Beautiful lighting can evoke ambiance and accentuate the architecture and design of a home. Electronics design and installation by Elliston Systems & Design, Dallas, Texas. Photo by Patrick Wong.
IT’S POSSIBLE TO USE just about any type of lighting source throughout your home to provide adequate illumination. But doing it well requires blending them together to best meet your competing requirements for aesthetics, energy savings, safety, and security.
AESTHETICS. Warm light, or lighting that calls out the broadest range of color in a space, will typically drive your choice of light source in spaces like living rooms, dining rooms, and other areas that need to look their best. In most cases, this means ditching the fluorescents and going with indirect light from incandescent or LED sources. Indirect lighting includes recessed fixtures, “wall washes,” and pendants. Directional accent lighting on artwork or other areas of visual interest can be provided by smaller sources like MR16 track lighting and some sconces. In all cases, you’ll want to include a high degree of control, so the lighting in the space can be adjusted as its use changes (for example, watching a movie vs. hosting a party). Dimming control is a strong basic option, although multi-zone control allows you to call up preset lighting “scenes” at the touch of a button for greater convenience.
ENERGY SAVINGS. When it comes to efficiency, you can generally forget about incandescent. Even a low-voltage MR16 halogen has nothing on an LED in the same form factor. In fact, LED is the clear choice almost across the board. You can get fluorescent lamps with greater efficiency than LED lighting, but you will pay for that difference with an inability to dim them, far inferior color rendering, and shorter lamp life. If you’re looking to put lighting in a space where aesthetics simply aren’t important (utility areas, storage closets, etc.), then go with fluorescent. Otherwise, carefully consider using LEDs—combined with smart controls (dimming, motion sensors, timers): You’ll get more energy savings in a better-looking package.
SAFETY AND SECURITY. For security and safety considerations, the light source you choose doesn’t matter as long as its placement, illumination, and control are carefully planned. Many home automation systems can integrate lighting with the security system, and will work with whatever sources you’ve chosen for non-emergency situations. For general peace of mind, though, consider exterior LEDs for pathway lighting to your doorstep. You can also choose RF key fobs that enable you to turn on your home’s entryway lights from outside the house, or integrate your whole-home system with a mobile device app to control the lighting from the driveway, the office, or pretty much anywhere.
SO LONG, INCANDESCENT
You might have noticed that regardless of the design consideration—efficiency, aesthetics, safety—there’s always a better option than incandescent. In fact, by 2016, manufacturers are required by U.S. law to stop producing or importing traditional incandescent light sources altogether (100W and 75W bulbs are already banned). The regulations won’t prevent you from finding technologically superior replacements for the incandescent bulbs you’re using now. But if you think you’ll get nostalgic for them, start stocking up now.
Mike Llewellyn is a freelance writer who covers design, technology, and media. He is also the founder of Sycamore Creative, a communications and design firm in Philadelphia (sycamorecreative.net). Mike’s work has appeared in Philadelphia Magazine, Architectural Record, The New York Times, and on TED.com.
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