Before deciding which LED fixture to buy, you must consider some important aspects of the fixture for better lighting experience.
- Cut-out Size: You must check the cutting size of the ceiling hole, and then to select the proper wattage and lumen output needed.
- Watts or Power Consumption : The watt is a unit of power.
- Lumen Output: The lumen (lm) is the real measurement of brightness provided by a lighting fixture, and is the number you should look for when shopping for LEDs. It means the brightness of light produced by a luminaire and expressed by (lm).
- Efficiency: It’s the rate of light produced (lm) per each watts consumed (w), and measures by (lm/w) lumens divided on watts. Higher efficacy rate means better LED chips used inside the fixture.
- Correlated color temperature – CCT : The color of light can be quantified by referring to its color temperature. White light is measured in Kelvins (K).
- As per the latest research’s, its proven that the color of lights affects our body hormones which are responsible for our active, rest, and comfort moods.
For better experience of lights, studies suggests to use a colder color temperature from 5400K to 6500K for active places that needs more focus and tension like Kitchens, offices, labs. a neutral white color temperature varies between 4000K to 4500K for less active places like living rooms and halls, and a quite warmer color temperature from 2700K to 3500K more from yellow to warm white color for sleeping and relaxed rooms.
- Power Factor (P.F): is defined as the ratio of real and useful power consumed by a load (expressed in Watts) to non-useful apparent power. Simply, it is a measure of how efficiently the load current is being converted into useful light output and more particularly is a good indicator of the effect of the load current on the efficiency of the supply system.
- Example: a 10 Watts LED fixture has power factor rate of 0.2 .
That means the fixture has 20% actual useful power, and 80% wasted in non-useful form of power like heat or electromagnetic waves, which is a bad choice of course.
- Lifetime: A benefit of LED technology is the relatively long life of the systems compared to conventional lights. Whilst an LED may produce light for a longer periods, the amount produced will depreciate over time rather than suddenly “burn out”. With consideration to lumen depreciation after the actual lifetime ends, which means the lumen output will decrease by certain percentage 20-30% from their real lumen output. This is mainly due to discoloration of the epoxy housing of the LED over time.
Example of lifetime calculation
An LED fixture with 30.000 Hrs. lifetime will last for almost 10 years if consumed 8 hours on daily basis.
8 hrs. “Working hrs. per day” X 365 “Days in year” = 2920 hrs. per year
30.000 hrs. “Lifetime of an LED” / 2920 “hrs. Yearly” = 10.27 Years
As consuming the lights for 12 hrs. a day will last for almost 7 years, and if consumed for 24 hrs. will last only for 3 and half years. That’s why we always suggest for a smarter consumption of energy for better light and better life.
- Color Rendering Index CRI: is a quantitative measure of the ability of a light source to reveal the colors of various objects faithfully in comparison with an ideal or natural light source, and must be at least 80%.
- Voltage: an electromotive force or potential difference between two points expressed in volts. As the standard rate in our region is 220V.
- Type of Protection “IP” : This is a rating system that defines the ability of a product to be able to work in different environments. IP is an acronym “Ingress Protection”. It is a measurement of the protection an item will have against solid objects (dust, sand, dirt, etc.) and liquids.
An IP rating is comprised of 2 numbers. The first number refers to the protection against solid objects (dust, etc) and the second number refers to protection against liquids.
- IP20 – For interior lighting
- IP44 – For wet areas
- IP54, IP65 – For exterior lighting