Home LED Lights - A shopping guide

If you visited any store for buying electric bulbs for use at home or workplace, you would have surely noticed those small colored lights and perhaps wondered where could those tiny lights find applications? Will it surprise you to learn that those are lights of future? Yes, this environment friendly and highly economical lighting is soon going to replace the traditional lighting you may be using at present.

As it will not be long before you really start patronizing LED lighting, you should know some of the basics of this form of lighting and why it's desirable to be using it. Since this a relatively new form of lighting, lots of people have many apprehensions about it and unaware of some its typical features.

If you are wondering where you could effectively use these lights, you would be glad to learn that you can gainfully use these lights for indoor as well outdoor applications. Here are some of those applications:

• Accent lighting
• Desk lamps
• Spot lights
• Security lighting
• Decorative & feature lighting
• Recessed lighting
• Lighting of Tracks or clusters
• Courtesy lights

This type of lighting is already being used by many homeowners for lighting of kitchens, hallways, bathrooms, and basements, in fact any place that requires bright lighting.LED lights are also available in strips for use underneath kitchen units and inside of cupboards. Characteristically, they produce very low heat, keeping them safe and cold to human touch and can therefore be safely used for lighting of small spaces without any fear of causing fire due excessive heat.

The present range of LED lights is not most suited for places requiring an all round lighting. Here are the important features of this kind of lighting:

Key point 1: LED lighting in its present form is most appropriate for places requiring intense focused lighting.

People often get confused when we talk of LED lights in color. Color here refers to the color of the shell of the LED bulb and not color of light, though LED bulbs emit a range of white colors varying from soft and warm lighting to the sharper variety with colder effects. As a general rule, for indoor uses, white and warm LED lights are more appropriate, whereas for outdoor lighting, especially needing sharp light, close to daylight, it is recommended to use cool and white lighting.

Key point 2: understanding the "color" scale of LED light.
Next, we come to the power rating of LED lights. We know that a 100 watt traditional bulb gives very bright light while a 40 watt bulb gives light that's enough for lighting a lounge and a ten watt bulb is just for courtesy lighting. Now, LED lighting doesn't follow these wattages as they consume very small amount of power and most of it is transformed to light with hardly any part being wasted by way of heat produced.


Key point 3: Energy consumption of LED lights is very low. So, you should start thinking in terms of lower wattages. Apart from its wattage and color, the angle of beam of light emitted by an LED light plays a significant role on the brightness and looks of light it delivers. When the angle of light is less than forty degrees, it will be focused on a smaller area, making it look very bright. On the other hand, higher angles from 70-120 degrees will shed light over a larger area but the brightness will naturally be less.

Posted in: Interior Design