That Warm Incandescent Feeling
Naera Hotel, Xitang – China using warm amber coloured LED lighting
Many of us from the older generation in the lighting industry have struggled to come to terms with the new LED technology. Specifically in regards to the inconsistency in LED colour quality, its dimming ability and the different way light distributes in space compared with the old incandescent and halogen lighting sources we were used to apply in our projects.
In my older days I knew exactly what I would get in terms of lighting effect and performance from an incandescent, halogen or even fluorescent light source. Today I still struggle even after the many years the LED technology has been around, why?
First of all the LED technology is continuously improving, so what you think you know today is already being overtaken my improved lighting characteristics, be it colour quality, lumens per watt or its control ability tomorrow. So, it’s like you continuously need to keep yourself in the know what the latest lighting qualities are! No letting up! You need to keep testing and trying to make sure you get it right!
As a rule in my often we strive to never specify a lighting product without having it in our hands first, to make sure that what we think the technical data is proclaiming can indeed be achieved.
One of the key things I have come to experience is that, specifically with linear lighting, 2700K (supposedly that warm incandescent colour), does not feel that “warm” when expressed with LED technology. As a result we nearly always specify 2400K for linear LED as we feel that is much closer to what we would expect from a warm incandescent tone lighting colour.
Specifically many of our hospitality projects now have a standard 2400K specification for linear lighting. Unfortunately, the lighting manufacturers are slow to catch on as many of them are still in 3000K land, with relatively few offering 2700K as a standard offering. When it comes to 2400Kwe find it is generally not a standard available colour, if at all!
As always I welcome comments and experiences from the lighting community in this matter!
