It’s easy to get tempted by cheap fixtures when looking at light fixtures. All you need is some light in your home; who cares if it’s $30 or $130? Trust us, we wish it was that easy too. There are numerous benefits to picking performance LED lighting for your home over budget LED lighting. This includes better productivity, increased comfort, lower glare, better color saturation in your home, cleaner design and less eye fatigue.
Performance LED Fixtures Have Lower Glare than Budget LEDs
Performance LED lighting can help decrease the glare you feel in your home. Budget LED fixtures generally have large lighting elements that are minimally recessed. Unfortunately, larger lighting elements and less recessed fixtures create glare. If you look into your living room, these low-hanging LED fixtures will feel like a bunch of headlights on your ceiling. These harsh, concentrated sources of light all create glare.
Meanwhile, performance LED fixtures are designed to minimize glare throughout your home. Performance LED fixtures have smaller lighting elements. They are significantly more recessed than their cheaper counterparts. By recessing the lighting element, the lighting element is less likely to be seen anywhere except directly under the light. This reduces the glare in your space and makes it more inviting.
Easier Comfort and Relaxation for Performance LEDs
Aside from reducing glare, performance LED fixtures are also great at making your space more relaxing to unwind in. Our eyes are picky about how warm or cool we prefer the ambient lighting at any specific brightness. When our lights fall out of this unique window, our eyes will begin straining themselves. It can even mess with your natural circadian rhythm!
While budget fixtures might perform well at full brightness, they’re more likely to stray from this ideal window at lower brightness typically used for winding down at the end of the day. As a result, your eyes will be more strained, causing discomfort and eye strain, especially at lower brightness levels. You will be blown away by how much performance lighting can contribute to your home’s comfort and ambiance.
Stronger Color Vividness in Performance LEDs
One of the biggest weaknesses of LEDs can be their ability to render colors. Your home only looks as good as the light that illuminates it. LED lighting fixtures can be especially poor at rendering red hues. Unfortunately, this isn’t easily detected in the industry color accuracy rating, CRI. Items like artwork, red/orange furniture or apples may feel faded or dull compared to everything else in your home.
Thankfully, premium LED manufacturers offer higher quality diodes that give LEDs significantly better red color saturation for your home. As you can see from the graph, entry or budget LEDs offer huge blue spikes and low red vibrancy. Meanwhile, premium fixtures are able to provide even, vivid colors across the visible spectrum.
Performance LED Fixtures Offer A Cleaner Appearance Than Budget LED Fixtures
Performance LED fixtures provide a nicer appearance on your ceiling than budget fixtures. To hit a lower price point, budget fixtures use low build-quality tolerances as a cost-saving tactic. Everything is bigger: the diode, the fixture as a whole, the thickness of the bezel and the width of the bezel. The wide, protruding bezel makes budget LED fixtures an eyesore on your ceiling, even when their bulky design makes them glaringly apparent on your ceiling.
Meanwhile, performance LED fixtures have thinner and smaller bezels. The overall enclosure is smaller, typically three to four inches in size. Many performance LED fixtures have flush-mounting options to further disguise their presence on your ceiling.
Performance LED fixtures have more heavily recessed lighting elements. This means you’re less likely to see the lighting element and only see color-matched trim for a stealthier look. As a result, you’ll see more of the light in your home as opposed to in your ceiling. For those who value a clean aesthetic, the extra premium for performance LED fixtures are the best choice.
Premium LED Fixtures Guarantee Minimal Eye Fatigue and Headaches
Have you ever been in a home with LED fixtures and started experiencing eye strain? That can be due to a number of reasons. The most common one is related to how the light dims. There are two methods that LED fixtures use to dim: PWM and CCR.
PWM stands for pulse width modulation. It controls how long the light stays on compared to how long it stays off. For example, a PWM LED set at 60% brightness is rapidly flickering at 100% brightness but only spends 60% of its time illuminated. The other 40% of the time, the light is fully off. While this rapid switching makes you see the desired brightness, this rapid on-off switching can cause eye fatigue and headaches. You can almost feel this effect by looking at the gallery below of the image showing PWM lighting over one second.
Meanwhile, CCR stands for constant current reduction. Instead of flickering the light, the light stays on continuously at the desired brightness level. For instance, if you set a CCR dimming LED to 60% brightness, it remains continuously illuminated at 60%. Unlike with PWM, CCR’s uninterrupted lighting reduces the need for your eyes and brain to process rapid changes in brightness. This lack of processing helps prevent eye strain and headaches. CCR dimming is more commonly found in more performance-oriented LED lighting.
At other times, our eyes may experience strain due to improper rendering of colors by fixtures. While our eyes recognize the correct colors of items, the color of the light can distort our perception, causing discomfort.
Get Assitance Picking Your Home LED Lighting
Choosing the right LED lighting for your home can be overwhelming. There are so many factors to consider. At Lighting by Design, we specialize in helping you find LED fixtures that perfectly balance value and performance for your home. Our team not only assists with fixture selection but also designs a comprehensive lighting plan tailored to your home layout and lifestyle. If you’re interested in learning more about performance LED fixtures or exploring how Lighting by Design can assist you with your project, please contact us today at 415-883-7700 or send us a message here.
