected to the ground when it hits the lighting fixture. In the process, some light gets wasted, so not all the energy consumed is useful in this case.
However, since LED lights only produce light at 180 degrees, light is directed to exactly where it is needed without wastage.
Long-Lasting
Compared to other types of light like the Incandescent Light bulb that lasts for only about 1200 hours, LED lights have a lifespan of about 25,000 hours to 100,000 hours without a need for replacement. There is a big difference in their life-span and this reduces the need for replacement and hiring labor to re-fix bad lights.
Things to consider before buying Outdoor LED Lights
Seeing that LED Lights come in different types, sizes, and shapes that fit into different purposes, it is important to know what to consider before buying or choosing the types of LED lights to use in your outdoor space.
Things you need to consider include;
1. Your Home color and Architectural Structure: As much as you must be concerned about properly lighting up your outdoor space, It should be done in a way that’ll be aesthetically pleasing. You need to consider colors because during daytime when the lights might not be switched on, the fixtures will still be visible.
Ensuring that the colors of the lighting fixtures match your home color will make the lighting set up beautiful. You also have to select shapes that’ll complement the architectural structure of your outdoor space.
2. IP Rating/ Durability: When purchasing LED lights for interior use, checking the IP rating might not be so necessary because the lighting will be indoor which is usually a dry space with no harsh conditions. However, when it comes to purchasing lights for outdoor use you cannot ignore the role that IP rating has to play.
An IP rating is a two-digit number on lights that indicates the light’s ability to withstand harsh conditions. The two numbers represent the luminaire’s resistance to dust and resistance to water respectively.
We recommend getting luminaires with at least dust resistance of ‘6’ and water resistance of at least ‘5’. We have a post on IP Rating that can help you get an in-depth understanding of the concept. It is necessary to check for IP ratings to know the kind of conditions that the luminaires can stand and get the type that fits the condition of your outdoor space.
3. Dimming / Dust-Dawn functionality: Getting LED lights with the dimming or dusk to dawn functionality will help you save a lot of energy as you can easily reduce light output when the light is not needed. The dust to dawn functionality, in particular, works by switching off the LED lights once it detects the presence of sunlight using photocells. The LED lights come back on once sunlight is down.
Although some other types of light come with dimming functionality like High-intensity Discharge lights, they do not get to save a lot of energy compared to LED lights when the light is dim. This is because the energy input for these kinds of light is normally greater than the light output, so dimming the light does not have so much effect on the energy consumed by the luminaires. Since LED lights operate with minimal energy consumption, diming it has an equal effect on the energy it uses and so it helps to save cost on energy usage.
4. Outdoor Lighting Standard of your Country or State: At Potato Lighting, we manufacture and supply all types of LED lights to clients in different countries worldwide.
So we understand that there are lighting standards peculiar to some countries set up by relevant bodies like the American National Standard Institute (ANSI) in the United States.
Your lighting choices must be in sync with these standards for safety purposes e.g the voltage surge standards, electro-magnetic interference standards, mechanical reliability requirements, etc.
Considering all of these will guide your decision about choosing which LED lights are best for you whether you want to use them in a residential or commercial space.
If you still have any doubt about choosing the best-LED light for your outdoor space, ask your questions in the comment section below or contact us to speak to an expert.
