LED flood lights are wide beam lights with a variety of residential and commercial uses. Floodlights have a wide range of lumen output and are widely used in security lighting, landscape lighting and outdoor sports venues in addition to stage lighting for concerts and plays. However, brighter, more energy-efficient lights do not guarantee maximum illumination. Whether you use floodlights for your home or business, here are five ways you might be underutilizing floodlights and how to make them more effective.
1. Your lights are misplaced. Flood lights mounted at a central point above your garage are sure to brighten your driveway. However, you can use motion sensors to install floodlights on the side and rear eaves of your home for added visibility and safety. While having your lights evenly spaced is a sign of good design, shadows and dark areas between fixtures can mean your lights are spaced too far apart. On the other hand, light fixtures placed too close together can cause unnecessary glare and wasted light. You want your paths, sidewalks, parking lots, security lighting, and even your business signage to be evenly illuminated, with no bright or dark spots. Lighting the area with evenly distributed light is important, especially for security cameras or where people will be driving.
2. You forget to turn your lights on or off. With the built-in motion sensor, the light will only turn on when motion is triggered near the light. If you want your lights to come on faster, consider installing motion sensors in the corners near the front of the building. This will trigger the motion sensor earlier than halfway down the wall. For more options, you can hook up an override switch to manually turn the lights on and off. Photocells or automatic timers can also be installed to control outdoor lights so they turn on and off at specified times. Photocells should be mounted at the best angles to capture the changes in light as the sun sets and rises. Keep in mind that any additional controls such as photocells or motion sensors may not fit directly on the floodlight. Therefore, you may have to install these devices separately.
3. Your light is in the wrong position. You might think that installing a floodlight is as easy as finding a solid place to drill into. It’s easy to position your fixtures as uplights or downlights, but you can achieve more dynamic lighting with more advanced techniques. Moon lighting is a downlight effect that places lights high to simulate the soft light of moonlight. Silhouette is all about silhouettes, where the light is positioned upwards below the object. Shadows use a wall wash effect, but focus on objects in front of the wall rather than the wall itself.
4. You have too many lumens. Brighter isn’t always better. Since you want to space the fixtures for even lighting, you can use fixtures with lower lumens than you think. If your floodlights are bright enough to land a commercial aircraft, it’s time to rethink. As a homeowner, you don’t need to light up your entire yard, but to accentuate trees, shrubs, and even the texture of your home’s exterior. At most, this requires about 5,000 to 10,000 lumens, focusing on select features and the entrance to your home. The Mini LED Flood Light is small enough to display your garden fountain. Larger fixtures with higher lumen output can illuminate large areas of walls and objects. Leave those 40,000-lumen floodlights for the sports fields.
5. You can’t get your remote to work. When the remote for an outdoor lighting system doesn’t work or is sporadic at best, the problem may be caused by frequency interference. If you’re using regular white or color changing RGB LED floodlights for wall washing or wall grazing techniques, they probably use infrared (IR) or radio frequency (RF) remote controls. RF remotes can operate through walls and furniture, but you may experience interference if they are on the same frequency as other electronic devices. Infrared remotes, while more popular because they are less expensive, cannot be operated through walls and objects; they must have line-of-sight with the receiver or floodlight.
